Friend has a son that wants to join the corps...but will be coming in either this spring or next fall.

Can a kid Frog into the band?

Tough road? I know that frogging in, you miss a lot of the bonding that happens fish year.

Thoughts from recent grads? Thanks!

Not recent but I had a frog Junior my fish year in '82. It was pretty funny how the Seniors treated him although we were never allowed to "see" what was going on at the time. He didn't earn his Corps Brass until after we earned ours. He wore Sgt. Chevrons and then a Single Moon as a Senior. He was a smart dude. We,as fish, didn't have the same "respect" toward him as we did the other Juniors. He tended not to "deal' with us a lot. Dont' know whether he was allowed to or not. He survived, commissioned and later flew F-14s.

Saw others frog in. They didn't ever seem to have the same "intensity" of their fellow class mates toward underclassmen.

In frogging in, you miss 3/4s of what its all about.

75% of the Corps experience is fish year. 20-24.9% is being a Zip after having gone through 3 years of the Corps. Somewhere between 0.1-5% of the Corps experience is being a Head & Butt. I do not know how satisfying being a Zip would be w/out those 3 preceding years (especially fish year), I would guess less than 10% of what it would otherwise be. As a frog he would miss between 93%-97.4%* of what being in the Corps is all about.

I recommend joining as a fish & then jumping to his University class the following year, staying w/his corps class & becoming a Zip the semester before he graduates. I know guys who took those approaches & seemed to get the most out of it.

That being said I graduated a long time ago & was not in the band so everything is probably different.

*Because being a Zip w/out Fish, Head, Butt years is only 10% or less of being one w/those 3 years.

I knew a guy who did it my year. I remember him wearing fish spurs as a sophomore. It was weird. But I think he got along well with his buddies. I think he only missed his first semester, and to be honest I can't remember if he straight up joined the band in the spring of his fish year, or did Sq 18 for 1 semester and then frogged into the band.

I think he ended up getting bad grades and transferring to a school closer to home, but I still saw him come up to visit a few times.

We had one guy Frog in to my Aggie Band class as a Sophomore. Honestly, I never really got to know him too well. Of course he wasn't in my outfit and he was from Panama so his English wasn't the best. I think he was a fine human being and he certainly did all the PT and everything else required so he met all the standards. And after the attrition we had my fish year (only about 65 out of 110 made it to Final Review), we needed every classmate we could scrounge.

Talking recently to COL Hawes and BG Ramirez, it sounds like they've made some changes so that every Frog now has to be a fish for at least one semester these days.

Personally, I would recommend starting in the Fall. That's when the band is the busiest and that's when the majority of the "Good Bull" occurs. The Spring is much less frantic and everybody has already built relationships from the Fall semester. In my era, we had a couple of Sophomores and a Junior or two who "came back" after having missed the Fall semester due to academics and honestly, we never felt as strongly about those guys and never treated them the same as the upperclassmen who were with us there in the Fall. Fortunately, one of the Juniors who did this failed out permanently the same semester he "came back" so, that was a positive... but I digress.

Another thing to consider is that to get your Band Sweater, you have to have marched 3 Fall Semesters. So let's for argument's sake say your academic career only had 5 semesters left, I'd try to do 3 Fall Semesters and 2 Spring Semesters in the Band if possible.

Gen. Rudder was a frog. But I imagine it probably wasn't too big a deal back then.

It seems like frogs never got much respect. Since most people take more than 4 years I'd do four years in the Corps. That being said, we had three frogs in my BQ class, all well-liked. Two (including one now deceased) came in as pHeads. One came in after a fish year as a non-reg, spent a semester as a fish with '78 then joined our class in the spring. He spent 20 years as an Army officer.

Have him contact me at shawes@corps.tamu.edu and I'll fix him up. I need to find out his actual situation to give him an accurate answer but yes, transfer students can still join the Corps and Aggie Band. He would have to compete for a spot in the band by auditioning with the Band Director. He would also have to be a fish for at least one semester regardless of the number of academic hours he has.

Colonel (Ret) Sam Hawes '81
Corps Recruiting Officer

The FTAB doesn't take kindly to frogs. When I spent the night with the Corps, it was with the FTAB because I had intended to join the FTAB. The cadets told me in no uncertain terms that frogs were not welcome in the FTAB and they would do everything possible to get rid of any frog who attempted to join the FTAB.

I would hope that mentality has changed, but I'm not holding my breath. I would expect the kid to have a very difficult time.

One of my '01 buddies in A-Batt spent two years as a non-reg before joining. Someone had told him how important fish year is for the experience, so he came in as a fish, and did four years with us.

I wonder if someone with credit hours under their belt could start as a fish, and maybe start grad school their butt or zip year and still be in the Corps?

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I wonder if someone with credit hours under their belt could start as a fish, and maybe start grad school their butt or zip year and still be in the Corps?

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Yes. It's not easy, but it can be done.

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The FTAB doesn't take kindly to frogs. When I spent the night with the Corps, it was with the FTAB because I had intended to join the FTAB. The cadets told me in no uncertain terms that frogs were not welcome in the FTAB and they would do everything possible to get rid of any frog who attempted to join the FTAB.

I would hope that mentality has changed, but I'm not holding my breath. I would expect the kid to have a very difficult time.

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IIRC we had a guy frog in 2nd semester of his fish year. He was '05. He seemed to have fit in well and don't remember any unnecessary animosity towards him because of that. Pretty sure he fit in pretty well and finished with his class. Granted he had a steep learning curve coming in 2nd semester but it worked out.

The creation of Squadron 18 as an outfit for every frog to be a real fish first was a very good move by GVA. It changed the game for recruiting and retention. Retention of frogs was usually 0%-20% before Fall 2002. When '06 took command there wasn't anyone left who was around when SQ 18 did not exist and the attitude toward frogs completely changed. Sq 18 was pushing almost 50 fish a semester by the time '07 or '08 took command.

I'm glad to hear attitudes in the FTAB have changed for the better. Col. Toler was embarrassed at the way I was treated by them, particularly since I was active duty at the time and my commander was '69.

Col Hawes, I asked him to email you. Hopefully, he has. Supposedly getting conflicting stories on deadlines for the Spring. Is it too late?

Great. I don't think I've heard from him but can you give me his name so I can be looking for him. The deadline to have a completed application for Spring admissions for transfer students is 15 Oct.

It's very different now. There are 3 different frog outfits Sq. 18. K-1 and Sq. 23. Also, everyone spends at least a semester as a fish and then moves up to meet their class ranks. Also, frogs aren't necessarily looked down upon anymore. Last year's head yell leader, Patrick McGinty was a frog. So he'll be fine frogging in!