Dude, I'm going through the EXACT same thing, except you're two years ahead of me.
I've gone through my fair share of people putting their limiting beliefs on me, telling me things like "you'll never get a top secret clearance" or a Sgt from tech school saying "It's almost impossible for an enlisted person to become a pilot".
The Academy just isn't my preferred method of higher education, simply because I have more of an interest in enjoying my college years in a civilian environment with the discipline I've been taught in the past year pursuing a degree that I enjoy, rather than going through tech school again for four years.
The way I figure, the Air Force cares more about your APTITUDE than what avenue of education you take.
As for the ARCO books, just go out and buy them, so you can write/highlight in them.
I'm halfway through my CDC's and I'm going to start studying the ARCO military flight aptitude test book as well as the officer candidate book, so that'll give me two year's time to study that as well as get my private pilot's license.
Check out wantscheck.com if you already haven't, it's a great resource and they have all kinds of book and movie reccomendations.
It's good to see people talking about this on here, because there isn't that many threads on getting an enlisted scholarship
