Based on your interest in this post, you may already be familiar with the term “service academy”. You might even be inclined to prefer one service academy over the others. Either way, I’d like to review all 5 service academies to make sure you’re aware of all of the options.

Remember, attending a service academy is not the same as going to a traditional college on an ROTC scholarship. Yes, there are some similarities. In both cases, you graduate after 4 years as a...

Depending on what types of programs you are applying to, class selection can play a major role. 

Which classes should you choose over the next three years to position yourself well in the eyes of service academy and ROTC selection boards? I’d like you to think about these decisions across 3 dimensions.

Dimension #1: How challenging are your classes (we refer to that as “rigor”);

Dimension #2: Do your “class choices” tell a story about you (we refer to...

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...

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...