The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

I'd like to work for the AFRL Aerospace Systems Directorate at Wright-Patterson AFB, but it's not listed in the dropdown box for location preferences. Is it worth writing in the facility name as "Other"? Because I kind of doubt that AFRL/RQ would see that I ranked them high if I just write them in (which is the whole point of ranking a facility).

Do you know that they hire for the scholarship? If so I would write them in as one of your options. Make sure your other two choices are strongly represented though.

I've seen people posting on here that they accept applicants. I'm just wondering if it's worth using one of my "preferred" slots on them if they're not even going to see that I ranked them. Because from what I hear, most facilities only look at applicants who ranked them in the top 3.

What did you mean by strongly represented?

I'm not sure about writing in but know that NOT ALL facilities filter out only applicants who listed them as a preference. I was interviews by at least 4 facilities I didn't select as a preference, 1 facility I did select and ended up being placed at a facility I hadn't listed.

airforce wrote:I've seen people posting on here that they accept applicants. I'm just wondering if it's worth using one of my "preferred" slots on them if they're not even going to see that I ranked them. Because from what I hear, most facilities only look at applicants who ranked them in the top 3.

What did you mean by strongly represented?

Like in your essay about where you'd think you'd be a good fit don't just talk about the one location. Make sure you mention other ones and general air force. Also think that anyone who you didn't pick as your top three will be looking via keywords and pulling applicants that way.

airforce wrote:I'd like to work for the AFRL Aerospace Systems Directorate at Wright-Patterson AFB, but it's not listed in the dropdown box for location preferences. Is it worth writing in the facility name as "Other"? Because I kind of doubt that AFRL/RQ would see that I ranked them high if I just write them in (which is the whole point of ranking a facility).

From my experience with AFRL/RQ, they do accept SMART scholars, but unfortunately they tend to look for applicants who have contacted someone already working in RQ, which seems strange. Because of this, most of their pool seems to be limited to those who have and are going to attend local schools near WPAFB. The only SMART scholars I have seen in RQ either got there through a change of SF (not easy) or they got in through some network/contacts. This is largely due to the fact that RQ isn't listed as a sponsoring facility.