Highlander51
I'll fly away O glory
If you are a prospective MECEP or currently on the program I'm writing this to help inform you of the process and of the decisions I made along the way that contributed greatly to getting my commission and my air contract.
The MECEP Application Process:
This process was a gut punch for me in a lot of ways. No one was ever willing to help me, especially officers, and it's built that way for a reason. As an officer you will be expected to figure out the answers to your questions will little to no assistance so don't be surprised if that process starts when you begin the MECEP application. You will be entirely responsible for your own success or failure on the program and it starts right at the beginning. One of the biggest early indicators of your success on the program will be the initial college classes that you do and your grades in those classes. I had no college at all before applying for the program but found it relatively easy to get through the initial round of classes as the Marine Corps had taught me more than enough discipline to get my work turned in on time. The MECEP board will place a TON of weight into the grades you get in those classes so do not gaff them off, if you apply yourself you can get A's easily, don't let one bad grade in a class that you could have easily tried harder in be the deciding factor as to whether you get selected or not. One of the final parts of the application process is the "interview", it would be more appropriately named a murder board. Mine was conducted with three officers, two prior enlisted, there's no requirement to have a prior enlisted officer but my command thought it valuable to have at least one on the board. I thought the interview went average at best, bad at worst, I was grilled for almost an hour about leadership situations and other hypotheticals about what I would do if I were an officer in said situation. I thought I answered well but each response was met critically and with additional hypotheticals. In short, there is no "winning" the interview, you do your best and that's all you can do. I ended getting ranked 1 of 6 in my command of the marines that put in MECEP packages. Only the top 4 were submitted up to HQMC for review. DO NOT lose your mind in the interview, it is the interviewer's job to get you to crack under pressure, don't give them the satisfaction. If you are selected by HQMC to attend the program you'll move onto the next stage; OCS.
OCS:
There is a ton of information on this site about OCS that I don't need to reiterate it all. I will provide a few quick pointers that helped me out immensely.
1. Play the game, its similar to boot camp but different, you'll figure out the game early. Once you've figured it out play it to the best of your ability. Just get through OCS, that sounds bad but at the end of the day OCS is something that you’re more than capable of getting through and it is the quickest way to get booted off the program if you fail something there.
2. Help out the college guys/gals, this is their first real Marine Corps experience and they will have little to no idea what's going on or why. Don't get frustrated, help them out as much as you can, your reputation as an officer starts at OCS and if you try to be a mini sergeant instructor your peers will remember it.
3. Stay healthy and don't get hurt, I knew several guys that were stellar marines that didn't make it through OCS because of injuries. This is not an excuse to not give it your all, however; if the difference between you staying healthy and going at 95% and potentially hurting yourself and going 100% then do the 95%.
4. Get as much sleep as you can, there were guys I knew that would spend hours every night prepping for the next day. Again, this is not an excuse to not prepare yourself, however; if you only marginally increase your preparedness and lose two hours of sleep for it it's not worth it. Get your rest and help your body recover, it will keep you sane and keep you from getting hurt.
5. After you've graduated keep up connections with the guys/gals you went through OCS with. They will be 1stLts and Captains by the time you commission and there's a good shot one of them will be your OIC or CO sometime in your career, this goes back to point #2.
College:
There are a lot of people who will disagree with me on this, for both good and bad reasons, get through college quickly. My reasoning for this has several different parts,
1. My first point is a point of principle, I know others will vehemently disagree but this is just my perspective on the issue. If you are doing this program odds are pretty good that you enjoy the Marine Corps enough to do at least 20 years, I’ve yet to meet a MECEP that doesn’t plan on doing 20. With that initial assumption you shouldn’t want to spend a ton of time away from the fleet and if you do I question how much you really enjoy this lifestyle and you should reconsider whether or not you want to do this program and you should really question how much you want to be a Marine.
2. The sooner you commission the sooner your retirement clock starts ticking. You MUST serve 10 years as an officer to rate an officer’s retirement (this only applies to prior enlisted). So essentially you will have two deadlines, the standard 20 year service commitment to rate a retirement, and 10 years as an officer. For me, I commissioned at 9 years of service so I’ll have to do more than 10 years as an officer to get me to 20 years total, which is much better than the alternative. At 20 years I’ll be able to leave the Marine Corps should I so choose, many MECEPs will be forced to stay in well past 20 years to meet the 10 year as an officer requirement. If you’re at 8 years of service and you graduate in 2 years your clock starts ticking at 10 years of service whereas if you take 4 years to graduate your clock doesn’t start ticking till 12 years meaning you are locked in until 22 years of service if you want to retire as an officer. Personally, I would like to stay in past 20 but I want the option to be able to get out should I so choose.
