If $ is a non-issue, which public schools would you prefer to private ones

Parents Forum
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<p>Looking at your son’s particulars (interest in IR, poli-sci, etc.), I’d say that there isn’t a public that would better prepare him for his intended post-military career than the DC trio he has in his sights. There is nothing like being in the DC area for that type of experience. An exception to this would be if he had a particular area within those disciplines he wanted to do research in. There are several publics then that I would recommend for those opportunities based upon the specific professors in that are. However, it doesn’t sound like he has a very narrow focus within those disciplines, so I think picking a school like Berkeley because professor X has been doing research in Y and that is what I want to do isn’t exactly happening here.</p>

<p>You sound like you can afford for him to finish at his school of choice if for some reason he cannot continue his ROTC committment, so finding a cheaper public as an “in case of ROTC disaster” is not necessary.</p>

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<p>Consider The Ohio State University.</p>

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<p>hyeonjlee, You weren’t being presumptuous at all. In fact, my son was only briefly interested in the military a few years ago (flying for the Air Force, I think in large part to irritate his father who is a pilot in the USMC) but that phase passed quickly. I would be very proud of any child I had who wanted to serve their country via the military but after 20+ years, including my husband’s deployments to Iraq, I’m ready to become a civilian family. </p>

<p>It is hard to believe that DADT is still around. I do believe its days are numbered and when it finally dies it’s long overdue death, that will be a good day, indeed!</p>

<p>Best of luck!</p>

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<p>As a military wife and now a Mom of a ROTC student, Berkely would be the last place I would want my son attending as a ROTC student.</p>

<p>Pug is correct you don’t have him discuss what we call 5 and dive (that mean sas soon as the commitment is over they leave).</p>

<p>Our DS is at UMDCP LEP in govt and politics with an AFROTC scholarship and he loves it. He will be interning next semester on the hill for a congressman. It is a requirement for the LEP, and the ROTC det knows that. They have worked with him to make sure that any confliction of scheduling is minimal. His major is govt & politics dual with military history and core concentration in International Relations. SO it is possible to get a great undergrad degree, with interning and ROTC. Also, remember that the military pays 75% for AD members education. Thus, while he is doing his 5 yrs, he can get a masters basically on the military’s dime and be ahead of the game with work experience and education.</p>

<p>I would contact the det commanders, have them meet your DS, talk about their program and have your son talk to cadets. We did that with our DS and as soon as he was done, he asked if we had the checkbook to write his deposit.</p>

<p>Also momof3 is correct OSU has an amazing ROTC det, so does UVA and UMICH. The best Army ROTC school in the South with a strong name is Texas A & M. There is also the Citadel and VMI </p>

<p>Finally in our DS’s freshman class, he was 1 of 3 out of 100 cadets that had scholarships, the others did not receive them. For his soph yr, there were 7 that got the Type 7. The cadet core for soph has also drastically reduced because they were in it for scholarships, and now that it didn’t happen they felt no need to return.</p>

<p>FWIW, remember they can always back out of the scholarship to a point.</p>

<p>Best of luck…and thank him for his desire to serve.</p>

<p>PS

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<p>The scholarship boards have their own pre-determined dates, even though you may submit it in June, it is highly unlikely you will hear anything until at least October, since the board will not meet for the first time until Sept, and it is usually a 4-6 week wait for results. This is of course if you have no DODmerb issues…not trying to rain on the parade, just trying to enlighten you of the facts on how ROTC boards work.</p>

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<p>Michigan. Money wasn’t an issue and mine picked Michigan for his engineering degree which he easily completed in four years. I think the kids who have a tough time graduated from a public school in four years are the ones who aren’t sure of their major when they enter. Both of mine graduated in four years. The second did have trouble picking a major but he’s very organized and persistent and still did it in four</p>

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<p>Berkeley Undergrad,
only for these majors: Computer Science, Math, Engineering</p>

