CTunderway
Pro-Rec Y 30JUN15, FINSEL 4AUG15, OCS 6SEP15
TL,DR: first recruiter lied about submitting app and being rejected for age. New NRD worked tirelessly to process and submit my application, and then to make sure it went to board despite disqualifiers.
I wanted to put this post up just to help anybody who might be in a similar circumstance as I have been. This isn't by any means me saying that this kind of stuff will always work for everyone, but it did work for me through the hard work of some very fantastic people, and a little bit of determination.
So my journey started last January when I contacted a friend of mine who had become a recruiter in a completely different recruiting district about the possibility of becoming a Naval Aviator. At that point in time, I had been kicked out of school for having a 1.998 GPA, and my vision was 20/35 in each eye, and I was working full time as a supervisor at a retail store. He told me to work hard to bring my GPA up, get PRK done sooner than later, work on my PPL, and slam my ASTB. So I went and got PRK less than a month later, got around 20 hours of flight time in, and then over the course of the next 16 months I re-enrolled in school, took fulltime classes throughout the spring, and summer sessions while still working full-time. I retook 12 classes during this timeframe and managed to raise my GPA to 3.05 by the time I graduated this May. I took my ASTB this January, and scored a 71 9/9/9, so I felt pretty good about things. I began my application process with a recruiter in my local district, drove several hours to take the ASTB, and another several hours to get my physical completed. I completed all of the forms, got copies of every document that my recruiter requested etc etc etc. I was then told after the April board results began showing up here and I called to inquire that I had been rejected by the board because I was too old to commission in time. I had turned 26 two days before the board met.
TL,DR: I submitted my application to my recruiter, he didn't submit it to the board.
Fast forward a couple of months, and I found out from a personnel officer at NRC that my package never got submitted. I reconnected with my friend about the situation and he offered to put my application in if I could fly half way across the country to process through MEPS. I naturally agreed. So we went through the entire process again, while dealing with a college graduation, moving to a new apartment, and planning and executing a wedding. This meant scanning and emailing or faxing all of the documents that I needed, watching all of the videos, phone calls etc. We were trying to get me into MEPS but kept getting hung up in processing. The problem that we thought we were dealing with was my wedding being on June 6, and whether I would come out before the wedding or after the honeymoon. Then the June 5 submission deadline was handed down, and everything got thrown into high gear. I found out at 1200 on the 3rd that MEPS finally scheduled me for the 4th, so I scheduled a flight for that afternoon. I then proceeded to not make my connecting flight in Newark. I had to either spend the night in the Newark Airport and hope that MEPS would take me late the next morning, or hop on the last flight out of Newark that just HAPPENED to be heading back home. I opted to stay it out and try to get to MEPS. I got into MEPS the next morning at 930, not the 600 that I was scheduled for, after not sleeping or showering. I went through my MEPS physical because apparently they don't really care so much when Navy OCS applicants get there. After I finished up with the medical I headed back to the Navy office in the MEPS station and who is standing at the door but RADM Andrews herself (for those not familiar, she's the one-star Commander of Naval Recruiting (all of it)). She promptly turned and asked me what job I did there, because I conveniently was wearing the same outfit that all of the civilian employees wear there. As I'm about to answer the Commander of the NRD steps forward and says "ma'am this is the recruit that I told you LT ****** had to go pick up from the airport this morning. This is him." She responded by looking at me and saying "Oh, that's you!" A few other questions were asked about who, what and why; and then I headed down to the district offices.
It was at this point that I found out that the Navy and my college calculated my GPA differently. My school, like many schools these days, only counts the most recent attempt of a course in the calculation. By their calculation on my official transcript, I had a 3.05 GPA. The Navy, however, counts all attempts of all classes ever. By their calculation I had a 2.33 GPA, well below the minimum of a 2.5. My recruiter did not realize that was how they calculated GPAs, and was kind of blindsided by it. So all of a sudden, two days before my wedding, I found myself more than 1200 miles from home, sleep deprived, and unqualified to even apply based on my GPA. To get to the end of this story here, the LT spoke to the CMC who said he hadn't ever seen anything like this either, but then said he would in essence do his CMC recruiting voodoo/black magic and see if they couldn't still get my package to the board. The CMDR there , who is himself a naval aviator, apparently also spoke to the program manager to make sure that my package would be able to be submitted without strikes even though some parts were not completed. 3 weeks later I find out that they made and exception to policy to take my package to board, and now here I am, 5 weeks later, with a ProRec-Y.
I am beyond grateful for the men and women who broke their backs just so that my application could get to the board, and while I know that none of the circumstances I went through are ordinary, I also realize that there are other people that will have some of these issues in the future. If nothing else, know that just because there isn't a waiver for it doesn't mean that you have to accept no as an answer. There is almost always another way. If my first NRD had submitted my app, it would have died in the pipeline, and they would not have been even remotely inclined to push it through. If MEPS had scheduled me for any other day besides two days before my wedding, and I hadn't missed my flight out of Newark, I wouldn't have met the Admiral, and she wouldn't have put a face to my name. If I had given up when I didn't have the GPA that I needed, I wouldn't have a ProRec-Y.
