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Too long, didn't read. But my experience at A&M was in fact within the last 5 years. You are out of touch, Sir.

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Too long for you to read? I guess we should not have read yours epistle then?

I was unaware that the current cadets in the Corps at A&M are obligated for a minimum of two years as you stated in the text of your epistle?

Can someone please verify that? To me that was the rule prior to 1965, not today's all volunteer Corps of Cadets.

All cadets in the Aggie Corps must be enrolled in Freshman/Sophomore ROTC classes regardless of commissioning or not.

All NCOs hate west pointers and Love Aggies. EOT.

So I will expose my bias by saying that I was an Aggie cadet, and have a graduate degree from TAMU as well. I'm also a serving Army officer. I've taught at TAMU and have good friends who have attended and taught at USNA and USMA.

With that said it really kind of comes down to what type of experience you want. The academies do give you a good education, however I wouldn't overstate the academics. They are not research institutions, and the majority of the instructors at both academies hold masters degrees in their fields and are serving military officers. This is not to say that they are poor instructors. However it is really not the same as taking classes from someone who is at the top of their field and creating the most current scholarship on the subject. There are some civilian and military professors at these institutions that have terminal degrees in their fields. Yet the academies are teaching institutions not research institutions, and in higher education we generally draw a line between the two for a reason. I would point out that a good number of people who are selected to teach at the academies come to Texas A&M for their graduate education. So getting a chance to learn from the people who taught academy instructors can't be disregarded.

Now you will have smaller class sizes at the academies from the beginning, which is nice, but that in its self does not translate into better. I also think it is a mistake to say that because the students who are admitted have higher standardized test scores the education is better. At the academies the students are all their to achieve the same goal commissioning. So they are less likely to be exposed to ideas that challenge their beliefs, at a school like Texas A&M you will find professors and students alike that have vastly different views than you do. From my perspective it is good to be exposed to things that you disagree with. I also think there is something to be said for being exposed to the wider world beyond the military.

While I won't argue that you will get more military training at the academies, I hesitate to say that make you a better officer in the end. There are great officers from the academies and terrible officers from the academies, as there are from TAMU as well. However I would argue that you get a better leadership experience at TAMU. Cadets have far more control at Texas A&M over the Corps itself than they do at the academies. From what I've seen that gives cadets more of an opportunity to struggle with leadership challenges before commissioning. They also have the chance to try and figure out how to lead people who have no interest in the military which is a unique leadership challenge in its self.

I could say a lot more but the bottom line is both have their virtues, and largely the experience will largely be what you make of it. However I will leave you with this, my best friend who went to USMA came down to TAMU on one of the spirit trips when they played us in football. I took him and all of his buddies around the campus talked about the experience showed them what life at TAMU was like. They all said they wished they would have known about the Corps of Cadets before they went to USMA because they would have probably gone to TAMU instead. These were all men who had served in the Army for several years as soldiers before going to USMA so they all had a bit of an idea of what the Army was really like. Either way you will get a good experience, just don't waste it.

This will be one the "too long, didn't read" crowd can go ahead and skip right now. I will probably repeat some of my earlier comments, so sorry.

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First, Mark, congratulations for raising such a fine young man. I admire both his his desire to serve and his desire to pay for it himself. To directly answer a question from your OP, if he attends Texas A&M, and desires to go through ROTC for commissioning, he will be required to join the Corps of Cadets. In my day, the two were basically the same thing, today, they are run separate to a certain extent. I think that is a shame, as I saw direct conflict between my son's NROTC cadre and the Corps, when they should be working together.

As far as the money involved, a general answer would be that a ROTC scholarship pays full tuition, with a small stipend to help pay for room and board. I believe that every Aggie cadet also receives a small scholarship to assist with that, as well.

An academy appointment is fully paid. He will pay nothing for room and board, tuition, etc. and receive a small salary. There are some fees deducted from that salary. For instance, in my daughter's day, they all had to buy the same laptop computer. The money for that was drawn from their paycheck.

These are general answers, you should go to the respective Academy and ROTC web sites for full information.

