In today’s post, we’re discussing a question that I hear often from the ServeWell community:

“Should I consider applying to multiple service academies and/or ROTC?”

The short answer is, yes.

The longer answer is, it depends.

Let’s start with the “yes” answer.

YES

You should absolutely at least consider applying to multiple service academies as well as ROTC programs. 

The selectivity of service academies is so high (and often unpredictable) that unless you are an “officially recruited” a...

In this post, I’d like to walk through some of the similarities and differences in the admissions process between service academies (SAs) and ROTC programs.

Just to review, service academies (e.g. West Point, Naval Academy, Air Force Academy, etc.) have their own discrete campuses where you will live, work, study, drill, and play for four years. They are traditional military academies, known for their grandeur, structure, discipline, military bearing, tradition and uniforms - the whole 9 yards...

In today’s post, we reviewthe types of extracurricular activities (“ECAs”) you might want to pursue to catch the attention of service academies and ROTC selection boards. Of course, this will not be an exhaustive list as you can make almost any activity work if you play your cards right.

Let’s start out with some of the usual suspects that have a long history of credibility with SAs and ROTC.

SCOUTING

Scouting used to be called “Boy Scouts”, but is now called “Scouting” because it includes ...

What is ROTC?

Many of us have heard about the 5 service academies:

1. The United States Military Academy (West Point)
2. The United States Naval Academy
3. The United States Air Force Academy
4. The United States Coast Guard Academy
5. The United States Merchant Marine Academy

In this blog post, I want to talk about ROTC programs.

Honestly, in my experience, not many students (or parents for that matter) even know what ROTC is. Your parents may have heard of “ROTC” before (aka “ROTSIE”), they may ...