<p>As far as attending OCS goes:</p>
<p>OCS provides little to no substantive training/preparation for TBS. It is useful only as a de-civilianization tool . . . akin to a boot camp or plebe year. It is NOT the ROTC version of Leatherneck. </p>
<p>My wife (a product of OCS) and I have talked about this a fair bit, and I think we both agree that OCS path is inferior to the USNA path for one simple reason: TBS is all about teaching new officers how to lead Marines–OCS is all about turning people INTO Marines. </p>
<p>The VAST majority of OCS Marines (who arrived via ROTC) I went to TBS with were stuck in this boot camp mode–where crapping on people was the leadership du jour. The prior enlisted Lts had little trouble shedding this OCS style of leadership (since they already had seen good leadership in the FMF), and the USNA folks had long since ditched the “plebe summer” brand of leadership, but many of the ROTC guys were still in OCS mode many months into TBS. They had quite a bit of evolving to do, whereas non-ROTC guys could focus more on fine-tuning their leadership styles. </p>
<p>DeepThroat</p>