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Let's talk commissioning in general. There are several paths to becoming a second lieutenant or ensign. All of them lead to the same place, all officers are equal. Battlefield commissions from the enlisted ranks have gone the way of the dodo, but there is still OCS, ROTC, and Academy. The Marines have a sub form of OCS, called PLC, where you basically do OCS in the summers during your college career.

The difference from your point of view is going to be how much of his time is required, and how much monetary benefit he accrues. Basically, the more he gives up his free time, the more financial benefit, although there is little financial benefit gained from ROTC at A&M than ROTC anywhere else.

The following is going from memory, please Google up each to confirm my faulty memory. Any corrections gladly accepted.

If he goes Officer Candidate School (OCS) there will be no financial help for college. However, his college years and summer will be totally his own. He can attend any college.

Marine Platoon Leaders Class (PLC) he will give up about 6 weeks out of the two summers before his junior and senior years. No commitment during school. A small stipend will be available after he completes his first summer training. He can attend any college.

ROTC, there can be up to four years of scholarship money for tuition, plus a small stipend. The stipend is also given to junior and senior cadets not on scholarship. IIRC, Navy ROTC cadets on scholarship spend six weeks every summer on cruise. The other time commitment is a one hour class per semester as a fish and sophomore years, three hours per semester as an upperclassman, plus occasional drill. Your college choices are a bit more limited, as he must choose one with a ROTC detachment. There are fewer Naval ROTCs than Army or Air Force, so that limits his choices more. The preceding refers to ROTC at normal colleges, more about A&M later.

If he goes the Academy route, the financial rewards increase, the time commitment increases greatly. An Academy education is fully paid, plus salary. But he will be reporting for basic training by mid June after high school graduation. He will not be coming home until Christmas. You will not be able to visit him until September. His weekends will mostly be taken. He will not have a car until his junior year. He will get three weeks off in the summer. He will get Christmas break and Spring break.

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To discuss A&M versus other ROTCs, let's talk about officer training in general. Obviously, the cheapest route for the military is OCS. It probably costs them less than $10,000 to produce an officer this route. ROTC is next, maybe $40,000 to $50,000. But the chance to teach, train and observe the candidate greatly increased. Most expensive is an Academy. Probably a quarter to a half million dollars per officer. You can see why Congress sometimes questions the need for an Academy system. But as above, the training time, the evaluation, the teaching, all go up exponentially in an Academy setting.

And even at that, the attrition rate at an Academy is about 25% from enrollment to graduation. After graduation, lots of grads take the "five and dive" (known as "five and fly at USAFA) option, serving only five years before leaving active duty. Not a great return on investment for West Point.

But the Services all feel that their Academy is the best way to produce a core cadre of professional officers. So they fight tooth and nail to keep them, and keep them fully funded. And they support them fully. For instance, my daughter's USAFA soccer team went to some away games aboard KC-135s. Each squadron of 100 cadets had an officer and a senior NCO assigned to it full time. Military equipment is constantly being brought in or flown over. USAFA has a powered flight, glider, and parachute program. Cadets get overseas assignments or study abroad programs. In short, cadets get to see or do things that Aggie cadets can only dream of. We don't have the money.

ROTC was originally just that, Reserve Officer Training Corps. You earned a reserve commission, and it was a big deal to earn a regular commission like the academies got. The idea was to train officers, have them serve a short time, and then they would go back to their factories, farms, and offices and wait for the balloon to go up. WWII was the height of that system.

There is no longer a reserve/regular distinction. For that matter, there is no longer a need for a huge cadre of trained officers waiting for the next huge land war needing millions of troops, therefore tens of thousands of officers. So ROTC is just another way of training officers. You can do that the minimum way, as most ROTCs do, or you can follow the academy model, as A&M does, and do the other Senior Military Colleges (VMI, Citadel, etc.)

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So A&M is somewhat "academy light". We feel that having cadets live together and train together offers more leadership opportunities and training than "normal" ROTC with one class a week and drill on Saturday morning. Because A&M has such a long and distinguished military past, and because we are a SMC, we do get extra funding and attention. Nowhere near as much as an academy, but better than ROTC.

