NROTC

Cheryl -- good to know, thanks

Congrats, welcome to the Marine family! Ooh Rah!

Hanksmom -- awesome!!

I have a freshman Mid at USC who LOVES the program and the University. Unfortunately he had a collapsed lung mid semester and is now on medical leave.  He managed to keep up with his classes (minus 1 that he dropped) even though he was in the hospital for 3 weeks. We are nervous about spring semester tuition, as it will not be paid until he is medically cleared and that won't happen until March (hopefully!). His officers and doctors seem to feel confident that he will be cleared, but it is so nerve wracking.  I will say that everyone involved with the NROTC at USC was wonderful through the difficult month of his illness. We are very fortunate, as we live in NH and after I left I felt so very far away, but comforted that he had very caring people around him! Does anyone have experiences or advice to share regarding medical leave? We never thought it would happen to him, he is an extremely healthy young man.  The doctors called it a "spontaneous" pneumothorax, meaning "it just happened, with no underlying medical reason".

My son had to go on medical leave for a semester due to shoulder surgery. We had to pay tuition for that semester. Luckily, we had submit a FAFSFA for financial aid even though he had the NROTC scholarship, so we didn't have to pay sticker price. When he was fully recovered, we had to submit a report from the doctor saying he had no restrictions. The ROTC Unit then submit the papers to the Medical Board who approved his removal from medical leave of absence and his scholarship & stipend were reinstated. It was retroactive and they reimbursed us for the semester he was on leave because he was still able to participate in all of his ROTC requirements, including PT. His surgery was during the summer, so during the fall semester he was having physical therapy and only had a few limitations, like no pull-ups & push-ups, but he could run and do everything else.  The process will be smooth if the administrator in the ROTC Unit is efficient and knows the requirements. So the scholarship can be reinstated retroactively IF he can do his required activities during the leave of absence. Otherwise it will be reinstated when he id fully recovered.

Also my husband had several spontaneous pneumothorax in high school and college. He didn't know what they were when he was in high school and didn't seek medical attention. In college, he did and they would re-inflate the lung and put in some kind of "glue" and he had to have bed rest until he was pain free. Then they just stopped happening.

Got great news today DS got his flight contract guarantee!! We can finally exhale now. Commissioning and The Basic School, here we come!

91 days til graduation 92 days til commissioning!  So excited!  Anyone else planning their trips to graduation?

I  got my dress. I need to make an alteration appointment.

I love him getting ready for commissioning!! First steps towards the aviation pipe done!  He got medically cleared yesterday. Today he got an email needing to fill out what month he wanted to move and what not!! 

Did any of your Midshipmen attend one of those "college during high school" programs where they graduate high school with an AS/AA transfer degree? My daughter intends to go NROTC, but also wants to attend her junior and senior years of high school at the local community college. ALL of the classes are guaranteed transfer as core courses to the universities she plans to apply to. The universities consider them to be freshmen for acceptance, but transfer as a junior in college. Do you know what the Navy would consider her to be? She expects to go four years to a university; she is majoring in engineering which she expects to take extra time.

For those of you with commissioning around the corner- Congratulations :) :)

I remember it feeling a little surreal- like it can't possibly be here already.

Arwen: I'm not familiar with any college programs like that in my limited exposure.  I guess I have one question though.  Why would she expect to go to a University for 4 years if she already has put herself through so many college level courses?  Isn't that the reason to get the jump start with the community college?  Engineering generally doesn't take longer than 4 years.

I am specifically talking about the NROTC *scholarship* program. We can't afford college. She will get a Pell Grant, and can take out loans, which would cover about half of the expense of university tuition, fees and living expenses. We won't be able to contribute a penny toward her education or living expenses while away from home. No scholarship = no college beyond community college.

She will be taking 12-15 college credits per semester during her next two high school years - under this program she doesn't actually go to the high school campus at all, except for a couple of courses that are required by the state for graduation that aren't offered at the college. In her case, that includes NJROTC. In total, she will enter a 4-year university with 15 NJROTC college credits (which I know do not count toward NROTC), 3 AP credits, and about 60 transfer college credits.

She will have to take 4 years of NROTC classes, and 4 years of engineering - there are too many prereqs for each program to do it faster. The community college can only offer core classes (lower division English, math, chemistry, etc). It will NOT be an easy schedule, and will take full-time enrollment to complete both, plus upper division graduation requirements, within four years. She may add another major, too, if it's allowed.

Oh, and one of the big reasons she is going to the college program is to reduce her homework load for her junior and senior years. Believe it or not, her four AP/Honors teachers load the kids up on more homework than the teachers at the college. My son is currently taking the same courses that she would take, and gets less than half the homework.

