UA huntsville is in Div 2. If he’s interested in playing soccer, he should be in touch with coaches now. If he’s interested in playing at USAFA, he should know by now if they are interested in him.
My daughter is an engineer and played D2 lacrosse. It made her extremely organized. She also got scholarship money and that meant she didn’t have to have a job (although she did as a senior, and many of her teammates worked throughout college).
Doing ROTC would not have been possible with a sport. ROTC requires too many weekends and that just doesn’t fit with sports. However, many engineers do ROTC. Her school, Florida Tech, has Army ROTC, not AF, but plenty of the future space workers are in ROTC.
I coached the best player in our small state at the time. He also played for a residential MLS development team. He ended up playing D3 and getting a great education.
The problem with D1 soccer is that they only get 9.9 scholarships. Most schools split them. I remember specifically taking this young man to visit with a coach at a successful program in the bay. He said “we’d love to have you…if you can afford it.”
Playing sports fits in fine with VT’s Corps of Cadets. Since it’s a lifestyle ROTC program they don’t need weekends nearly as much as other programs do.
D1 sports, ROTC, and engineering. Pick 2. Unless you’re at one of the Academies.
Lots of engineers in ROTC.
I think it depends on the sport. I didn’t see too many football players in engineering. Football probably takes more time over the year than other sports. Back in the day I think there was a stigma that coaches didn’t think you were 110% committed if you focused on academics. Might not get as much playing time. Soccer is probably different.
We are not looking for scholarship money from soccer. The kids had no sophomore club soccer season. They haven’t been able to go to good college tournaments junior year due to changing covid rules. The normal league stopped and his previous club folded. We have what we could get for highlights but boys change quite a bit in high school years. It is what it is.
And busy might keep him structured. Probably would have to choose between ROTC and sports for Alabama. We don’t need him to be part of ROTC for financial reasons. With merit, he can afford a car or save money. It would just be a best career path choice for him.
At a minimum, your son would eligible for the LUE Plus Scholarship which would give you instate tuition and fees. Instate tuition fees, room & board are about $18,500/year.
UNM offers 9 ABET accredited undergrad engineering programs and has a established research program in Space Systems Engineering.
And if engineering isn’t his thing–UNM’s Earth & Planetary Sciences Dept is a top 50 program.
A Lobo AFROTC grad was among the first officers welcomed into Space Force.
UNM offers AFROTC, is adjacent to the Kirtland AFB and Sandia National Laboratory. (Los Alamos National Lab–which is major collaborator with JPL-- and White Sands Missile Range each are about 2 hours away from ABQ.)
UNM is D1 for soccer, but club soccer is a very big on campus.
Definitely a personal choice. If he loves soccer and wants to play he should pick that over ROTC. He can go OCS. That said, the decision might be made for him if he plays soccer. If he doesn’t get any playing time he might just drop and move-over to ROTC. I knew several kids who didn’t pick-up ROTC until sophomore or junior year. Just remind him there are multiple paths and all are good. The key is that he does SOMETHING.
Thanks. We definitely need to travel to Alabama. Maybe in the fall would be best when school is up and running and we are hopefully more normal. Huntsville remains a top option and we can just be grateful that a very suitable career school had great automatic merit that he qualified for by the skin of his teeth.
Does he take the SAT one more time? (clearly we are from New England)
April SAT 730 verbal 720 math - 1450 total
May SAT 690 verbal 790 math - 1480 total
Superscored 730 math 790 math - `1520 which is only 10 points away from an ACT 35
Academy superscores, and scholarships such as AFROTC and merit do not seem to.
Also any suggestions for a meaningful summer activity which can assist. His main activities have been Scouts for which he has been very active and committed. Eagle, marksman awards, Venture, leadership.
And sports. Year round soccer with the usual good athlete awards. And varsity ultimate for fun. Also he weight trains 4 to 5 days a week.
He started a small business at age 12 also.
Basically a normal good student profile.
I don’t know what will help him this summer and if applying at the earliest point July 1st for AFROTC has any benefits. Any suggestions welcome. TIA
Are there any tutoring opportunities? Around here there have been some programs established to help elementary school kids with their reading and math proficiency because of all the in-person time at school that was lost due to Covid. If there is something similar that might be available for your son, and it’s not too late to apply for it, that might be a good activity.
This simply depends on where he wants to apply and what the schools’ rules are. They can be as restrictive as same day scores only to as liberal as super super score where they’ll take an ACT section and an SAT section.