3. The third point is also financial, the sooner you commission the sooner you start getting paid more. The pay bump from enlisted to officer is substantial, for me it was about an extra $1,000 a month, so $12k a year extra. YMMV depending on how much more but regardless you will make more as an officer than as an enlisted Marine. Many of my peers are taking their time through school and will lose out on that extra money. I’ve heard excuses such as “I want to concentrate on getting good grades” or “I don’t want to go back to the fleet too soon”, the list goes on and on for why most people want to stay in school for the full four years and I understand those arguments. Some people want to stay because they have family close by and that is perhaps the best argument, nowhere else in your career will you get to spend as much time with your family as you will on the MECEP program so take full advantage of it. However, the aforementioned arguments about grades and fleet time don’t make sense. I graduated summa cum laude in 1 year 11 months for a four year degree, if I can do it so can you because I’m no genius at all, all it takes is a little discipline. The fleet time argument, see point #1.
4. The final argument for getting through school quickly is that the transition back to the Marine Corps will be unnecessarily difficult the longer you are away. Too many guys/gals I’ve met have had a REALLY difficult time with transitioning back to the Marine Corps after being in college for four years. I can sympathize with this as I am going through that process as I write this. It is compounded by the fact that once you commission you don’t go to the fleet and get a “soft landing” reintroduction to the Marine Corps, you go straight to TBS that makes the landing as hard as humanely possible. For your own sanity, two years out of the fleet is better than 3 when it comes to this transition and 3 is better than 4.
The final point I will make on college is do your best. I did very well in school because I had a massive chip on my shoulder about not doing well in high school. I was denied a spot at the Naval Academy because of my high school grades and that hit me hard, it was my first real taste of failure in my career. Also, if you are applying for SNA/SNFO and you want to walk into TBS with an air contract like I did, you MUST MUST MUST have good grades. The board is going to hone in on your grades as the single biggest factor as to whether or not you get a flight contract. I did average on the ASTB, 48 5/7/6. I met the requirements for the Marine Corps but didn’t do that well and was actually somewhat disappointed with my score. I got notified through a back channel that the thing that got my package over the line was my grades, at the time I had a 4.0, I graduated with a 3.9. The aviation board cares about your ASTB scores, however; the board report showed that guys with higher ASTB scores than me didn’t get selected and the only area I beat those people out was on my grades. A 70 7/8/8 on the ASTB is great but if you’re transcript says 2.5 GPA, it’s more than likely you will get beat out by someone who has slightly lower scores on the ASTB if they have a significantly higher GPA. The board takes your GPA as your ability to learn and be a good student that means more to the board than your ability to do logarithms on the ASTB. I’m not saying you shouldn’t study those things because you should, however; make your GPA your biggest priority. Your ability to learn quickly and retain information is vital to success as the board will see that as a massive gauge of how successful or unsuccessful you will be in flight school.
Parting thoughts:
I hope this synopsis can help someone, I did this program with little to no information going into it and if this helps you then pay it forward. If you are thinking about doing the program I will say that it is not for everyone. Some Marines make excellent enlisted Marines but are simply not good candidates to become officers. Also, it is an incredibly humbling experience to go from a decently well-respected position (for me an 0311 SSgt) to being a candidate at OCS, a student in college where I was treated essentially as a LCpl all over again, and a 2nd Lt. where everyone thinks you’re retarded (sometimes for good reason). You have to honest with yourself and know whether you can take the humbling or not, if you can you’ll be a better person and Marine for it. If you can’t, there’s absolutely no shame in that at all, but I would highly encourage you to not do this program. I would have liked for this to be more expansive to include TBS, flight school, etc. but I’m waiting to start TBS and I had the time to make this post. Plus I figured it’s better to get this information out there while its still fresh in my mind. If you have any questions about MECEP, the SNA application process, or simply just want to disagree because you feel that you have better info then please put it in the comments and I’d be more than happy to talk about it. There is a ton of information I'm sure that I've missed and if you've been through the process, especially recently, then please help me fill in the gaps where you see fit.