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<p>U of M if you can afford it as OSS. BTW, most of my friends’ kids got AP credit and actually entered as sophomores and had no trouble graduating within 4 years. One friend’s kiddo actually entered as a sophomore and managed to finish a master’s in 4 years. I agree with 3bm that it depends on the organization of taking the pre-reqs and settling on a major in a timely way.</p>

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<p>A long time ago, I knew a young man who was in Navy ROTC, studying Government at Harvard. I did not know, then, that Harvard ROTC students had to go to MIT for training. After he graduated, he spent six years in the Navy, then went back to Harvard Law School. Last I heard, he was working on Wall Street.
Some years ago, there was a CC poster named Taktlan who was a Junior ROTC student. He attended Georgetown, majoring, I believe in International Relations.<br>
What I’ve been hearing about the UC system has not been reassuring. Just this past week, Berkeley faculty were on strike to protest against cuts (including their own salary cuts of 8%), reduction in the number of classes taught and ballooning of class size. I don’t know how other state universities are coping with the financial crisis. Before it, I would have suggested: Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, UW-Madison, UT-Austin, UNC, UVA, William&Mary, UIUC (for some programs).</p>

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<p>You should look for the best combo of ROTC and University strengths.
Please don’t think of the ROTC program as a means to an end. If he is really as serious as you say about being an Army officer, the search for a strong ROTC unit should be right up there with the search for a university with good internships.</p>

<p>S1 commissioned (Navy) in May through ROTC at our big state u. He had very strong officers who helped him position himself for a spot in a pretty select active duty unit.
He competed for the spot against guys from all over the country (and much bigger name schools). He said his officers advising, training, attention to detail and knowledge regarding the mountains of paperwork req. were a big part of his success in attaining his goal. He met others vying for the unit (fr. other schools) who were not well prepared. S1’s roommate was also selected for same unit. Only twelve were chosen nationwide so two fr. the same state sch. was an accomplishment. </p>

<p>Not saying your S should attend my S’s univ. It’s in the south.
This is all just to say, the strength of the ROTC unit can make a difference where you end up when college is over. At least it was in our experience. Army might be totally different. </p>

<p>Good luck to your S.</p>

<p>Also, I would be leery of cross-town affiliate sch. unless it is very close to the unit’s home sch. ROTC often takes more time it appears on paper.</p>

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<p>Why? We have several friends who did just that and all these years later they still speak fondly of the experience. Their ROTC unit is one of the oldest in the nation and they take a pride in that long tradition. </p>

<p>I also second being wary of the training being on another campus. My husband’s ROTC unit was based at his university. I felt sorry for the kids from the two other units who had to drive/take a bus over. ROTC takes up a lot of time, add in a commute and that just sounds like too much. I really admired the kids from H’s unit who did it.</p>

<p>I also wanted to add that if your S is interested in being a pilot, that is something to consider as well in terms of location. I don’t know how they handle flight contracts these days, but my H got his before he joined the ROTC unit and I got the feeling (although I could be wrong) that there were only so many kids with flight contracts admitted to each unit.</p>

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<p>I agree with pack, don’t do cross town. A couple of reasons.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>He will be the red headed cousin. For example UMD has cadets from all over the state that go there 2x a week for ROTC days, some even come from out of state, with a 2 hr drive. The problem is they are not there on campus to hang with the cadre. For him they have Thursday night GMAC night, they hang order pizza, play crud or foosball after lab.</p></li>
<li><p>As impolitic as this might seem, the det is going to take care of their own, if you go to school there you have more “face time”, this means you get more command support and in 4 sshort yrs when you graduate your det commanders review will play a part on what you get for career field. If you are only there for class and nothing else in a large det of 200-300 people, they will have to choose which one of you, if they need to be reminded of who you are then that is not a good sign.</p></li>
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<p>3.Sometimes schools that do not offer ROTC are not fans of the military and your child will stick out like a sore thumb on ROTC days. They are required to wear the uniform all day for all classes. It can make it hard on them if they go to somewhere like Berkeley. UMD doesn’t have NROTC (they have to go to Georgetown or American ???), it only has AF and Army, however, there are so many ROTC cadets that it is no big deal, unlike Columbia, or Harvard where they have no ROTC for any branch.</p>

