Can’t emphasize the importance of this consideration enough. There are many routes to a commission, and ROTC and OCS produce the same rank as the academies. Once in the
military, there are no extra points for where or how you earned your commission regardless of what some will tell you. But, civilian college vs. service academy – one of these is definitely not like the other. Choose carefully.
Our son applied to USM/NA as an Eagle Scout (scouting since Tiger Cub in first grade) and a varsity rower. Though he never mentioned military service until the summer before his junior year, it was as if he’d been unconsciously preparing most of his young life. You don’t just wake up one day and decide to throw a service academy or two into your college mix because you want a challenge or a low-cost option.
The demands of being a competitive rower on the USMA team meant zero free time for our son. Any minute not allocated to class, sports, and military requirements and activities was spent doing homework and studying. You will wake up at O’dark thirty for formation and drills before you even get your 20 minutes for breakfast followed by a shower with 40 of your closest friends. Oh, and you will be wakened occasionally at, say, 3AM for random drug testing. Sleep has never been a priority for the military.
Also consider that you will not get summers off. The academic year is spent in the classroom and learning basic military discipline, but the summers are used for field exercises and acquiring the necessary military skills for your branch of service, in our son’s case learning to rappel out of helicopters, blow things up, and kill with precision (among other things, of course). He had two weeks “off” each summer, but never contiguously. We were lucky if he was able to come home at least one of those weeks.
OP, you definitely need to consider the type of college experience you’re looking for. You may get the suggestion to apply to Navy’s Summer Seminar (NASS) to get a feel for the academy, but I always warn that the seminar is just a camp that bears no resemblance to the actual life of a midshipman. It’s a great opportunity to see the post, get your questions answered by actual mids, and complete a CFA (if you choose), but its purpose is to reach out to those the Navy is interested in who might not consider a military stint otherwise. It’s a marketing tool designed to highlight “cool” and not scare off participants.
There are so many moving parts and considerations in this process. If you do decide that military service is your goal, continue the research, ask as many questions as you can think of, and give the application process everything you’ve got.