The MECEP Application Process:
This process was a gut punch for me in a lot of ways. No one was ever willing to help me, especially officers, and it's built that way for a reason. As an officer you will be expected to figure out the answers to your questions will little to no assistance so don't be surprised if that process starts when you begin the MECEP application. You will be entirely responsible for your own success or failure on the program and it starts right at the beginning. One of the biggest early indicators of your success on the program will be the initial college classes that you do and your grades in those classes. I had no college at all before applying for the program but found it relatively easy to get through the initial round of classes as the Marine Corps had taught me more than enough discipline to get my work turned in on time. The MECEP board will place a TON of weight into the grades you get in those classes so do not gaff them off, if you apply yourself you can get A's easily, don't let one bad grade in a class that you could have easily tried harder in be the deciding factor as to whether you get selected or not. One of the final parts of the application process is the "interview", it would be more appropriately named a murder board. Mine was conducted with three officers, two prior enlisted, there's no requirement to have a prior enlisted officer but my command thought it valuable to have at least one on the board. I thought the interview went average at best, bad at worst, I was grilled for almost an hour about leadership situations and other hypotheticals about what I would do if I were an officer in said situation. I thought I answered well but each response was met critically and with additional hypotheticals. In short, there is no "winning" the interview, you do your best and that's all you can do. I ended getting ranked 1 of 6 in my command of the marines that put in MECEP packages. Only the top 4 were submitted up to HQMC for review. DO NOT lose your mind in the interview, it is the interviewer's job to get you to crack under pressure, don't give them the satisfaction. If you are selected by HQMC to attend the program you'll move onto the next stage; OCS.
OCS:
There is a ton of information on this site about OCS that I don't need to reiterate it all. I will provide a few quick pointers that helped me out immensely.
1. Play the game, its similar to boot camp but different, you'll figure out the game early. Once you've figured it out play it to the best of your ability. Just get through OCS, that sounds bad but at the end of the day OCS is something that you’re more than capable of getting through and it is the quickest way to get booted off the program if you fail something there.
2. Help out the college guys/gals, this is their first real Marine Corps experience and they will have little to no idea what's going on or why. Don't get frustrated, help them out as much as you can, your reputation as an officer starts at OCS and if you try to be a mini sergeant instructor your peers will remember it.
3. Stay healthy and don't get hurt, I knew several guys that were stellar marines that didn't make it through OCS because of injuries. This is not an excuse to not give it your all, however; if the difference between you staying healthy and going at 95% and potentially hurting yourself and going 100% then do the 95%.
4. Get as much sleep as you can, there were guys I knew that would spend hours every night prepping for the next day. Again, this is not an excuse to not prepare yourself, however; if you only marginally increase your preparedness and lose two hours of sleep for it it's not worth it. Get your rest and help your body recover, it will keep you sane and keep you from getting hurt.
5. After you've graduated keep up connections with the guys/gals you went through OCS with. They will be 1stLts and Captains by the time you commission and there's a good shot one of them will be your OIC or CO sometime in your career, this goes back to point #2.
College:
There are a lot of people who will disagree with me on this, for both good and bad reasons, get through college quickly. My reasoning for this has several different parts,
1. My first point is a point of principle, I know others will vehemently disagree but this is just my perspective on the issue. If you are doing this program odds are pretty good that you enjoy the Marine Corps enough to do at least 20 years, I’ve yet to meet a MECEP that doesn’t plan on doing 20. With that initial assumption you shouldn’t want to spend a ton of time away from the fleet and if you do I question how much you really enjoy this lifestyle and you should reconsider whether or not you want to do this program and you should really question how much you want to be a Marine.
2. The sooner you commission the sooner your retirement clock starts ticking. You MUST serve 10 years as an officer to rate an officer’s retirement (this only applies to prior enlisted). So essentially you will have two deadlines, the standard 20 year service commitment to rate a retirement, and 10 years as an officer. For me, I commissioned at 9 years of service so I’ll have to do more than 10 years as an officer to get me to 20 years total, which is much better than the alternative. At 20 years I’ll be able to leave the Marine Corps should I so choose, many MECEPs will be forced to stay in well past 20 years to meet the 10 year as an officer requirement. If you’re at 8 years of service and you graduate in 2 years your clock starts ticking at 10 years of service whereas if you take 4 years to graduate your clock doesn’t start ticking till 12 years meaning you are locked in until 22 years of service if you want to retire as an officer. Personally, I would like to stay in past 20 but I want the option to be able to get out should I so choose.