Since the need for officers is not as intense, A&M tries to focus on leadership in a more general sense. And there are a lot of time and training requirements that normal ROTC students don't have to endure. And since cadets are the visible face of A&M, the University imposes their own requirements. Seems like every time a new crapper is opened on campus, it requires the Band and a Yell Practice.

So his time as an Aggie Cadet will be much less free than a normal ROTC cadet, it will not be near as restricted as an Academy Cadet.

And Kudos to General Ramirez and the Corps of Cadets Association. They have worked hard to initiate study abroad and exchange programs that mirror some of the extra opportunities that academies have long enjoyed,

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So which should your kid choose? I don't have a clue.

I love A&M. I love the Corps of Cadets. Both have their faults, both have had some problems. Same is true of the Academies. I am very encouraged by the direction the Aggie Corps is taking under General Ramirez. Full disclosure, he was one of my BQ underclassmen.

If he wants the training, the lifelong friendships, the pride, the tradition, the network.....but he wants a semi-normal college life, choose A&M.

You, as a non-reg, are an Aggie. But being an Aggie Cadet takes you into the heart of the history and traditions of A&M to a level that other Aggies can't quite comprehend. It's the difference in cheering the passing parade and being in the parade.

If he's gung-ho intense, and 100% certain a 20 or 30 year military career is in his future, then shoot for the Academy. Actually, he should be applying for and shooting for both, so his options are open.

If he is shooting for a very limited field, then he definitely should shoot for the academy. As I mentioned earlier, half of the yearly pilot slots in the Air Force go to USAFA. ROTC, OCS, and the Guard/Reserve fight for the rest.

For A&M or the Academies, there will certainly be great things, but there will be elements they hate. I recall talking to a Colonel at USAFA who said he hated everything about the Academy for the first 5 years after graduation, and that it took him 20 years to begin to love and treasure his time there.

Both A&M and the Academies will have respect and alumni networks within the military, though obviously the academies win on sheer numbers. But he will rise or fall on his on merits, an Aggie or USNA ring will only take him so far.

And you don't have to be a ring-knocker or Aggie to do well. We Aggies love to bag on TTech. But their ROTCs produced fighter pilot and astronaut Rick Husband and General (four star) Richard E. Cavazos.

My daughter wanted to be an astronaut (oh well) and was planning to be an Aggie. We told her that to do that, she probably should be a pilot, and to do that, USAFA was her best option. This was in about 5th grade. She set her sights on USAFA and never looked back. She is now a pilot in the Air Force, having flown T-6s and T-38s, and just finished a tour as a T-6 FAIP. She has an F-16 training slot, and will head there, we hope, after she recovers from being hit by a drunk driver.

She has no regrets about the path she took, though I think there is a bit of jealousy over the lack of a normal college experience, and she would have loved going to A&M. Heck, she and her buddies often say they should have gone Guard and picked their aircraft, instead of having to compete for slots like they did.

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Now let's address some of the other points.

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The academies are highly selective and basically Ivy League institutions. They set you up for life in and out of the service, much more so than A&M. Go look at the bios for flag officers and tell me if you notice any trends.

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The Academies are highly selective because they draw from a nationwide pool and offer huge financial incentives. It's the difference in Miss Brazos County with a $500 prize and Miss America with a $50,000 prize. Set you up for life? I guess, if you are going to spend life in a confined environment where you never deal with civilians. As far as the flag officer Bios, I can point out lots of Aggies. Considering that the Academies turn out 3000 officers every year, and A&M maybe 400, the numbers are hardly surprising.

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The Academies offer a far superior alumni network, spread across the country and much more willing to lend a hand than the Aggie network.

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I'm going to call bull***t on this one. Is the Academy alumni network stronger in the military? Sure. Is it spread more widely, agree again. Superior? Don't make me laugh. While the Aggie Network is stronger in Texas, it is certainly nationwide and worldwide. And Aggies win on sheer numbers overall. West Point puts out 1,000 grads a year. A&M puts out well over 12,000 per year. More willing to lend a hand? Again, I strongly doubt it.