She has insane teachers who think their job is to assign 2-4 hours of busywork, each, per night, in the name of preparing the students for college work. I graduated from college in 2008 with 3 degrees in 5 years, I know how much homework is assigned at a university! Her current schedule would have killed me.

As it is, she comes home, does her homework, goes to bed, then does it again the next day. According to her NJROTC advisor, she is spending her lunch hour doing homework every day. Weekends are spent working on projects. It's wearing her out, wearing us out. Teachers tell us she is at the top of her class, she she can get the work done. She's not struggling with the materials at all, just with the sheer volume of homework.

Arwen-  I'm fairly certain we are all talking the scholarship program here :)  That is the goal of ROTC. 

I'm still not sure I understand why your daughter would set out to take 6 years of school for Engineering ? Yes it is a heavy course load to complete in 4, but one semester additional makes more sense.   If she has 60 credit hours to start with when she applies for ROTC that may be a problem from the start.  I know a couple of students that were in school with my daughter who wanted to stay for a 5th year to complete a 2nd degree and that becomes very dicey with the Navy -probably more so now.

It sounds like your son is currently doing the high school/college program you are referring to and having a lot of success with it.  You know better than anyone what will work best for her.

I guess I would just double check with ROTC at the 4 year university she is looking at to see if she would still be eligible to apply after those 2 years.

Good luck to your daughter.

She loves her NJROTC course, and doesn't want to get rid of it, and my son is not in high school, he is in college. My point is that even working from the end of school till midnight, my daughter is NOT getting all of her homework done. Her teachers assign more homework than necessary, and the workload is not representative of a college workload. We recently attended an orientation for the high school-college program, (which is free for us) and the teachers said that they don't "assign all the busy work" that AP/Honors teachers do.

Ok, so i'm not sure i'm following all this discussion correctly, but here's my take.  If your dd is actually taking "AP" courses, i can't really relate, cuz our HS doesn't have "AP" courses, but it does offer dual-credit courses, which were an additional cost (very cheap - $100/3 credit hours) & additional work, however, it was well worth it for our son.

When our dd arrived at MU, she was about the ONLY one she knew/met that did not have any additional college credits going in.  It was a big disadvantage to her because it allowed her NO lee-way in her schedule.  She ended up taking 9 credit hours during her freshman summer (at our expense thru MU) to lighten her load a bit for her next 3 years. Great decision.  She was a nursing major and pretty much every single credit hour is mapped out from Fr year all the way through for NROTC Nurse majors at MU.

Our son, on the other hand had had the opportunity to take the newly-offered dual-credit courses offered at our HS thru the local community college.  He went into MU with 9 credit hours, and then he "tested out" of two semesters of Spanish.  It has been great for him to not have to load his schedule with 18-19 hours every semester, yet he is still easily a full-time student taking the required courses & a "for the fun of it" course periodically.

From our experience i whole-heartedly believe it is very helpful to have some credit hours when entering a 4 year university, which i would thing would be especially true if the goal is a double major with a Naval Science minor.  However, i also believe if your dd will be entering a 4 year school with basically an associates degree in hand it there is no way it should take her 4 more years to complete an engineering degree, even if she double majors.  The biggest problem might be getting the courses she will need on a timely basis -- sometimes courses are only offered every other semester, etc. 

I'm not that familiar with Navy scholarships for "non-freshmen" incoming freshmen, like your dd would be in this scenario.  It seems i've read in some forums on here that there have been students at community colleges that have tried to get scholarships but have been unsuccessful due to them not being "freshmen."  I would have concern about that.  Tho i said my dd didn't meet anyone that didn't already have some college credit when starting at MU, she also didn't meet any that had more than 12-15 , so they were still freshmen.

One thing i do not understand is what you said ....

"She will have to take 4 years of NROTC classes, and 4 years of engineering - there are too many prereqs for each program to do it faster. The community college can only offer core classes (lower division English, math, chemistry, etc). It will NOT be an easy schedule, and will take full-time enrollment to complete both, plus upper division graduation requirements, within four years. She may add another major, too, if it's allowed."

Almost every MU engineering NROTC major finishes in 4 years, with very few exceptions.  In that time they take 4 years of NROTC classes and 4 years of engineering classes, all the pre-reqs AND all the core classes (tho most go in with about 9 credits to begin with).  If she goes in with 3 AP & 60 transfer credit hours she should have a cake walk doing NROTC & engineering in 4 years, even with a second major.

part 2 -- (sorry so stinking long)

If she does do this - i seem to be the loan supporter, cuz i see no reason not to do it if she will still be able to get a scholarship -- be very thorough about making certain the classes she will be taking will actually transfer to the university(s) she wants to attend.  My son's dual-credits all transferred as credits, but not all worked as core classes at MU.  MU (as i'm sure all schools do) has some very specific rules about some of their core courses & one of the classes didn't fit.  Another course was also rejected at first, but the community college went to bat for him & then MU gave him the credits & counted it as a core course.

