Recently I’ve been receiving quite a few inquiries regarding the nuclear pipeline and the possibility of officer accession following an enlistment. I remember this being my drive and the recruiters definitely attempted to use it as a strong selling point. I would not suggest enlisting if your only desire is to eventually obtain a commission and especially not if you already have a college degree. Both of these topics have already been extensively discussed in other threads. I am going to try to cover as much as I can though for those out there who decide enlisting as a nuke is the right choice for them.
I was there about 10 years ago. I hadn't been to college but I knew I wouldn't have made it very far. I had something close to a 2.0 in high school and my dad failed out of college twice before graduating and I figured I needed something to help me get on the right track so he took me to the recruiter. I wanted an education and they wanted another nuke. Well they aren't wrong about all the stories they tell. They told me I'd be able to apply to a commissioning program as soon as I got to power school and probably get picked up as an officer. Well its true almost all of my friends I hung out with all have commissions now the others just got out. I think I'm the only enlisted guy left. I kept putting off applying and eventually became too old for the academy which had interested me early on. Then my best friend got into STA-21. After he left I decided to start applying. At this point I was pretty hot shit on the boat EVERYONE thought I would get it the first try. Well they were wrong, the best guys in the Navy all apply and there’s only so many slots. So I tried again the next year. No luck. Well I got married the next year and moved so I took a year off and at the same time started losing my drive. I was still working my ass off though. I've always done everything. I'm always the guy qualifying supervisory level watches and working on school when other guys were screwing around. I'm not one of those super smart kids. My SAT was barely above the min for the program, my ASTB was barely in there. In nuke school I was in the waaaay bottom half of the class. But I've always had good evaluations and I have a ton of experience. I earned my associates degree, and have almost 300 hours of flight time. Earned my private, commercial, and instructor certificates which the government paid 60% using the G.I. bill. All of these things I believe are what got me a Pilot slot finally this year. One final thing, when it comes time to applying to anything, this web forum is an amazing resource. Good luck!
Another question is “How close are you to a college degree after Nuke Power School?”
Well it varies. First off it makes a difference which RATE you become. You probably have been told that somewhere during boot camp you will get to make a preference between ET, EM, and MM. I think they use that preference loosely with categorical scores off your ASVAB plus what the needs of the Navy are (you will hear that term a lot in your career). I picked ET and I got ET which I was extremely happy about. It is the most technically demanding and we honestly do the least work. After NPS you go to prototype training and the MM's get divided again some get no further training some get to go to weld school and then others get to become ELTs (basically chemist). Those choices are based on grades and staff recommendations in the pipeline. So now you have your four basic nuke types: ET, EM, MM, and ELT. Each gets a different amount and type of credit listed on their own SMART transcript (if you don't know what that is its a very nifty electronic record of every school/course you have completed and breaks it down into recommended college credit based on ACE evaluations. All colleges know what it is and how to give you credit based on an official copy). Now as you progress through your career each school you go to adds more credit as well as advancing will give you more credit since they figure you've gained work experience. All of this automatically happens for the most part. Some random things I've had to correct or update on mine over the years. Not hard. So now back to answering the question. The number one school for accepting the most nuclear credit is probably Thomas Edison State College in NJ, although I understand ODU is very liberal as well. TESC is where I earned my associates and I'm actually only one class from my bachelors which I'll probably graduate from after I do the whole STA-21 thing. I took classes here and there and CLEPS as well. So when I actually looked into TESC I literally only had a few classes left. I was going to graduate from there and then try OCS but when I realized I was just barely still under the age limit I decided to try STA-21 again in hopes I'd get that Pilot slot and know what I'd be doing from the get-go, as well as get to take advantage of going to school on campus. Now if you try to take the same SMART to another school like MIT or something you might not get a single hour credited. Then someplace middle of the road you might get something but not as much. The reason for this difference is partly because different schools specialize in different areas and may not have the equivalent courses in order to transfer. Then the other reason is some schools don't need to beg for business and attract students like others and want to charge you for each hour of your degree at their rate. So they simply don't like transferring in credit. Hopefully all this helps everyone out there trying to decide what path to head down. Good luck!