3. The third point is also financial, the sooner you commission the sooner you start getting paid more. The pay bump from enlisted to officer is substantial, for me it was about an extra $1,000 a month, so $12k a year extra. YMMV depending on how much more but regardless you will make more as an officer than as an enlisted Marine. Many of my peers are taking their time through school and will lose out on that extra money. I’ve heard excuses such as “I want to concentrate on getting good grades” or “I don’t want to go back to the fleet too soon”, the list goes on and on for why most people want to stay in school for the full four years and I understand those arguments. Some people want to stay because they have family close by and that is perhaps the best argument, nowhere else in your career will you get to spend as much time with your family as you will on the MECEP program so take full advantage of it. However, the aforementioned arguments about grades and fleet time don’t make sense. I graduated summa cum laude in 1 year 11 months for a four year degree, if I can do it so can you because I’m no genius at all, all it takes is a little discipline. The fleet time argument, see point #1.
4. The final argument for getting through school quickly is that the transition back to the Marine Corps will be unnecessarily difficult the longer you are away. Too many guys/gals I’ve met have had a REALLY difficult time with transitioning back to the Marine Corps after being in college for four years. I can sympathize with this as I am going through that process as I write this. It is compounded by the fact that once you commission you don’t go to the fleet and get a “soft landing” reintroduction to the Marine Corps, you go straight to TBS that makes the landing as hard as humanely possible. For your own sanity, two years out of the fleet is better than 3 when it comes to this transition and 3 is better than 4.
The final point I will make on college is do your best. I did very well in school because I had a massive chip on my shoulder about not doing well in high school. I was denied a spot at the Naval Academy because of my high school grades and that hit me hard, it was my first real taste of failure in my career. Also, if you are applying for SNA/SNFO and you want to walk into TBS with an air contract like I did, you MUST MUST MUST have good grades. The board is going to hone in on your grades as the single biggest factor as to whether or not you get a flight contract. I did average on the ASTB, 48 5/7/6. I met the requirements for the Marine Corps but didn’t do that well and was actually somewhat disappointed with my score. I got notified through a back channel that the thing that got my package over the line was my grades, at the time I had a 4.0, I graduated with a 3.9. The aviation board cares about your ASTB scores, however; the board report showed that guys with higher ASTB scores than me didn’t get selected and the only area I beat those people out was on my grades. A 70 7/8/8 on the ASTB is great but if you’re transcript says 2.5 GPA, it’s more than likely you will get beat out by someone who has slightly lower scores on the ASTB if they have a significantly higher GPA. The board takes your GPA as your ability to learn and be a good student that means more to the board than your ability to do logarithms on the ASTB. I’m not saying you shouldn’t study those things because you should, however; make your GPA your biggest priority. Your ability to learn quickly and retain information is vital to success as the board will see that as a massive gauge of how successful or unsuccessful you will be in flight school.
Parting thoughts:
I hope this synopsis can help someone, I did this program with little to no information going into it and if this helps you then pay it forward. If you are thinking about doing the program I will say that it is not for everyone. Some Marines make excellent enlisted Marines but are simply not good candidates to become officers. Also, it is an incredibly humbling experience to go from a decently well-respected position (for me an 0311 SSgt) to being a candidate at OCS, a student in college where I was treated essentially as a LCpl all over again, and a 2nd Lt. where everyone thinks you’re retarded (sometimes for good reason). You have to honest with yourself and know whether you can take the humbling or not, if you can you’ll be a better person and Marine for it. If you can’t, there’s absolutely no shame in that at all, but I would highly encourage you to not do this program. I would have liked for this to be more expansive to include TBS, flight school, etc. but I’m waiting to start TBS and I had the time to make this post. Plus I figured it’s better to get this information out there while its still fresh in my mind. If you have any questions about MECEP, the SNA application process, or simply just want to disagree because you feel that you have better info then please put it in the comments and I’d be more than happy to talk about it. There is a ton of information I'm sure that I've missed and if you've been through the process, especially recently, then please help me fill in the gaps where you see fit.