Honor Codes and GPA

[patton307]

I have been hearing from my recruiter's office that my GPA is pretty low to be considered a top candidate, but my ASTB makes up for it: 6/7/7 51. My college GPA was 2.8. When I asked what GPAs they considered to be the "norm" for pilot they said 3.25 and above.

One question I wish the APSR had on it was, "Does your college have and enforce a Honor Code?". I went to The Citadel and our grades were our grades. If you get caught cheating, your kicked out of school; end of story. And you do not get to take your credits with you either. Most of my friends that went to normal civilian colleges had about 3.2-3.7 GPAs, but, every single one of them would come home over the summers talking about how they got their girlfriend's to write their papers or got a copy of the test from a guy in a different section.

My question here is this. Do the officer boards look at what school the candidate attended? It honestly pisses me off how much these recruiters look at GPA, but do not look at the school they attended or the difficulty of the programs at each school. I have a couple friends that went to Marine Corps OCS and TBS last year with higher GPAs then me, but, most of them cheated their butts off the entire time.

 

[BackOrdered]

Well, you are pretty arrogant to assume all civilian university students cheat and all academy students don't.

More important to any future officer board is why you quit one commissioning source in the first place and why should we offer you another shot?

 

[AllYourBass]

I have been hearing from my recruiter's office that my GPA is pretty low to be considered a top candidate, but my ASTB makes up for it: 6/7/7 51. My college GPA was 2.8. When I asked what GPAs they considered to be the "norm" for pilot they said 3.25 and above.

One question I wish the APSR had on it was, "Does your college have and enforce a Honor Code?". I went to The Citadel and our grades were our grades. If you get caught cheating, your kicked out of school; end of story. And you do not get to take your credits with you either. Most of my friends that went to normal civilian colleges had about 3.2-3.7 GPAs, but, every single one of them would come home over the summers talking about how they got their girlfriend's to write their papers or got a copy of the test from a guy in a different section.

My question here is this. Do the officer boards look at what school the candidate attended? It honestly pisses me off how much these recruiters look at GPA, but do not look at the school they attended or the difficulty of the programs at each school. I have a couple friends that went to Marine Corps OCS and TBS last year with higher GPAs then me, but, most of them cheated their butts off the entire time.

As a recent graduate from a "civilian college" with a nearly 3.9 GPA and an absolutely spotless academic record, I'm somewhat offended by what you're implying. Have you ever heard of a university that doesn't enforce a no-cheating policy?

 

[patton307]

Well, you are pretty arrogant to assume all civilian university students cheat and all academy students don't.

More important to any future officer board is why you quit one commissioning source in the first place and why should we offer you another shot?

I did not say "all civilian students" I used examples from my own source of people I have known. Also, you are not obligated to commission after The Citadel. You are only obligated to commission if you took a scholarship from one of the branches.

 

[Yardstick]

I have been hearing from my recruiter's office that my GPA is pretty low to be considered a top candidate, but my ASTB makes up for it: 6/7/7 51. My college GPA was 2.8. When I asked what GPAs they considered to be the "norm" for pilot they said 3.25 and above.

One question I wish the APSR had on it was, "Does your college have and enforce a Honor Code?". I went to The Citadel and our grades were our grades. If you get caught cheating, your kicked out of school; end of story. And you do not get to take your credits with you either. Most of my friends that went to normal civilian colleges had about 3.2-3.7 GPAs, but, every single one of them would come home over the summers talking about how they got their girlfriend's to write their papers or got a copy of the test from a guy in a different section.

My question here is this. Do the officer boards look at what school the candidate attended? It honestly pisses me off how much these recruiters look at GPA, but do not look at the school they attended or the difficulty of the programs at each school. I have a couple friends that went to Marine Corps OCS and TBS last year with higher GPAs then me, but, most of them cheated their butts off the entire time.

you sound like a sea lawyer whiny douche. sorry you didnt work hard enough in school. later

 

[BackOrdered]

I did not say "all civilian students" I used examples from my own source of people I have known. Also, you are not obligated to commission after The Citadel. You are only obligated to commission if you took a scholarship from one of the branches.