I was there about 10 years ago. I hadn't been to college but I knew I wouldn't have made it very far. I had something close to a 2.0 in high school and my dad failed out of college twice before graduating and I figured I needed something to help me get on the right track so he took me to the recruiter. I wanted an education and they wanted another nuke. Well they aren't wrong about all the stories they tell. They told me I'd be able to apply to a commissioning program as soon as I got to power school and probably get picked up as an officer. Well its true almost all of my friends I hung out with all have commissions now the others just got out. I think I'm the only enlisted guy left. I kept putting off applying and eventually became too old for the academy which had interested me early on. Then my best friend got into STA-21. After he left I decided to start applying. At this point I was pretty hot shit on the boat EVERYONE thought I would get it the first try. Well they were wrong, the best guys in the Navy all apply and there’s only so many slots. So I tried again the next year. No luck. Well I got married the next year and moved so I took a year off and at the same time started losing my drive. I was still working my ass off though. I've always done everything. I'm always the guy qualifying supervisory level watches and working on school when other guys were screwing around. I'm not one of those super smart kids. My SAT was barely above the min for the program, my ASTB was barely in there. In nuke school I was in the waaaay bottom half of the class. But I've always had good evaluations and I have a ton of experience. I earned my associates degree, and have almost 300 hours of flight time. Earned my private, commercial, and instructor certificates which the government paid 60% using the G.I. bill. All of these things I believe are what got me a Pilot slot finally this year. One final thing, when it comes time to applying to anything, this web forum is an amazing resource. Good luck!
Another question is “How close are you to a college degree after Nuke Power School?”
Well it varies. First off it makes a difference which RATE you become. You probably have been told that somewhere during boot camp you will get to make a preference between ET, EM, and MM. I think they use that preference loosely with categorical scores off your ASVAB plus what the needs of the Navy are (you will hear that term a lot in your career). I picked ET and I got ET which I was extremely happy about. It is the most technically demanding and we honestly do the least work. After NPS you go to prototype training and the MM's get divided again some get no further training some get to go to weld school and then others get to become ELTs (basically chemist). Those choices are based on grades and staff recommendations in the pipeline. So now you have your four basic nuke types: ET, EM, MM, and ELT. Each gets a different amount and type of credit listed on their own SMART transcript (if you don't know what that is its a very nifty electronic record of every school/course you have completed and breaks it down into recommended college credit based on ACE evaluations. All colleges know what it is and how to give you credit based on an official copy). Now as you progress through your career each school you go to adds more credit as well as advancing will give you more credit since they figure you've gained work experience. All of this automatically happens for the most part. Some random things I've had to correct or update on mine over the years. Not hard. So now back to answering the question. The number one school for accepting the most nuclear credit is probably Thomas Edison State College in NJ, although I understand ODU is very liberal as well. TESC is where I earned my associates and I'm actually only one class from my bachelors which I'll probably graduate from after I do the whole STA-21 thing. I took classes here and there and CLEPS as well. So when I actually looked into TESC I literally only had a few classes left. I was going to graduate from there and then try OCS but when I realized I was just barely still under the age limit I decided to try STA-21 again in hopes I'd get that Pilot slot and know what I'd be doing from the get-go, as well as get to take advantage of going to school on campus. Now if you try to take the same SMART to another school like MIT or something you might not get a single hour credited. Then someplace middle of the road you might get something but not as much. The reason for this difference is partly because different schools specialize in different areas and may not have the equivalent courses in order to transfer. Then the other reason is some schools don't need to beg for business and attract students like others and want to charge you for each hour of your degree at their rate. So they simply don't like transferring in credit. Hopefully all this helps everyone out there trying to decide what path to head down. Good luck!