How confident are you that you can pass the medical and physical fitness tests for ROTC? And for the military academies.
I have an official West Point score on their CFA from this summer. I was in the top 5%. Ideally I will retest and ceiling it towards the end of September once I complete PT and train back up, but even if I don’t do that, it’s hopefully OK. (You can have your test done by a PE teacher and filmed.) That said, I would have ceilinged the CFA if I had been smarter about planning my training. My cadre gave me some great tips about how to train for the CFA and I’m feeling good.
I currently have some messed up but not torn ligaments in the knees and a chip off the bone in my elbow (healing without surgery.) PT thinks I’ll be able to resume training in about 2 weeks. The ROTC test is less demanding than the CFA (e.g. you can be more than a minute slower on the run,) so I’m also feeling good about that, assuming I don’t stupidly mess myself up again. But you’re 100% right to be concerned, because catching another injury now would be catastrophic.
Maybe the right move is to skip the CFA retake and nurse myself through the ROTC test. I’ll see what the PT advises in another couple of weeks.
Sounds like you have researched all the ROTC, service academy requirements and are ready to serve in the military ro help fund your education.
For anyone looking to go this route, if you’re lucky enough to have one, I strongly suggest speaking to your local ROTC enrollment officer and visiting your local battalion. These visits are very easily arranged during the summer, can be combined easily with college visits, are important for demonstrating interest, and are great sources of information, both about admission to ROTC and about subsequent careers. I’d be proud to serve the USA in any way that I can.
Are there appealing colleges to you that offer strong merit or need based aid just in case the military options don’t work out?
Unfortunately, I think my family makes too much on paper for need aid to close the gap absent a lot of merit aid. Thanks to the great advice in this thread, I will be applying to a lot of less competitive schools that focus on merit aid and named scholarships.