<p>PackMom is correct, even if he is going to do 5 and dive. It is important to place the ROTC program on the same level as the school.</p>

<p>Unfortunately we do not know your DS’s stats. Thus, it is hard to really give you an opinion of colleges with ROTC that might be a fit. I would say if your child is the top of his class and competitive UVA might be somewhere you would like to check out. Pack Mom’s DS also went to a very competitive ACC school, but since it is in the south, it does not have that govt pull like UMD. On the east coast most IS universities have a 70-30 make up, so there are alot of OOS. DS dorms with 6 other guys, only 2 of them are IS, the rest are spread across the nation.</p>

<p>Finally, if your son is serious about ROTC, or you want to know more, go to [United</a> States of America Service Academy Forums - Powered by vBulletin](<a href=“http://www.serviceacademyforums.com%5DUnited”>http://www.serviceacademyforums.com). They have a section just for ROTC on the home page. I would like you to realize that with the economy going the way it is, ROTC scholarships have become very competitive…it is no longer just submit your name and get a check. In our DS’s class (back in 08), he was the only student to receive one, including all of the AF JROTC students, which he wasn’t a part of.</p>

<p>AGain not trying to rain on a parade, you are way ahead of the game since he is only a jr, just trying to enlighten you of the finesse details that can become issues.</p>

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<p>That is not how they do it now, nor how they ever did it for AF. Obviously, they did it for the Marines. DH was commissioned from AFROTC in 87, you do not get your track until your jr. yr. DS will be commissioned in 12 and it is still the same. The irony is that ROTC members get their route before the SA. The dets for AF do not have X amt assigned. They go against every det and HDQ makes the decision based on a point system.</p>

<p>We have a friend’s child and a nephew at Berkeley right now, they say because of their connection to the military (friends child is a ret full bird) they feel pity on the cadre, mainly because of how professors attack them in class. Let’s not forget Code Pink has done outrageous things there in the past few yrs. Heck, on one episode of RHOC the daughter who goes there decided to transfer out because she considered herself a republican and could no longer stand it.</p>

<p>The Marines also have an additional program that the AF does not have, basically they never have to go ROTC, but go to basic right after hs grad, then in Jan come in as a student to their college. During the summer they go to field training and when they graduate they are commissioned. Our friends DD’s boyfriend has elected this route. This might be what pugs DH did, since he does know his track. I am not 100% clear on how it works, but I do know that he actually is right now enlisted and the Marines are paying for his college education. His summer job is the Marines for 10 weeks. The negative is if they need him he will be pulled up before ROTC or SA cadets.</p>

<p>The very plus side of scholarship, is that the kids not only have a chance for full ride, but 900 for books, and a stipend of 250 a month while in school.</p>

<p>If your child has vision problems and wants to fly, the military will pay for it do not have any kind of laser surgery done on your own, it could hurt him medically. Trust me, accutane for acne is a disqualifier, can get a waiver, but you don’t want to go through that process. :(</p>

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<p>I just checked the Berkeley website and their NROTC unti alone has 60-70 members. They also have Army and Air Force ROTC.</p>

<p>I suppose if your son believes they current hyteria about liberals and liberal places, Berkeley would not be for him. Something tells me he’s better informed than that.</p>

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<p>Well…in addition to the school, you also have to consider whether your son has a good shot at acceptance. Our DD would have considered UCLA, and UCB…and possibly UVA if money had been no object…but she didn’t really have the stats to get accepted OOS to any of them. An ROTC scholarship would have done her no good as she would not have first been accepted.</p>