And keep in mind that there is a lot of cross-pollination. I recall a few years ago when the Superintendent of West Point had two sons at A&M. I have a daughter who attended USAFA, a son who was an Aggie cadet. Lots of Academy grads get advanced degrees at A&M. Lots of Aggies teach at the Academies ,etc,etc,

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Academics may not be quite Ivy League, but are much stronger than A&M just on the basis of the quality of students you are surrounded by and how competitive the environment is by nature

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I'll agree with this to a certain extent. Almost everyone at an Academy is a type-A personality. Most were leaders in their high schools. You can certainly push a class of hard-chargers further than you can a class of varied levels.

But A&M wins on quality of faculty. We are a major research university, which brings in money and faculty. Good people teach at the academies, but their administration and many faculty are simply officers on rotation. I know a fantastic young lady on her way to a teaching assignment at USAFA. She is smart, accomplished....and has never taught a class in her life. She may do great, she may flop.

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As a military science instructor at A&M, 1/2 of the first and second year students had no desire to be there, and brought the class as a whole down. These were the Aggie Band types and others who had no real desire to serve, but rather wore the uniform to be part of the fraternity and were required to attend military science classes for 2 years.

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If you were wondering why people are offended at your attitude, please note that you basically called half the Aggie cadets d****bags. While I don't deny there are "fraternity" types, please note that cadets who are paying their own freaking way through school might not be as gung-ho as someone on a full ride.

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The lifestyle is harder than A&M, because there are no off-post privileges for underclassmen and there is nowhere to hide from the system. However, the freshmen year at USMA/USNA are much less strict that the freshman year at A&M. The senior year is less relaxed, however, so the range of experiences by class is more narrow than at A&M.

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Along these lines, in some ways, it is harder to be a cadet at A&M. At an Academy, everyone is in the same boat, and all the faculty, students, and staff are focused on supporting you and keeping you in school. Other colleges respect you. You probably got your name in the paper, and maybe even a big send-off when you reported. If you want to quit, you give up a lot of money, you leave all your friends, you change colleges, you have to return to your friends and family as a quitter.

At A&M, a lot of the other students and faculty are antagonistic. Other colleges give you crap. If you want to quit, you simply move across campus, keep a lot of the same friends, continue in the same classes.

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ACT/SAT scores at the academies are at least a full standard deviation above A&M. That's significant.

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Average SAT USMA: 1894, Texas A&M 1734, on a 2400 point scale. That doesn't seem earth shattering. I'm an Ag major, so someone else will have to tell me if that's "one full deviation". In addition, West Point is not constrained by a "Top 10%" rule.

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Agree that if you want to study poetry or social work or some other useless degree than don't go to an academy.

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I find it highly amusing that you refuse to acknowledge that there are plenty of "fuzzy majors" at West Point.

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So I will expose my bias by saying that I was an Aggie cadet, and have a graduate degree from TAMU as well. I'm also a serving Army officer. I've taught at TAMU and have good friends who have attended and taught at USNA and USMA.

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Great post, said a lot of the things I agree with, in a much more concise way.

Wow CanyonAg77 - that was a really worthwhile read... Gig 'em!!

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Your personal anecdotes are pretty irrelevant

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Other than saying I had an Academy kid and an Aggie kid, it was facts and observation, you were the ones giving anecdotes.

And the Aggie Network has not reached out to you? Perhaps you ought to be the one taking charge and doing the reaching out.

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Too long, didn't read. But my experience at A&M was in fact within the last 5 years. You are out of touch, Sir.

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If you aren't going to take the time to read a post, then don't reply to it. Especially in a condescending manner.

neutics said:

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henry07 said:

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ACT/SAT scores at the academies are at least a full standard deviation above A&M. That's significant.

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That's because they have a set number they can let in by law. It's called "creaming." It says nothing about what someone learns at the institution. I was in the Army with some West Point Officers that were worthless as anything. "But they had better SAT's."

So, no, it's not significant, except in a statistical sense. A&M produces students with an outstanding education, period.