ROTC or the 'Zoo'

[ExAF]

Albie

Albie,
Tried to send you a PM but your in-container is full.

 

[stonewall]

I think you can do enlisted in the Guard and ROTC at the same time. We have a guy who works in the unit and is ROTC guy at VMI. You can try to get pilot slots in both at the same time and see which one pans out.

Why go to the Academy? To be a career Air Force Officer! Just kidding. Seriously, I had a guy tell my class that you should NOT be at the Academy for 1) the free education 2) the prestige 3) to play intercollegiate sports 4) your parents wanted you to go or (the kicker) 5) to just be a pilot. Of course, EVERYONE I KNEW was at the Academy for one of those 5 reasons.

I think the class of 2010 that just came is around 50% pilot qualified. Your chances, in my opinion, to be an Air Force pilot (and then Guard/airline like me) are greater from AFA. It can be done from other avenues, but USAFA will likely be the greater odds. Up to you.

And, no, I do not regret going to Air Force over UVa, Hampden-Sydney, Cornell, Penn, or even 'Bama (Dad's alma mater). I don't feel my social skillz were stunted, and life since USAFA has been berry, berry, good to me. Would I do it again? Tough question, but probably yes, for the simple reason that in my year group I would NOT have gotten a pilot slot from ROTC. Good luck.

 

[BoilerUP]

Start filling out paperwork now if you can for an AFROTC scholarship...and yes, get that ACT up! A 29 overall (34 science) got me a Type II AFROTC scholarship for a general major (non engineering or meteorology). If I'd have gotten a 30, I could have secured a full ride. Study hard, and do better on the reading & comprehension than I did!!!

Until DoDMERB (the medical people) bounced me out of ROTC, it was an absolute *blast* if you could "play the game". I made lifelong friends from freshmen to the super-seniors and the butter bar we had who was a AFA grad working on a Masters in Physics. Still did football games, parties, intramural sports, and led a regular college life...I was just up earlier and worked out more than my hard-drinking non ROTC counterparts.

After getting let go from ROTC, I went Guard and thought I'd found heaven. I was lucky enough to get hired off the street for a UPT slot, and had AMS & UPT dates before Medical Flight Screening found my interocular pressure was too high and I got DQ'd. AGAIN. If I knew at 18 what I knew at 22, I'd have enlisted in the ANG my senior year of high school, attended ROTC while in college, busted my ass academically & in the unit and hopefully commissioned right into a Guard pilot slot.

Oh, one more thing...if you've got *anything* in your medical history that might even possibly disqualify you, be very very careful what you report. Don't ever lie or be dishonest, but if it doesn't effect your health or performance, nobody needs to know. Trust me...thats what hosed me out of ROTC.

 

[Joshrk22]

Could some of you ROTC guys post where you went to school and what your scores looked like to get a slot? (AFOQT, GPA, Hours in the Logbook, and how active)

What if you get a full ride but are DQ'd for a slot your senior year, do you still have to serve? I wouldn't mind going guard and flying commerically too, it just seems impossible from what I hear to get a slot through ANG.

How many slots are offered to each detachment? When I finish college I plan on having the 200+ hours of flight time so I can max my points out on that. Will this help me much towards my PCSM, from what I hear, it will.

I'm thinkin' the ROTC way is the way for me, but we'll see; just gotta' bust my a$$ for a UPT slot through there.

Is it possible to get a 99 on your PCSM and not get selected? Just curious...

 

[frog_flyer]

You are contracted after you return from field training, which most times is when you return to school for your junior year.

PCSM is only 15% (or is it 10?) of your OM score, so yes it is possible. What matters is your commander's ranking. That's 50% of your OM, and if you suck balls and he hates you, you are not going to get a slot.

I take the afoqt on saturday, got 30 on act, and 60 hours and ppl. 15 months I'll know if I have a slot or not!

Slots aren't allocated to certain detachments. There will be some dets that go 7/7 and others that will go 0/7. Your pilot selection is independent of the selection of anyone else in your det.

the 200 hours, yes it maxes out the pcsm. Is it worth the 10k to get the extra hundred hours? no.

But, my CC said that in his IP exp, there was a noticeable difference between guys with <150 and >150 hours. I doubt I'll have that many by the time my packet goes out, but I will be above 100.

 

[HarryShadow]

Could some of you ROTC guys post where you went to school and what your scores looked like to get a slot? (AFOQT, GPA, Hours in the Logbook, and how active)

What if you get a full ride but are DQ'd for a slot your senior year, do you still have to serve? I wouldn't mind going guard and flying commerically too, it just seems impossible from what I hear to get a slot through ANG.

How many slots are offered to each detachment? When I finish college I plan on having the 200+ hours of flight time so I can max my points out on that. Will this help me much towards my PCSM, from what I hear, it will.

I'm thinkin' the ROTC way is the way for me, but we'll see; just gotta' bust my a$$ for a UPT slot through there.

Is it possible to get a 99 on your PCSM and not get selected? Just curious...

