Army ROTC, Bachelor's Master's program

[perrywinkle208]

I am currently a freshman ROTC Cadet. I was awarded a 4-year National Army ROTC scholarship. This scholarship's requirement is that I serve as an Army Officer after I get my Bachelor's degree. I can forfeit this scholarship before I become a sophomore without any negative effects such as having to pay back the Army. The first year is basically a trial period. I am more interested in the work involved with this scholarship after graduation than the work involved with the Army ROTC scholarship. My first question is: would listing this scholarship award and the fact that I have experience as an ROTC Cadet help me?

Also my school has a joint Bachelor's-Master's program but I can not apply until I have 95 credits completed. The only real requirement is a 3.4 gpa. This should not be a problem because I currently have a 3.83 gpa. For my proposed degree should I apply for a joint Bahelor's-Master's program and ask my advisor when he believes I would be able to find out when I will find out if I am accepted or should I just apply for a Bachelor's program?

Thirdly, is there an estimate to when the scholarship results will be given out?

Thank you in advance.

[Larry]

I am currently a freshman ROTC Cadet. I was awarded a 4-year National Army ROTC scholarship. This scholarship's requirement is that I serve as an Army Officer after I get my Bachelor's degree. I can forfeit this scholarship before I become a sophomore without any negative effects such as having to pay back the Army. The first year is basically a trial period. I am more interested in the work involved with this scholarship after graduation than the work involved with the Army ROTC scholarship. My first question is: would listing this scholarship award and the fact that I have experience as an ROTC Cadet help me?

Also my school has a joint Bachelor's-Master's program but I can not apply until I have 95 credits completed. The only real requirement is a 3.4 gpa. This should not be a problem because I currently have a 3.83 gpa. For my proposed degree should I apply for a joint Bahelor's-Master's program and ask my advisor when he believes I would be able to find out when I will find out if I am accepted or should I just apply for a Bachelor's program?

Thirdly, is there an estimate to when the scholarship results will be given out?

Thank you in advance.

Quoting your ROTC scholarship won't hurt and I regularly hired CO-OP students who had left ROTC. Their experience in the ways of the Navy was helpful.

You don't say what degree you are going for, which would be relevant to the selection panel. I can't say if a Bachelors/Masters Program helps or hurts you. However, I think it shows you are driven and squared away.

I highly recommend looking at the Army Research facilities online. Figure out which one does what you want to do when you graduate and talk to them directly. Find your dream boss, with your dream job and talk to them about SMART as a way they can bring you on board while someone else (OSD) pays your tuition and stipend. Then they can put a face to a name when they are reviewing packages at the Sponsoring Facility level.

The goal of the SMART Program is to award scholarships on a timeline that is consistent with other scholarships (eg, March/April). I don't see any show stoppers that would prevent that from happening.

ATB & good luck!
Larry

[perrywinkle208]

You don't say what degree you are going for, which would be relevant to the selection panel. I can't say if a Bachelors/Masters Program helps or hurts you. However, I think it shows you are driven and squared away.

In the SMART application it asks for proposed degree. My question is whether I should put Joint Bachelor's-Master's or just Bachelor's as I would not be able to find out whether I am accepted into my school's Joint Bachelor's-Master's program until probably after my first semester as a Junior.

Thank you for all of your previous advice

[Larry]

You don't say what degree you are going for, which would be relevant to the selection panel. I can't say if a Bachelors/Masters Program helps or hurts you. However, I think it shows you are driven and squared away.

In the SMART application it asks for proposed degree. My question is whether I should put Joint Bachelor's-Master's or just Bachelor's as I would not be able to find out whether I am accepted into my school's Joint Bachelor's-Master's program until probably after my first semester as a Junior.

Thank you for all of your previous advice

Sounds like Bachelors program is all you are sure of at this time. Always good to put your "hopes and dreams" in the narrative, but right now you are in the Bachelors program.

Honestly, your ROTC scholarship is an incredible deal. Army does well by it's engineers (depending on the discipline), so don't walk away yet...

[perrywinkle208]

Thank you for your advice. I don't plan on walking away from my scholarship; I know it's a goo deal. I just think I'd like what I would be doing with the SMART scholarship after college more. The only way I would drop my ROTC scholarship is if I found out I had the SMART scholarship before the start of my sophomore year, then the scholarship would go to someone else at my school.