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NROTC service selection question
- Thread starter Zazzarito
- Start date
Eric
Flyboy
Somewhat.
My understanding is that if your major gives you a background in the service selection you request it will increase your chances, but it is not strictly contingent on your major.
For example: if you want to go into aviation. Yes if your major is professional flight or Aeronautical Engineering you will have a direct relation to flight. But this doesn't mean other majors don't also get flight slots.
Furthermore: if your major is nuclear engineering, and you want to serve on a nuclear sub or carrier as a reactor specialist, you will have a better chance than a CS major.
The best answer is probably that it is taken into account, and the higher tier major you are the more "choices" you will "get" regardless of whether your major and service selection are directly related.
My understanding is that if your major gives you a background in the service selection you request it will increase your chances, but it is not strictly contingent on your major.
For example: if you want to go into aviation. Yes if your major is professional flight or Aeronautical Engineering you will have a direct relation to flight. But this doesn't mean other majors don't also get flight slots.
Furthermore: if your major is nuclear engineering, and you want to serve on a nuclear sub or carrier as a reactor specialist, you will have a better chance than a CS major.
The best answer is probably that it is taken into account, and the higher tier major you are the more "choices" you will "get" regardless of whether your major and service selection are directly related.
Majors are broken up into three tiers; tier-1 is basically all engineering, tier-2 sciences, and tier-3 everything else. Your unit should be able to tell you what tier your major falls into. Check out this post (Order of Merit breakdown), it was still accurate when I commissioned a couple of years ago.
mid1510
1370
Bad gouge above..major has ZERO bearing on service assignment from an NROTC standpoint.
The only thing major does have a bearing on is selection for an NROTC scholarship.
Eric
Flyboy
My NROTC barracks. I admit it could be wrong, but they claim that it does have some bearing.
This.
To be selected SNA, you have a better chance if you have a 3.5 GPA as a business major than a 2.5 GPA as an aerospace engineering major.
mid1510
1370
What do you mean by "NROTC barracks"?
Eric
Flyboy
Our campus armory, where the officers' offices are ect. The center of the NROTC operations on campus. It is sometime referred to as "the barracks" by students.
And just point of reference. The above is what i had been told by an LT at the mentioned armory.
I got selected 1390 as an Asian Studies + History double major with 6's and 7's on my ASTB and 3.96 overall GPA. Major doesn't matter at all...especially not "professional flight" (???). Moreover, the other day our sub LT told us about a Classics major in power school, and the annual sub/nuke recruiting brief touted the ability for German Studies majors to kick ass and take names in power school.
Having said that, the Navy does loooooooove technical majors (thanks Hyman).
Having said that, the Navy does loooooooove technical majors (thanks Hyman).
Considering you're still in high school, you probably should stop giving out gouge on how service selection works, just sayin.
FWIW the majority of folks that I saw drop or get kicked out of NROTC were technical majors. Coming into the program with the idea in your head that you have to be ENGR if you want that sweet SNA slot sets a lot of folks up for failure. You need to be able to do much better than just pass your classes and graduate with a 2.5 or whatever the university minimums are. A lot of guys lost sight of that, and really dug themselves into a hole by sophomore year or so. Some changed majors, and others just droned on trying in vain to bring their grades up. Many of the latter group were told "thanks but no thanks" at the end of sophomore year when the decision point for advanced standing and/or scholarships rolled around. At this point in your college career, the closest alligator to the canoe is just graduating and getting that commission......do your best in a major that you can succeed in, and the other things like service selection will work themselves out. The guys who got what they wanted from the program were not the dudes who labored away at studying all hours of the week, struggling to maintain a sub-3.0 GPA, consistently on mandatory study hours, who never had time to be anything more than a squad leader. They were the folks who chose their majors carefully, naturally did well in them, or at least didn't have to devote an unreasonable amount of time and effort towards them, and had time to participate in other things....they were the folks the unit didn't have to worry about academically, and thus were consistently pulled for more important leadership positions in the battalion. That all adds up to a selection board viewing you as "well-rounded" and capable in whatever field you are thrown into. With the exception of the nuke field, your work in the Navy is not going to be overly technical (at least in the slide-rule, CFD, multivariable calculus realm), and they need to know that you can 1) manage your time, 2) prioritize tasks, 3) be trained in a wide variety of subjects. It doesn't take a technical major to prove this, just a good balance of academic success in whatever major you chose, and participation in other less academic pursuits. The struggling engineering student I described above proves that he fails miserably at all three of these criteria. If he does pull through and graduate/commission, he will be getting the cold leftovers after all the other more competitive MIDN are done eating the service selection meal. Could he get lucky and pick up SNA? Yeah, I have seen it happen, but I'd not bet my future on it. Sometimes even a blind squirrel gets the nut, but it is generally poor technique for planning purposes.
Zazzarito
Cadet
Thanks MIDNJAC, that does make a lot of sense and I understand it. A while back when I was first debating even applying for a scholarship, I was gonna be an aerospace engineering major. I thought I'd have better chances of getting a scholarship with a tier 1 major. Finally after a while I made the decision to go with the tier 2 major of aviation management with flight operations. It was probably the best decision I made. I still got a scholarship, got my first pick school, and doing what I want to do, which is fly, instead of doing a bunch of high level math equations. But I do understand what you mean how they care about those 3 factors more instead of a certain major with struggling grades.