How to pick NROTC units for scholarship app?

[rudyinok]

Hello :)  I am very new to this forum, but my son has been wanting to be a Navy officer for several years now.  He is now a junior at a special math and science high school.  He will graduate from this high school in May 2014.  so, this coming spring of 2013 is when he will fill out the NROTC scholarship app.

because he's so busy at this math/science boarding school, I am trying to do some homework for him on NROTC units so his time at Christmas can be best utilized.  

We hope to go visit a few units this coming spring before he prioritizes his list for the app in May.

His first choice is TAMU.  we are pretty familiar with it.

Some of the other Universities he's considering are:  Purdue, Idaho, Colorado @ Boulder, Norwich, Univ. Florida, maybe Iowa, Ole Miss.

Its so hard to figure out much from websites and mailings!!!  We don't have unlimited funds or time to go visit all these places either.

Which units are your children at that have a very favorable campus acceptance of ROTC?  DS would prefer not to be at a school where the ROTC students are made fun of or not respected by at least the majority of the students and faculty.  This is part of the reason he likes TAMU so much.

Can any one give any insight into these units or others?  DS is from very rural background and isn't so sure he wants to live in an enormous city for College.

Thanks!

[helenp]

My son attends the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY as a Chemistry major and is very happy with the college and with his NROTC Unit. As a freshman, he attended Rochester Institute of Technology which is a very good school for Engineering. They participate in the NROTC Unit at the University of Rochester.

Do people really make fun of and disrespect the ROTC students? I am sorry to hear that. My son has never had that experience.

[rudyinok]

maybe they don't, I really don't know!!  I have read on other forums that this is a good thing to determine about a campus community when choosing.  I can remember from my own college days that the ROTC students weren't very respected, but of course that was 20 years ago.

thanks very much for your response!!

[helenp]

No problem. By the way, my son is a 3C Midshipman (Junior) and remains happy, looking forward to his Navy life as a commissioned officer.

[Kay M.]

YAAAAY ROCHESTER!  <tee hee!> I grew up there. Rochester is a GREAT city and I'm glad to hear your son likes it there, helenp.

Our son is a senior aeronautical engineering major at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, and loves the unit there. It's a small-ish campus in a small-ish city. We, too, live in a very rural area (have a farm of sorts) and our son is comfortable there...he is the token redneck in the unit, haha! It's a terrific engineering school and has a reputation in particular for providing nuclear officers to the Navy, so a great one to consider if your son has that interest. 

One campus we visited and could NOT picture NROTC kids in uniform at was Carnegie Mellon. We didn't even make it to the unit office, it was way on the edge of campus somewhere. And some mids at Villanova told us there was a prof who would hang anti-military signs in his window, facing their building. But that unit still has a great reputation.

Hope this helps! Good luck with the search!

[helenp]

KayM. I grew up in Geneva! We have lived in suburban St. Louis, Missouri for many years, so I was very happy when my son chose Rochester. I think it's a nice place.

[DeeSki]

Hi! my son is a senior at SUNY Maritime and I would definitely NOT recommend this school.  NROTC students are considered civilians there lol and get much less help in their programming and scholastic needs than the school's merchant marine program students.  He is studying engineering and will not graduate on time due to a summer internship he was not able to find in his first summer so now has to complete it before graduating.  He is planning to become a Nuclear Submarine officer next year.

[rudyinok]

Thanks to all of you, and yes, he is planning to apply to the Academy.  hoping to go to NASS there this summer to get a better feel.  We have visited there and West Point.

[rudyinok]

thanks especially to all of you for describing the area that these schools are in - CITY, small city/town, rural, etc.  we live in the middle of nowhere literally.  our town has 500 people in it.  ds is pretty adaptable, but would probably prefer to not be the ONLY kid like himself - it would be nice to know some others who are familiar with dirt, not just concrete.

obviously, once he commissions in the Navy, life will be very different then it has been his first 18 years, but he will be much more of an adult by then.

keep 'em coming!!!  these insights are very helpful.

[J/J Mom]

Our kids both went to Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI.  Great city.

We, too, are from a rural area, smallest county in the state of IL.  They both kinda wanted to go to school in a "city" to be able to experience that for a change & then be able to get out of there after a few years if they hated it haha.

Milwaukee is a great city.  It's easy to get around in, it's got a good public transportation system, there's lots to do & experience, yet it's not huge & scary like a place like Chicago could be to a small town kid (parents).

Our daughter picked Marquette then decided to do NROTC & picked up a scholarship.

Our son applied several places and first got scholarship to IIT in Chicago.  He would have been a "cross-town" MIDN.  I'm not big on the idea of having my child be a "cross-towner" -- a MIDN that goes to a different University than the one with the NROTC Unit.  The NROTC time commitment is HUGE some weeks.  I personally would not want the added time commitment to have to commute to the Unit from their cross-town University.  This can be an extra burden if the "cross-towner" has a big billet w/in the Unit where s/he has to be present there almost daily.  I know this works great for some, particularly because it allows the MIDN to "get away," but it wasn't for our kids.

