Community College ROTC Transfer

[Guest RaptorOhEight22]

Greetings, I am currently enrolled in City College taking roughly 15 units, and I want to know if its possible to transfer to ROTC after 2 years? My primary goal is the AFA, but I want ROTC as a back-up and I'm not sure how you can transfer to a 4-year University with an AA degree and still get into ROTC for 4 years. I understand that I can't simply "join" ROTC as a Junior and automatically be on scholarship, attend FT, etc, so I want to know if its even possible. Any advice would be appreciated.

[USAF Pirate]

You'll need to talk to a detachment cadre staff to be sure, but under certain situations we have cadets come in as sophomores and stay for 2.5 years. That seems to be the minimum amount of time that cadets are required to be in ROTC (at our detachment at least).

1 year as a sophomore to be sure they are prepared for Field Training, and then every cadet is required to have all four Aerospace Studies courses for Juniors and Seniors (Fall AS300, Spring AS300, Fall AS400, Spring AS400) but our cadets are given the option to double up the spring semester of junior year (so they take Spring AS300 and Spring AS400) so they can graduate in the Fall.

[PPTninja]

We have a guy at our det who came in this year as an academic junior. He's going to FT this summer with us AS200s and will be a senior next year. He's already got a CSO slot and hasnt even completed FT yet. So I guess it is possible. Probably on a case-by-case basis.

Btw, he's not a prior-E.

Edited March 19, 2010 by Hokadet

[Guest RaptorOhEight22]

Will transferring in as an Academic Junior effect/hurt your chances of a pilot slot?

[USAF Pirate]

If you join as an academic junior as Hokadet mentioned, you will get get 5 out of 10 points for the Field Training portion of the Order of Merit score (FT is 10% of the score that determines if you get a pilot slot) because you have not attended Field Training yet. That isn't so bad considering that Top Third of FT ranking gets 8 points (Superior performer gets 9 points, Top Gun gets 10 points).

The other thing to consider is that you will only have one full semester to impress your cadre for their commander's ranking (50% of the OM score). While you will be competing with Juniors who are POC, have had 2.5 years to impress the cadre, are holding POC leadership positions, you won't be a POC, won't have a leadership position (because you aren't POC), and you are new.

If you showed up, kicked ass, scored extremely well on the PFA, tried to demonstrate leadership without being in a leadership position, etc (basically made an amazing first impression) you might make up for the odds that are against you.

If you show up, do average on the PFA, don't participate as much, you will likely blend into the crowd and wind up in the bottom half of the commander's ranking, thereby eliminating your chances of earning that pilot slot.

Edited March 19, 2010 by USAF Pirate

[Guest RaptorOhEight22]

Thank you very much for the info; I'm going to contact my local ROTC detachments (I doubt I can go out of state) and see what their individual takes are on this is.

Another question, is it possible to be enrolled in the program and take classes while still taking Community College classes, or do you have to be in a 4-year U?

[Guest yousayahhyes]

Ok I may have some insight for you on this one. I am 27 years old and am graduating ROTC in December and received my pilot slot recently. I had an AA degree in business and transferred to a 4 year school with ROTC. I decided to except a language scholarship and that basically added another year to my schooling. Most of my transfer credits fulfilled the university requirements but the degree requirements would take about three years including the few university requirements that were not met. I actually was supposed to graduate next May but since I have been an academic senior already as a 300 level cadet the cadre are letting me finish a semester early.

So my question to you is can you stretch your two years into three? I changed majors and was able to come in is a 200, go to field training then compete for a pilot slot with my own class and have that year plus field training to help my order of merit. I waited almost too long to join but if you are young enough just think about changing degrees or stretching it out another year. It worked for me and I pulled down a pilot slot with only one year as a GMC.

The only way to be enrolled in ROTC at a community college is if a detachment has a cross town deal with your CC. We have cross town cadets from 3 other schools at our detachment. Your best bet would be if you could transfer and still have three years or at least two and half of school left to participate in ROTC. I think your chances would be better then trying to go in as 300 GMC and competing for a slot. Besides with Allocations being harder to come by they may not let you in as a junior level cadet unless you had more than two years of school left. Just my opinion and my experience with the whole thing. Good Luck to you.