Requirements and Scholarships
High School Students
National scholarships are designed for high school seniors. The application window is during the first half of a student’s senior year and lies in conjunction with applying to college. The National Army ROTC scholarship program is run by the U.S. Army Cadet Command. The annual deadline to initiate an application for a four-year national scholarship is February 4th, 2024.
ROTC National Scholarship Requirements
- Be a U.S. citizen
- Be between the ages of 17 and 26
- Have a high school GPA of at least 2.50
- Have a high school diploma or equivalent
- Submit ACT or SAT test scores
- Meet physical standards
- Agree to accept a commission and serve in the Army on Active Duty or in a Reserve Component (Army Reserve or Army National Guard)
If you meet the basic requirements, below are the instructions on how to apply for a ROTC National Scholarship. You can get about 75% of the application completed in under an hour.
ROTC National Scholarship Process
Complete an on-line application that you can access. Applicants must initiate the on-line application by 4 February 2024. Remember your login and password for your cadet portal. Your login is the email you use to establish your account.
Submit high school transcripts (at least through junior year) and SAT or ACT scores. You can upload PDFs through your account in the Cadet portal.
Take the ROTC Basic Fitness Test. A coach or PE teacher can administer this for you.
Conduct an interview at one of the university ROTC programs (ideally where your first choice of college is). We can do this any time here at Eastern after you start the on-line application. We are more than willing to conduct a virtual interview if you live several hours away. Please reach us through our Contact page to set up an interview.
ROTC National Scholarship Timeline
The Army understands high school students could still be in the process of taking SATs and ACTs during their senior year. Because of this the Army has three different boards that meet throughout the year to select ROTC scholarship winners. Below is the board timeline.
12 June 2024: The portal opens on the GoArmy site to begin to build a ROTC scholarship application.
09 October 2024: All four steps listed above must be completed on the GoArmy site before this date to be considered by the first board. The application will not be considered if any of the steps are not completed. A benefit of completing the ROTC packet in time for the first board is that even if your packet is not selected it will be looked at again by the second and third boards thus increasing your chances of receiving a scholarship.
20 October 2024: This is the date that the first board convenes and reviews every packet that was submitted by the 09 October 2024 deadline.
15 January 2024: All four steps listed above must be completed on the GoArmy site before this date to be considered by the second board. The application will not be considered if any of the steps are not completed. A benefit of completing the ROTC packet in time for the second board is that even if your packet is not selected it will be looked at again by the third board thus increasing your chances of receiving a scholarship.
26 January 2024: This is the date that the second board convenes and reviews every packet that was submitted by the 11 January 2024 deadline.
4 March 2024: This is the deadline to initiate new 2024-2025 ROTC scholarship applications. If an application is not initiated by 1159pm EST it will not be considered by the final board. Those who already have an application open, can continue to modify the application past this deadline.
11 March 2024: All four steps listed above must be completed on the GoArmy site before this date to be considered by the third board. The application will not be considered if any of the steps are not completed.
22 March 2024: Board convenes and runs until every packet that was board ready by the start of the board, has been reviewed.
Please view the below video for more information about submitting an ROTC scholarship application.
Selection for ROTC scholarships are highly competitive and at SDSU Aztec Battalion, we recommend getting your application complete and seen in time for at least the second board. The majority of scholarships are issued from the second and third boards and getting the application completed by the second board will increase your chances of receiving a scholarship. Decisions on the scholarships awarded are usually released two to four weeks after each board. Periodically check the Selection Status tab on your GoArmy application to see if you were selected.
If you were not selected after the third board, do not give up hope of receiving a scholarship. There is a secondary process for applicants to earn a scholarship. Any ROTC program can make an alternate offer to applicants that were not offered a national award. We get many of our new, incoming freshmen on scholarships using this alternate process. Applying for the national scholarship is simply the first step. It is very simple and easy for us to make an alternate offer, but you first have to put together the ROTC application.
Please contact us for any additional details about how the national scholarship selection process works.
