Candidate Question:
Will getting dropped from OCS permanently disqualify me from enlisted service?
Answer:
No. Every service is always looking for a few good men and women.
You are allowed to enlist, if you really want to, after getting dropped from OCS. However, it’s roughly the equivalent of getting your degree, applying to a white-collar job at some Fortune 500 company’s corporate office, bombing the interview, then applying to be a cashier right along with the 17- and 18-year old high school graduates. If your goal is truly becoming an officer, then you should not be satisfied with an option for a wildly different career path as a “safe plan B.” Almost everyone naturally fits as an officer or enlisted. They are wildly divergent experiences in the military and especially in the Marine Corps.
Also, there’s this.
Future Jarheads: Officer or Enlisted?
Also check out the discussion on Future Jarheads about the two career paths, Officer or Enlisted?
I highly disagree with the answer to this question. We had a lot of guys in my OCS class who were previously dropped and chose to enlist. Their desire to be a Marine propelled them to excel at boot camp and then at OCS when they were inevitably accepted into the ECP program. Where there’s a will there’s a way, and had I been dropped I would have enlisted as well. The ECP program doesn’t get a lot of applicants so their packages get accepted pretty frequently.
Bryce, thanks so much for sharing your info–it definitely is not what we’ve heard in the past!
The selection rates are very low! Anywhere from 5 to 15 out of 50-60 accepted. Most of them being senior Sergeants or Staff Sergeants.