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<p>Yes, when S was going through the app. process, the ROTC recruiter encouraged him to list a school he was pretty confident of being accepted to as one of his first two choices.
From what I’ve heard most who get scholarships are assigned to one of their top three choices. If all of those are reach schools, it is possible to get assigned to a sch. and then not get accepted. Then there is the risk that all of the lower choice safeties have already filled their spots.</p>

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<p>I don’t think it’s a case of public v. private, but just a case of a school who’s atmosphere I prefer and I’d rather attend. For example, I’d rather go to University of Georgia than Boston University because I like D1 sports and I like the South, and I don’t want to be in Boston at the moment. I love the big university environment and feel (even though I went to a small LAC).</p>

<p>I also second the recommendations of William and Mary and New College of Florida. I’d probably also attend Michigan, UVA, Wisconsin-Madison, UT-Austin, University of Washington and Penn State over some private schools.</p>

<p>I got an NROTC when I was in high school. It was a fun process and I met a lot of great people (and got recruited for the Naval Academy, which I did NOT apply for, heh.) My school of choice offered me a better scholarship but I wish I had still done the ROTC program when I was in college! I’m still thinking about a military career when I finish my Ph.D (fiance is Air Force, too).</p>

<p>Columbia’s a bit hostile to ROTC. There’s a small coalition of student who are trying to bring it back to campus. The cross-town unit is in the Bronx at Manhattan College.</p>

<p>I also second PMK’s advice about lying low about his desire to get out in 6 years (he doesn’t even know what he wants, he’s not even IN the military yet!). No one’s going to want to spend thousands of dollars on someone who will skedaddle first chance they get. Also, seconding the advice about the service academies. They are held in very high esteem and will very much help a public service career, if your son intends one.</p>

<p>Oh, and by the way guys, there are liberals and moderates in the military :)</p>

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<p>to the OP - please understand that Army ROTC, AFROTC and NROTC offer different experiences. I don’t want you to be confused when folks start talking about other services when your son is only interested in Army ROTC (as you indicated).</p>

<p>For instance - Army ROTC typically wear their uniform once a week. It’s not a big deal even if he is at a cross town. Not having AROTC at the home school is not an indication that the school is “hostile” toward ROTC or the military. Each unit must commission a certain number each year to keep their battalion - some smaller schools just don’t have the numbers.
Cross Town Affilitates - with Army ROTC if a school is a good fit there is no reason to not consider a cross town affilitate. Especially where your son is considering American and George Washington. Many cross town affiliates are not really “cross town” but many miles apart - i.e. Dartmouth goes 55 miles to Norwich.
Generally PT, classes and even labs are held at the home school, esp for the first two years. Larger units will be split into Companies with each school having their own Company. The university in our county is a cross town with a college 40 miles away - the Army has a staff at this school and they run their classes, PT and labs there. They only get together with the home school for special events and FTX 2-3 times a year.
Your ROTC training is NOT hurt by this.</p>

<p>Admitted to the school - if you receive your scholarship before you are admitted- it will be conditional upon admittance. Many school have an April 1 date. Hence my advice to apply to one or two schools that are rolling admissions. While you will only receive ONE scholarship you can transfer it to another school easily if it’s in the cadet command system. If for some reason you don’t get a scholarship, you can join ROTC - nearly 100% of all qualified ROTC cadets who want a scholarship get one.
Even if awarded a scholarship in the senior year, the Army won’t pay it until the cadet passes the APTF in the fall. If the cadet can’t pass it - he will be stuck with the tuition bill and the scholarship is revoked.</p>

<p>Finally - there are battalions that that are huge and some are quite small. There are advantages to each. The Army doesn’t “rank” battalions anymore and frankly it doesn’t matter. If your son is involved he will have many opportunities open to him for summer training and he will be well prepared for LDAC the summer before his senior year.
His Army job - or branch selection - is done on a competitive basis, competing against all AROTC cadets on a point system. The two biggest criteria that make up the point are College GPA and score at LDAC. He should pick the college first - above the ROTC battalion. If he picks a school because he liked the Lt Col with whom he interviewed, he may be in for a big shock to find when he gets there the Lt Col got promoted to Col and is in Afghanistan.</p>

