I tried for years to get into the military only to fail. I tried applying for ROTC scholarships in college only to get rejected. I know people with 4.0 GPAs and 1500+ SAT scores who get denied. I tried applying for OCS recently only to get denied too. How on earth do people get into the military? What do you need to do?
Tagging @ChoatieMom
First, examine your commitment to serve and then choose your route: ROTC and OCS enable to you have a civilian college experience while the service academies immerse you in a 24x7 military experience on top of academics.
I am a parent of a USMA grad so can speak to the SA route if that is what you are considering. My comments below hold in general for each of the SAs.
Though I believe an academy is the toughest route, I’m one who feels it isn’t as selective as some make it out to be, but you have to understand what the two main gates are. Because only 23% of the 18-23-year-old U.S. population is fit enough to qualify, the biggest hurdle is health. The next obstacle is receiving a nomination from one of your state’s senators, your district congressperson, and/or a few additional restricted sources, a process that is separate from the academy application. Without a nomination, no SA (except Coast Guard) can offer you an appointment. Due to the intricacies of the nomination process and the fact that you are only competing for a nomination against others from your same district, it is impossible to “chance” candidates in any traditional sense.
However, once you have a nomination and an academy deems you “3Q,” qualified medically, physically, and academically, your chance of receiving an appointment is north of 60%. For example, if you take a look at the application pool for the USMA class of 2027, you see that, among the nominated 3Q applicants, 70% received appointments.
You can examine the whole class profile here to see a further breakdown by activities, class rank, demographics, scores, etc. to see what the “selectivity” criteria are. Take special note of the athletic makeup of the class: 98.7% are varsity athletes with 85% of that pool earning letters and 63% acting as team captains.
Some who score high on academics may fail physically or medically or are outranked for a nomination by another applicant from their district. Also, the WCS (Whole Candidate Score) used to determine appointments weighs academics differently than civilian colleges. Only about a third of any incoming class is chosen for scholarship. The military values brains and brawn somewhat equally (as it must). Officership is not primarily based on grades and test scores.
So, how do you get in? You bring a deep desire to serve to the process, making sure you meet or exceed the physical and academic standards–and earn that varsity letter. 
I’m happy to answer any other questions I can, but I’d also encourage you to create an account and scour the wealth of military knowledge on serviceacademyforums.com, which is the CC equivalent for those considering joining any of our military branches via ROTC, OCS, or an academy.
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I’m moving Choate’s mom reply from the deleted thread but this poster has already graduated from college. Putting the info here for other posters who may read this thread.
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Well, I couldn’t pass tryouts for any sports team in high school, so that didn’t help. I already graduated college, so what can I do now?
Sorry, I didn’t realize from the way the question was posed on your other thread that you are already out of college.
If the direct routes to the officer ranks did not work out for you, there are paths to officership from the enlisted ranks, but you will still need to meet the medical and physical standards. I encourage you to pose your question to current and former military on the service academy website* via the link I posted above. That website covers all routes to all branches, not just service academies. I don’t have any firsthand experience with alternate paths so I defer to the expertise there. Good luck.
*There is a user named FastPast on the SA forums with similar concerns. You may want to start there on the OTS/OCS/PLC forum.
As the OP has been provided resources more appropriate for a college graduate, I am closing this thread.
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