Anyway, our son was successful in getting his scholarship switched to MU so he could go to MU & not be a cross-towner.  Plus, MU was the school of choice for him over the Chicago school.

At MU there are MIDs from all walks of life ... some grew up in tiny places & went to tiny high schools.  Some grew up in cities & went to huge high schools.  Some grew up ?? & went to military boarding schools, and everything in between, i imagine.  I would suspect it is that way at most, if not all NROTC Units.  MU has a good Mathematics Department & a great Engineering school w/ a brand new Engineering building.  My kids love/loved it there.

You're doing well to be seeking all this type of info out now instead of later  :) 

[GrayHair]

You have received a lot of great information about specific schools from other posters. But one thing I don't see mentioned - perhaps it is a given - is just about the quality of the school match itself. The NROTC part is a very important part of the equation; we want our kids to be successful and happy. 

But the MOST important part of college is their education! Does the college or university have a respected program in their chosen field of study? What about internships? Study Abroad programs? What if the student totally changes their mind about their course of study? Are other programs offered or is it strictly a "engineering" school? ETC.
I would say to make sure that your child will be happy at the school, then happy at the ROTC unit.

Also - can you and your child afford the school tuition without a scholarship. I recently read on another forum a true story of parents who were suffering because their son in a NROTC program had been "disenrolled". Obviously, not by the student's choice. He was a senior. It was not anything horrible - not breaking the law, not failing grades, just a unit decision. The son received a bill from the Navy requesting over $ 100,000 in payment of back tuition, stipend, etc.
Good luck with the entire process!

[Strider223]

Hi, my son had a list of criterea he knew he wanted in a college. He then picked the colleges that most matched that list. We are from a rural New Hampshire town and one of his considerations was he wanted a city. He also wanted a nationally respected engineering program and a large school with D1 sports (for campus spirit)! He is at USC in LA! I was a bit worried that the newness of city/NROTC and living across the country would overwhelm him, but he really did know what he wanted! He LOVES it! I am so relieved and happy for him!

Regarding financial considerations: my son is at a college that we absolutely could not afford without the scholarship. He knows that he needs to keep that scholarship or he would have to transfer. We actually had a scare this fall when he had a sudden illness that caused a 3 week hospitalization and he was put on Medical Leave of Absence. Luckily he recovered and was able to continue the semester, but we were worried about BUMED not reinstating him. He spent his Christmas break applying to other colleges as a back up. Luckily BUMED reinstated him and he is happily back on track. He loves both USC and the NROTC. I will also add that the NROTC USC personnel were absolutely top notch supportive of my son and I through this ordeal. I couldn't be more impressed with them!

Also, regarding respect on campus, I've not heard any issues where that is concerned. As a matter of fact, he has had comments that show they are well respected...such as "I love walking on campus in my uniform" he says he gets "attention" and it is of the good kind!

Good luck with your son and his many decisions!

[rudyinok]

Thanks so much for all your great input over the past few months!!  Ds got a log-in password for the NROTC portal yesterday now that its opened, and it feels like all this research can finally be put in play.  We've gone on several road trips visiting schools, asking friends, looking up data on schools, etc.  Ds figured out he likes the smaller towns which are largely circled around their university rather than a university inside a city.  He likes schools that lean conservative or where he'd at least not be the only conservative (we could see KU is not that conservative, but its close to home and has alot of kids there like him, still).  He desires Mech Engineering, so he was trying to pick schools that have strong engineering programs that fit in the above criteria. (Ole Miss may not match this very well, but he really liked Oxford, so he still wants to consider it.)  ds basically has this list made for the 5 schools for his app:

Auburn, Iowa State, TAMU, KU, 'Ole Miss or Purdue

Now, here's the question I still have:  how the heck do you "get a feel for the unit" ?  at each of these schools, ds asked for an appointment with NROTC.  he was given an appointment generally with the freshman advisor, most of the time this was a rather young officer.  the only school where he got to talk to someone higher up was Iowa State, we just bumped into the XO in the hallway and he invited ds into his office.  Anyway, in some of these cases, ds thought the young officer(s) was not very professional, (please don't flame me, hold on....) or seemed to not really care, or not able to communicate much to ds about the unit.  So, one has to ask themselves if this is a reflection of the unit or not.  (is "unit the right word to use?  idk!!)  On the flip side, on the service academy forums, I keep getting the feeling that all units basically operate the same, that ds needs to choose the SCHOOL he likes and wants.  Ds wants a really "with it" unit, too, not just a great school fit.  So, how do we figure that out if he just has a quick meeting with an young officer that doesn't communicate much to him?!  I hope my question makes sense.  and if any of you have any specific input on the schools listed above, PLEASE post it for ds's consideration!!!  Btw, he was accepted to Summer Seminar at USNA and will be going there too this summer (yeah!).