I re-read your post and it still comes across poorly. It is not your friends fault you obtained a poor GPA or that you underestimated the Navy OCS process. And I don't know why you declined the Citadel commission, but I hope you had a valid reason to clearly communicate to the board.

 

[BigRed389]

I have been hearing from my recruiter's office that my GPA is pretty low to be considered a top candidate, but my ASTB makes up for it: 6/7/7 51. My college GPA was 2.8. When I asked what GPAs they considered to be the "norm" for pilot they said 3.25 and above.

One question I wish the APSR had on it was, "Does your college have and enforce a Honor Code?". I went to The Citadel and our grades were our grades. If you get caught cheating, your kicked out of school; end of story. And you do not get to take your credits with you either. Most of my friends that went to normal civilian colleges had about 3.2-3.7 GPAs, but, every single one of them would come home over the summers talking about how they got their girlfriend's to write their papers or got a copy of the test from a guy in a different section.

My question here is this. Do the officer boards look at what school the candidate attended? It honestly pisses me off how much these recruiters look at GPA, but do not look at the school they attended or the difficulty of the programs at each school. I have a couple friends that went to Marine Corps OCS and TBS last year with higher GPAs then me, but, most of them cheated their butts off the entire time.

That's the beauty of standardized tests like the ASTB...if you're as smart as you think you are, you should've absolutely smoked it. 6/7/7 51 is not that good.

 

[A Day In The Life]

If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'

 

[AllYourBass]

That's the beauty of standardized tests like the ASTB...if you're as smart as you think you are, you should've absolutely smoked it. 6/7/7 51 is not that good.

Patton, my ASTB was a 6/7/7 55. Not overly amazing, but the rest of my package carried it through and I got selected for SNA/SNFO/SWO. If you have a history of leadership you can focus on, that may help out your package. especially if you're submitting for something like SNA/SNFO/SWO and not just SNA. I'm not sure what the GPA cutoff is, though.

 

[Tycho_Brohe]

Everyone else has already said what I would have said about your post, so since you did have a legitimate question at the end (whether some leeway is given if the major is difficult), I'm curious as to which degree in particular you received from the Citadel. I imagine it was some sort of engineering, correct?
I applied at the December boards, and there are several members on here who also applied whose GPA's were a little under 3.0 for the same reason. While I believe both of the members I'm thinking of were recommended at the board, they also had incredible ASTB scores (as in 9/9/9 or damn close). What it might ultimately come down to is how competitive your application is relative to the others at the board, as well as how many slots the Navy is looking to fill at the time. My advice would be to apply, then if you're not recommended, study your ass off to retake the ASTB, and reapply at the next board.
That said, as others have mentioned, generalizing your friends' experiences to all civilian college students' is...ill-advised. Here's how I see it: there's a comments section on the APSR, would you have written there "Well I got a 2.8, but that's because I didn't cheat like all my friends did"? The board doesn't care what your friends did, they care what you've done. So prove to them you deserve it.

 

[WEGL12]

I re-read your post and it still comes across poorly. It is not your friends fault you obtained a poor GPA or that you underestimated the Navy OCS process. And I don't know why you declined the Citadel commission, but I hope you had a valid reason to clearly communicate to the board.

Tiz84,
I'm pretty sure at the Citadel you can just be an non scholarship student in the corp of cadets. Basically if you aren't on scholarship you just take an ROTC class because it is required but you can't commission once you graduate. I knew a few people that went there and never had the intention of getting a commission. Seems like its about half the graduating class actually commissions.

To the OP,
You have the wrong idea on how normal universities are. I am near the top of my class in a hard major and I have never even considered cheating. On that subject there is a group of people in my major that cheats all the time. They are overall near the bottom of the class, disliked by everyone and most people are hoping they get kicked out. Hard work gets you a good GPA not cheating.

 

[zab1001]

Oh, you should most definitely address this point in your motivational statement.

 

[phrogpilot73]

This thread can only go down hill. For the OP - the Citadel is not the only college in the country with an honor code. The best advice is to apply, and then if you don't get accepted work on improving your package/ASTB scores.

Thread closed.