I didn’t decide to join ROTC until late my sophomore year in college. I had like a 2.7 GPA in high school, no idea what my ACT scores were, I didn’t take any honors classes (in case my 2.7 GPA didn’t clue you into that), not a single hour flying a plane, etc…I just cared about playing sports. So, when I walked into the ROTC office my sophomore year in college, I brought nothing to the table…except that I had some SA, good athletic background, and was a pretty solid kid!!! I had to take the AFOQT twice just to get my scores up to the minimum level for a pilot. Basically, I didn’t know what to expect…I just rolled with the punches!!!

So, I had to play a quick game of catch up…went to field training that summer, got DG; scored 470+ on every PFT I took; volunteered as much as I could; dang near got a 4.0 every semester; showed my PAS I was legit and just busted my tail…got the pilot slot one year after joining and never looked back! Above all things, I was a good dude (I think) and legitimately tried to help others without sucking up to every officer/NCO in my Det (like many do). So, what I’m trying to say is…there is no magic formula to succeed as a cadet, officer, pilot, etc.!!! It just boils down to good ole fashion effort and accepting nothing but 100%from yourself!!!.

As far as getting DQ’d your senior year (assuming you’ve completed field training or are on scholarship)…if you get DQ’d from the AF because of a medical occurrence, I don’t think you’d owe the AF a dime. If you just get DQ’d as a pilot candidate but are still medically qualified to become an officer, then you still serve (and you should WANT to still serve). Personal goals aside, the USAFA, ROTC, OTS doesn’t exist just to produce pilots…it’s exists to produce officers who support the overall AF mission!!! You sound like a bright kid, so I’d encourage you to give series consideration to what you’d do in the AF if the flying thing doesn’t work out for whatever reason.

Good luck to you!

 

[JimNtexas]

I went to USAFA. I could have taken the ROTC scholarship to Florida. There's no way to know what might've happened in the long run, but if I had it all to do over again, I'd've been a Gator. And if I had known about the ANG or Reserve, that probably would have been an even better way to go, too. Good luck, either way.

In my first squadron I was crewed with a pilot who went to Florida on a ROTC scholarship. He's a two star general now. One of the good ones.

 

[Bob Sacamano]

Ever notice.....?

One thing I could not get over in flight school was how EVERY IP had "jet grades." It was one of the first things brought up in every brief. Hack, WX, NOTAMS, "I had jet grades." Dudes must just love vert rep!!!

Similarly, every slam on any of the service academies is almost always prefaced with, "I could have gone to The Academy, but..." What does that tell you?

Go guard if you just want to fly a cool airplane. Fellow Grads I knew / know from the AFA who hated, and thus bad-mouthed the zoo the most, thought of it purely as a means to an end (UPT) only to wind up in a missile silo in ND!!!

BTW, Albie, you strayed from your usual outstanding, well-informed posts with second or third--hand Academy rhetoric. There are plenty of disgruntled AFA / USNA guys just waiting to run their schools into the ground first-hand, but they EARNED the right to do so (by marching to meals, spending a month in Europe on the AF's dime, skiing every other weekend, flying in everything from gliders to F-16s, free-fall skydiving, dropping out of Russian after the wall fell, standing an ORI or SAMI after an all-nighter, having to take thermodynamics as an English major, learning about satellite orbital patterns (boo, hiss), etc, etc, etc and YES, waiting (lurking) in the closet hoping the roommate gets lucky ).

$.02

 

[AlbieF15]

Bob,

I didn't know I had to "earn" the right to say I didn't want to go to college in what closely resembles boy's school. The "have sex sex while my roomies watched" anecdote was second hand. I never got into that kind of stuff--one of the reasons I had my own apartment in college vice living in a dorm or a fraternity house. A gentleman doesn't talk. He certainly doesn't humilate his date by turning her into a porn show.

All that aside--you are correct. An academy cadet gets some awesome opportunities. I've probably flown a dozen academy cadets around in F-15s if I've flown one. I certainly never got to do that as ROTC cadet. I also flew gliders--but I paid for it--and I'm envious whenever I meet an AFA grad who was a soaring IP. What an awesome deal! Another good bro, now a squadron commander, was on the academy parachute team. A current F-15 WIC grad was an academy cadet visiting our squadron and was at my F15 callsign party in Alaska. We were later FTU IPs together. So--absolutely--there are some really cool opportunities if you get involved.

When pilot slots get tight--we also know the AFA will get most of them. So--a little luck and little SA on the current pilot demand will also be important for those making such an important choice.

Again--AFA has some great benefits. However, I completely dug being a real college student, doing real college student stuff. My gold bars still got me in the door at UPT, and I still got to fly my dream fighter. Lots of ways to get there... I didn't get to fly an F-15 in ROTC, but I did kayak the Natahala River several times. I didn't visit a missile silo, but ran down to Panama City and made several SCUBA trips offshore and in some local springs. Life is rich, and I figured I was going to enough in the military when I got there, so I wanted to do some other things along the way. I also had a couple of jobs--you know--real ones! If anything, they gave me an even greater appreciation for the fact I get to make a living flying now.

And yeah...I had "jet grades..." In my day at UPT it was called "FAR qual'd", or Fighter/Attack/Recon. I don't remember ever bragging about it--just enjoying the heck out of the last 20 years of flying the OV-10 and F-15.

 

[Joshrk22]

When do you have to sign the contract for AFROTC? If you don't get a scholarship do you pay for the AFROTC classes?