Best wishes with your decisions!!

Yes- Alaska Mom- I know exactly what you are referring to.  It was immensely frustrating to my daughter ( who was Chemical Engineering) to find out she would be ranked on the same scale as art history, poly sci, etc.  The course work is massively different and grading... she would have been in a much different place if she changed her major.  Instead she was sweating it out every year.  She made SWO-Nuke but it took Captain's request to get her an interview.

I agree also on the AP classes- there is such a huge push on them and most of them really don't pay off.  They don't all transfer to college credit (in ROTC it really doesn't matter cost wise).  Much of the time the kids don't realize it's not enough to just take the class- you have to score a 4 or a 5 to get any credit.  Not easy to do.

My son took and passed several AP classes in high school. He is in ROTC at Boston University studying mechanical engineering.. The college was willing to accept some of the AP classes, but his NROTC unit would not allow him to take the credits and expected him to retake the math and science classes.  They basically told him, he would not be able to keep up with his engineering  classes and requirements, because other students that tried it usually got behind and started to fail as the courses got more advanced. They made him retake everything and he is expected to complete this rigorous degree in 4 years, tops. It's unfortunate, because he thought by taking the classes in high school, he would lessen his load in college. Didn't happen! I can also say he pulls many all nighters to keep up with the tremendous amount of work that is required of him and his fellow engineer and pre-med students. He now says it's okay that he re-took the classes because he benefitted from the review and what he learned in his college classes was entirely different and so much more than his AP classes, which he passed with the highest score. Just wanted to tell you of his experience and give you another opinion on the matter. Good Luck!

So far all of my daughter's classes are Honors, except for one single AP class. Most AP classes in her high school are reserved for upperclassmen. I expect she will get a 4 or a 5 on the AP exam, I'm not even worried about it.

My daughter does not do well in non-honors classes. She tried a couple of "regular" classes as a freshman and nearly failed. She can't handle being surrounded by students who don't want to be there and are constant disruptions. As she described the class "the teacher spends all her time on discipline and never does any teaching." She has a low tolerance for that kind of atmosphere, and pulled her grade out of the hole only with a last-ditch effort. The next semester she transferred to Honors, and got much better grades, despite the higher work load.

The classes at the community college (dual-credit program) are guaranteed core transfers for the schools she plans to apply to (U Washington, Oregon State, U Colorado, U Cal Davis and U Idaho) through a written agreement. The community college had to be certified through U Washington to get the agreement, and the core science classes use the Penn State curriculum.

Arwen -- dual-credit is also what my son took.  It was a great advantage for him to have some "wiggle room" as RoTcMoM put it & to get a few of the gen-ed classes out of the way.  These, apparently, are quite different from AP, or so it seems from what everyone here is saying about AP. 

I'd still be concerned about her acquiring a NROTC scholarship, tho, if she will already be considered a sophomore in credit hours.  Be sure to check into that thoroughly.

Any word from any of your MIDN about summer cruises?  

My MIDN sent this link yesterday ...

http://www.navytimes.com/mobile/news/2013/03/navy-sequester-4-air-w...

and then later in the day said he thinks he'd better look for a summer job since he probably won't be going on cruise & will lose that $.

He never messaged back when i asked him if it was just his "assumption" there'd be no cruise, or if that was the scuttlebutt around the Unit. 

Jn/Jf mom, you're right, the dual-credit classes are *very* different from AP.

AP is designed for high schoolers, taught by high school teachers in high school classrooms, and takes a full year to complete 3 college credits - if students pass the exam.

Dual-credit is actual college classes, taken at the local accredited college with college professors, and each course takes a single semester for 3-5 college credits. Students who successfully complete the college class get high school credits for a full year of the equivalent class at the high school.

In our case, the school district pays for college tuition and fees while parents are only responsible for books and transportation. Students can either attend the college full time instead of the high school, or split classes between the college and high school, which can be difficult because the daily class schedules don't match up at all. The college is on a block class schedule, while the high school is a straight Monday through Friday six-period day. Dual enrollment students are considered high school students for the purpose of sports, marching band, and other extracurricular or competitive activities, so they remain connected to the high school that way.

Jn/Jf mom-  that's kinda funny because I sent that same article to my DD who is an Ens. because her 1st deployment is coming up and so many of her friend's deployments are getting cancelled or put on hold.  In fact, her apt. is in limbo land right now because her roommate has decided not renew on the lease because she will be out on deployment.  And now, that ship is sitting at the pier... on indefinite hold, and all her stuff is in storage- ugh (that is her roommate). 