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<p>UNC-Chapel Hill has an excellent Army ROTC program and offers amazing undergraduate opportunities as well. Definitely worth checking out.</p>

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<p>Thank you! I’ve been saying that for over a year now. Hopefully your words will get through!</p>

<p>JustaMomof4, Great post, lots of good information. Thank you for sharing the current info.</p>

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<p>That is very true, most military assignments are 3 yrs, and typically, many commanders take this position as their last stop out. The commander that you start with will most likely not be the one you end with. Also as a gmac you will have very little interaction with the commander.</p>

<p>When I stated Berkeley it is for the same reason of Columbia since the OP’s son is interested in govt and politics. As a Mom of a ROTC student in govt and politics, most profs in this arena are more left leaning. Our DS has been called out many times to defend the military by profs in an antagonistic way. Everything from the 22 issue to the military interrogations. He’s a kid and has no real inner workings of the military at this point, but is expected to defend since he is ROTC.</p>

<p>The school is really the most important, but ROTC students also change during their college yrs like every other kid. The difference is as they go up the ROTC ladder, their education still matters, but the ROTC part starts to become more important. There are many reasons for this occurrence.

  1. Their soph to jr yr they will go to Military Sleep Away camp :D. Their entire sophomore yr is to prepare them for that. When they return they now have the sense of this is their future for at least 5 yrs.
  2. Their jr yr is wen they start getting “true” leadership positions, which takes time away from school, and more towards ROTC.
  3. They receive their track in the spring of their jr. yr. This means they know what their career will be for the next 5 yrs.
  4. Their senior yr, they have even more leadership positions, and by spring they also know where they are going as in post/base. While their non-ROTC friends are trying to decide grad school or real world.</p>

<p>All of these things change kids. I have seen the difference in our own DS. He still has his best bud, but as DS is joining the AF frat and his friend is joining a greek frat, their friendship is mutating. DS is realizing that the kids in AFROTC understand his fears, whereas, his bud doesn’t. It is hard for a friend to understand why you are freaking if your gpa is lower than a 3.5. For AFROTC cadets, they get it, because the higher gpa, the higher you are on the selection list. His future career rides on his gpa. Also, DS is not a prude, but he knows that there is a no drinking policy at UMD, if he is caught drunk it could be the end of his military career before it ever starts, so when he sees people getting sloppy drunk, he gets out of there quick, and for that he takes heat. Finally, he realizes through his dad, that many of these ROTC friends will be with you at UPT and for the rest of your life. Thus, it becomes the situation of growing up and moving on.</p>

<p>As far as libs and mods in the military. There are mod dems, just like mod republicans, but you do not trip over them, as in there are tons. Typically the liberal viewpoint does not easily translate into the military format. There is no democracy in the military. Your boss always is right! You do not have a voice in the military. You cannot go and protest against the leadership without doing harm to your military career. There is an old joke in the military…put your hand on your shoulder as the other person puts theirs on their shoulder, not flip your hand over. Whoever has the higher rank wins. it is known as RHIP (Rank Has Its Priviledges)… Also, as much as I believe there are libs, they are very quiet about their political belief, because the majority are not. According to studies, the military is 75-80% republican…that also explains why the 00 Florida election had the wrinkle about the military vote, and Norm Koleman wanted the late absentee ballots from the military to be counted. Finally, the big reason most military are republicans, because traditionally, the republican party supports the military budget, whereas, the dems do not. Thus, if is your paycheck and your benefits, and your life at risk, that will become your priority, and you tend to vote with the party that agrees with your top issue.</p>

<p>I know of 2 friends that came in as dems, lts in 96, they both took tons of heat for backing Clinton. When we retired last yr, those 2 guys were no longer dems. Did they change because of mob mentality or the fact that they did not like the party anymore, I don’t know, but I do know that they both did say that after living the life, they saw it from a different view 15 yrs later.</p>