Thisguy said:
Also, remember that BDCP is a bonus. If whatever reason you don't get picked up, you can still go to OCS.
True.
I'll give it a whirl, as far as going through the process.
1) I decided that I wanted to be a Naval Officer. Simplistic, but very important. It's not a decision that I entered into lightly, and I would advise others to take it seriously as well.
2) I called the local recruiting office. They were happy to hear from me, but disappointed when I only wanted the number for the officer recruiters. Turns out that there were none in my city--the nearest were more than an hour away, but made regular trips to my city because of the two large universities here. I called the officer recruiters, got the machine, and left a message. Nobody called me back. Happened two or three times. Finally I got ahold of someone and set an appointment.
3) Went to the first meeting. Wore a suit and tie rather than the usual jeans and tshirt. I had heard about the BDCP from my brother, so I asked the recruiter about it specifically. They wanted, at the time, guys for crypto and aviation, but he didn't really try to put a sell on me. I gave him my transcripts up to that point and we set a time for me to take the OAR.
4) About two weeks after our first meeting I took the OAR. I scored pretty well, and only then did they begin to show serious interest in me. By this time they had also understood that I was not going to be discouraged.
5) Kind of unusual, but only two days after the OAR (and about two and a half weeks after first meeting) they managed to squeeze me in for a physical at the local reserve center. Like I said, this was unusual, and it turns out that for the other guys there, physicals had been kind of a sticking point because they only did them once a month. I was lucky.
6) Onus was on me at that point. The application is a beast--at least for me, it was kind of difficult to dig up info on all the places that I'd worked (I've moved around a lot and had a TON of summer/school/part-time jobs in several places). I spent a little time calling around, asking people to be references for me or write letters of recommendation. The security clearance application is arduous. I was applying for 1) intel, 2) crypto, and 3) NFO, so I filled out the long form for security clearance. Turns out it was pointless--my wife isn't a U.S. citizen so I was automatically excluded from intel and crypto. My advice here is just to keep working at it. It's a lot to swallow at a time, so I just worked on it for several days a little at a time. Think hard about your statement of purpose on the application. Getting all this stuff together took most of November. It's also a way for the recruiter to measure your mettle; they didn't call or write much during this time--just told me to call when it was done. I heard later that a lot of applicants get bogged down in it and lose a lot of time this way.
7) Start working out. And keep working out. The PRT requirements sound pretty easy (they told me that I needed to get at least 50 pushups in 2 min., 80 situps in 2 min., and run 1.5 miles in under 12 min.), and they are easy if you're not doing them all together. I'm a reasonably athletic guy, but I had never done the actual PRT (situps, rest 2 min., pushups, rest 10 min, run) and I just about died. Once you're in BDCP you'll have an idea of when the PRTs are ahead of time so you can spend a month getting in shape (and remember, save something for the run--the new requirements are that you get scored by your weakest event in the PRT. So it doesn't matter if you do 100 pushups if you're dead on the run). I did my PRT around the beginning of December.
8) Around the same time, I had an interview with a commander in Crypto. He asked fairly searching questions, but the interview went very well. Too bad we didn't know at the time that there was no way I could go into crypto.
9) I turned in my packet right before Christmas and sat down to wait. Right about then I found out that intel and crypto were out, so I was only applying to the NFO community.
10) Right after Christmas I found out that the drug test from my physical had either gotten lost or never happened, so I had to run out and get another one. No big deal--expect annoyances. While at the clinic, I met another applicant who was there with his dad. They were both (especially the dad) firmly convinced that the kid was God's great gift to the U.S. Navy. Kinda irritating...
11) Now I sat down to wait for real. Towards the end of January, they notified me of my acceptance. A week or so later, I was sworn in. A month or so later, I began receiving pay.
And that's that. I still hate PRTs.