As far as they know -nothing is definitive.  What a frustration on top of an already difficult situation for so many people.

I had a semi-random chance to talk to a captain who is in charge of these things around here. He said that not only are students in my daughter's program admitted as a freshman with sophomore or junior status, but are eligible for the scholarship program. He said it's a good idea, that it opens her possibilities once she gets to the university, and success in the community college courses show that she can be successful at the college level. I also learned that there are 100 NROTC scholarships held in reserve just for NJROTC grads, and she would be eligible for one of these. So her NJROTC experience definitely could help her to get in.

He's the commanding officer of the NJROTC region, and is the one who selects his region's candidates for the 100 NJROTC candidates for NROTC.

He also said that the dual enrollment credits taken while in high school are not counted the same as a "transfer student" who earned credits after graduation. It is considered to be a different category entirely. Otherwise, yes, they do have to have the same academic criteria as the regular applicants. All of the qualified NJROTC cadets are competing for those 100 slots.

He told me that in addition to the 100 slots reserved for NJROTC students, about 50 NJROTC students also earn the "regular" slots each year, competing with all other students.

There are also a certain number of qualified NJROTC students (60, I believe) who get a USNA nomination each year, and do not have to go through their congressman. Each NJROTC unit that earns "Distinguished Unit" award gets to nominate 3 cadets (they are called cadets, not midshipmen, in NJROTC) and those units which earn "Distinguished Unit with Honors" gets to nominate 3 additional cadets any US military academy. My daughter's unit earned the Honors award last year and only four juniors actually applied for these slots. I don't know if they were all qualified, though. I'm hoping her unit earns it again next year, because only juniors are considered for this nomination, and she's only a sophomore now.

Arwen -- just to let you know, the dual-credits our ds earned DID count the same as transfer credits at Marquette U, so you'd better contact the various University Admissions offices to confirm one way or the other. 

It was explained that the university counts her credit toward class standing, but not for acceptance. Also, apparently she doesn't have to transfer the credits. She can enter the university without a single one of her credits if she wants to. Or just take 29 of them.

Anyone else going to Notre Dame for the ROTC Flying Irish Basketball Tournament?   We'll be getting in on Friday sometime & staying the weekend.  Looking forward to a great weekend.

Alaskan Mom -- it is a lot of fun.  This'll be our 3rd or 4th year going.   We're looking forward to it.  WAY too far to travel for you, but it sure would have been nice to meet you!!

So, I am wondering if anyone is in the same position as m y son. He is completing his sophomore year and anxiously awaiting the announcement of the 2 year scholarships. The commander strongly inferred that he would receive a scholarship, although classes ended on Friday and there has not been an announcement. 

Let me know if anyone has any tips, ideas, suggestions? And then, what are the options of Advanced Standing since I fear he is not receiving the scholarship.

Yay!  Just/finally heard that DS will be going on the SEAL cruise this summer!  Now we are just waiting to hear when...

Congratulations to your son kmaidho. My son just received his orders for his 1C Summer Cruise. He received the sole flight cruise available to his Unit. He's very excited. He'll be in Norfolk, but the helicopter squadron he'll be with will go out on a carrier for 10 days while he's with them.

ViperGirl, I remember when your son decided to change to Marine Option. I bet he'll be happy to be at OCS this summer, fun or no fun. It's another step toward his goal. These "kids" are so impressive.

Anyone ever try to clean their MIDN's white cover?  Any hints or tips??  I know how to take it apart & put it back together, but i'm not sure the best way to approach washing the covering itself.

Thanks for any hints or tips you can share!!

I washed just washed it in the washing machine last summer.

thanks helenp -- i was hesitant to do that!!    Glad to hear it's so easy!!

Leaving tomorrow for LA, DS graduates and commissions on Friday. Spending a few days having fun with DS before heading home Monday. DS will be working at USC until he reports to Quantico in Jan for TBS, then to Pensacola. Can't believe time has gone so fast!

ViperGirl and usmcmom,

My DS said last year the thing that helped him the most was the letters from home. I sent him about 3 a week, just with the news from home. He said it helped knowing that people were doing normal things. Also check the website, they put up pictures about the second week in, I love seeing him at work.

He did it!

I'm really enjoying all of these GREAT pictures!  

Congrats to all the newly commissioned officers!!!   Wonderful pictures  :]   Keep em coming!!

We just made it back. Busy fun time.

Just one more.

L to R: Uncle Senior Chief (retired) first salute, Ensign, and Cdr. first cousin.