I’ve been getting a lot of comment posts, emails, and discussion board inquires about the board process and changes in scholarship application statuses (or lack thereof). Here are some of the questions and the answers:
The board met today and my status hasn’t changed yet???
The board date is just the start date. Each board takes about a week to review and score thousands of files. Think about the numbers…each year there are about 10K applicants that complete their file and are boarded. That means each board is going to be looking at somewhere between 2 and 4 thousand files. To the best of my knowledge a board is made up of 4-5 Lieutenant Colonels that go to Fort Knox and sit on the board. They are locked in a room and review files all day.
The answer is…be patient.
My status changed to “boarded”, is an offer imminent???
The board has nothing to do with the offers. The offer process is separate from the board process. Once the board is released from that locked room the next step is to take all those file scores, add them to the scores from the previous boards that didn’t get offers and then start working down the list to make offers. So, essentially someone takes the file with the highest score and looks at the list of schools. If the first school on the list has allocations left then an offer is made. If not then we look at the second school on the list and they work down the list of schools. Some of those offers may be 4 year and some may be three year offers.
The answer is…No…be patient.
Will my status change once the process is over with if I don’t get an offer???
This one is a tough one, because I don’t have visibility of applicant end results. To the best of my knowledge statuses probably won’t change. I have seen applicants who didn’t get an offer receive an email in the past encouraging them to enroll in Army ROTC if they still want to become an Army Officer. I usually send out a similar email to my applicants that don’t get offers, especially the ones I know are still coming to my school. The bottom line is the scholarship processors at Cadet Command are probably shifting fire to the next project (prepping winners for the following fall, starting to look at next year’s early applicants, dealing with DODMERB issues) and they don’t have time to close the loop with the applicants that didn’t get an offer.
The answer is…probably not.
Here’s the last piece of advice. Keep in mind that the scholarship processors are a small group of people who do a Herculean task each year. They just don’t have time to give individual, full service to each and every applicant. Don’t get frustrated if you status doesn’t change frequently or if your email goes unanswered for a day or two. I’m a small school ROO who pays close attention to the 100 +/- applicants who list my school each year. It’s a lot easier for me to answer questions and check statuses then for the folks at CC. Hopefully the ROO at your school of choice is helpful.
Golden Knight Battalion 