West Point question

[cpxxx]

So if I read it right you have to be an intelligent jock with connections.  Nerds need not apply.    

I would love to be part of something like that though.  I wanted to join the Irish Air Corps as a pilot.  They trained in the Military College here.  But the most pilot cadets they recruited in one year was ten.  Usually it was six. About three thousand applied. You had more chance of winning the lottery.  I believe things have changed now. They can't get enough quality applicants anymore with all the good money jobs floating around.

I'm still available if they're interested.

[hawker238]

I recieved a congressional appointment to West Point and Annapolis.  I got the full acceptance from Annapolis, and never really followed through on West (I didn't really want to be in the Army, from a Navy family).  So this coming July I could have the honor of getting my bellybutton kicked at Plebe Summer.


However, I also got the NROTC scholarship, and have been accepted to RIT, RPI, and (hopefully, don't know yet) Cornell.  So there's going to be some tough choices.


Any guys here do ROTC or Navy ROTC that could tell me what you thought of the ROTC program?


FYI, my dad is USNA grad, class of '75.

[eagl]

All I can say is I chose the Academy over ROTC because it's a direct pipeline to your military career.  If you really want to do something in the military, it's the best place to start.  If you want something else and the military is just a secondary consideration, go somewhere else.  The military academies are excellent academic institutions and provide an extremely useful and broad education to every graduate (even a history major will get a couple of dozen math/engineering/science courses) but it's not aimed at creating specialists in any particular field except that of military officer.  So if you want to be a chemist, biologist, etc., go to a regular university.  If you want to be a military officer and get a great academic background to help you do literally ANY job the military offers, go to the Academy.  Regardless of what you want, I have never met an academy graduate who actually regretted their choice.  In any case, you can bail out during the first 2 years without commitment if you decide that it's not for you.  I think quitting during the first year is a very bad decision for most people because it's tough to take advantage of the academy during your freshman year, but even those who quit can at least say they gave it a shot.

If you turn down an academy appointment and go through ROTC, you'll always wonder.  Sure you'll have fun and probably get a fine eduation and will still have a shot at a good military career, but you'll still wonder.  And when you see the little groups of people who get their first 2 promotions on the same date, it will bother you and you won't really know why.  The only people in the service who don't harbor at least SOME inner jealousy or hatred of the academy grads are the Aggies, but at least they have a good reason for their opinion.

That's my opinion anyhow.

[Gunslinger]

Eagl,

Don't you also get paid as an E-5 or equivilent while you are attending????  (what other college gives you a salery why you go to school?)

[eagl]

I don't know what the current pay scale is for cadets, but I don't think it's up to E5 level.  Basically it's enough to make it so you have some spending money after you pay for all the crap they make you buy.  Like $500 for one particular uniform jacket you'll wear once and then sell back for $100.  And a computer.  And books that you MUST buy from the bookstore instead of from people who used the same book in the previous semester, because the damned bookstore bastards have the dean by the balls due to the overall small size of the school.

When I was there, the pay scale hadn't been changed in about 10 years, and 10 years earlier it was exactly 50% of the base pay of a 2Lt.  That worked out to $500/month before expenses and mandatory deductions to pay off the approx $5000 the school loans cadets when they arrive just to get started.  Take-home pay came out to $40-$60/month for freshmen, $125ish for sophomores, $160ish for juniors, and anywhere from $180 to $450/month for seniors depending on how expensive their books were and how often they bought new uniforms.

All sundries such as shampoo, room cleaning supplies, and boot polish came out of that salary btw, so a freshman's $40 or $60 would pretty much go 120% towards necessities.  Yes, that's more than 100% and the extra 20% went onto the credit card that 99% of the cadets opened up with either the base credit union or bank.  I was frugal and ended my freshman year with only $300 debt on my card.  My parents helped a lot too, since helping me with a few hundred bucks worth of stuff was a hell of a lot cheaper than helping pay to go to a regular university.

A year or two after I left, some congressman finally bumped cadet pay up to the surface on the legislative ocean and cadets finally got a pay raise.  Most of the raise went to cover the fact that they're now issued laptop computers instead of desktops, but I don't think the freshmen are stuck with $40/month paychecks anymore either.