I wanted to put this post up just to help anybody who might be in a similar circumstance as I have been. This isn't by any means me saying that this kind of stuff will always work for everyone, but it did work for me through the hard work of some very fantastic people, and a little bit of determination.
So my journey started last January when I contacted a friend of mine who had become a recruiter in a completely different recruiting district about the possibility of becoming a Naval Aviator. At that point in time, I had been kicked out of school for having a 1.998 GPA, and my vision was 20/35 in each eye, and I was working full time as a supervisor at a retail store. He told me to work hard to bring my GPA up, get PRK done sooner than later, work on my PPL, and slam my ASTB. So I went and got PRK less than a month later, got around 20 hours of flight time in, and then over the course of the next 16 months I re-enrolled in school, took fulltime classes throughout the spring, and summer sessions while still working full-time. I retook 12 classes during this timeframe and managed to raise my GPA to 3.05 by the time I graduated this May. I took my ASTB this January, and scored a 71 9/9/9, so I felt pretty good about things. I began my application process with a recruiter in my local district, drove several hours to take the ASTB, and another several hours to get my physical completed. I completed all of the forms, got copies of every document that my recruiter requested etc etc etc. I was then told after the April board results began showing up here and I called to inquire that I had been rejected by the board because I was too old to commission in time. I had turned 26 two days before the board met.
TL,DR: I submitted my application to my recruiter, he didn't submit it to the board.
Fast forward a couple of months, and I found out from a personnel officer at NRC that my package never got submitted. I reconnected with my friend about the situation and he offered to put my application in if I could fly half way across the country to process through MEPS. I naturally agreed. So we went through the entire process again, while dealing with a college graduation, moving to a new apartment, and planning and executing a wedding. This meant scanning and emailing or faxing all of the documents that I needed, watching all of the videos, phone calls etc. We were trying to get me into MEPS but kept getting hung up in processing. The problem that we thought we were dealing with was my wedding being on June 6, and whether I would come out before the wedding or after the honeymoon. Then the June 5 submission deadline was handed down, and everything got thrown into high gear. I found out at 1200 on the 3rd that MEPS finally scheduled me for the 4th, so I scheduled a flight for that afternoon. I then proceeded to not make my connecting flight in Newark. I had to either spend the night in the Newark Airport and hope that MEPS would take me late the next morning, or hop on the last flight out of Newark that just HAPPENED to be heading back home. I opted to stay it out and try to get to MEPS. I got into MEPS the next morning at 930, not the 600 that I was scheduled for, after not sleeping or showering. I went through my MEPS physical because apparently they don't really care so much when Navy OCS applicants get there. After I finished up with the medical I headed back to the Navy office in the MEPS station and who is standing at the door but RADM Andrews herself (for those not familiar, she's the one-star Commander of Naval Recruiting (all of it)). She promptly turned and asked me what job I did there, because I conveniently was wearing the same outfit that all of the civilian employees wear there. As I'm about to answer the Commander of the NRD steps forward and says "ma'am this is the recruit that I told you LT ****** had to go pick up from the airport this morning. This is him." She responded by looking at me and saying "Oh, that's you!" A few other questions were asked about who, what and why; and then I headed down to the district offices.
It was at this point that I found out that the Navy and my college calculated my GPA differently. My school, like many schools these days, only counts the most recent attempt of a course in the calculation. By their calculation on my official transcript, I had a 3.05 GPA. The Navy, however, counts all attempts of all classes ever. By their calculation I had a 2.33 GPA, well below the minimum of a 2.5. My recruiter did not realize that was how they calculated GPAs, and was kind of blindsided by it. So all of a sudden, two days before my wedding, I found myself more than 1200 miles from home, sleep deprived, and unqualified to even apply based on my GPA. To get to the end of this story here, the LT spoke to the CMC who said he hadn't ever seen anything like this either, but then said he would in essence do his CMC recruiting voodoo/black magic and see if they couldn't still get my package to the board. The CMDR there , who is himself a naval aviator, apparently also spoke to the program manager to make sure that my package would be able to be submitted without strikes even though some parts were not completed. 3 weeks later I find out that they made and exception to policy to take my package to board, and now here I am, 5 weeks later, with a ProRec-Y.
I am beyond grateful for the men and women who broke their backs just so that my application could get to the board, and while I know that none of the circumstances I went through are ordinary, I also realize that there are other people that will have some of these issues in the future. If nothing else, know that just because there isn't a waiver for it doesn't mean that you have to accept no as an answer. There is almost always another way. If my first NRD had submitted my app, it would have died in the pipeline, and they would not have been even remotely inclined to push it through. If MEPS had scheduled me for any other day besides two days before my wedding, and I hadn't missed my flight out of Newark, I wouldn't have met the Admiral, and she wouldn't have put a face to my name. If I had given up when I didn't have the GPA that I needed, I wouldn't have a ProRec-Y.
