<p>We had a somewhat similar situation with my son, three years back - here is our experience, but be warned that 1) rules and facts may have changed, 2) supply & demand balances shift every year, and 3) my memory may be faulty.</p>
<p>S applied to a number of colleges with NROTC programs - one in the Boston consortium, a few mis-size universities in the south (including Vandy), a large-ish state school (another state) with a big NROTC contingent, and also two of the Academies (Navy, AFA). A complex process with a lot of moving parts.</p>
<p>He was notified of the award NROTC scholarship early on, and tagged the school in Boston as his 1st choice. He was also admitted to the State school in another state way early in their rolling admissions process. So he called the unit recruiting officer for the NROTC consortium in Boston, and was advised that because of the highly selective nature of the schools they supported, they usually had lots of slots - often went empty - and that the slots were harder to come back at the bigger state schools. So he named the not-our-state school as his number 1 on the NROTC application. </p>
<p>As the process unfolded, he ended with multiple complex choices - appointed to Navy and AFA, accepted at four different schools with NROTC, and a few other colleges with no NROTC available. In the end he elected to decline the Naval Academy appointment (DD is still recovering), and was able to switch the NROTC Scholarship to the southern school he is now attending. He ended up going Marine option, and completed OCS this summer. </p>
<p>Switching the NROTC scholarship was not straight forward but worked out for him that year. Key was getting on the phone and calling the officers in the respective units for advice on how to best map preferences against the NROTC process. But a caution - things may have changed, and the supply-demand dynamics may be different this year.</p>