Thanks to New Mexico/West Texas OSO Capt Wisotzkey for sharing a in depth look at the OCS selection boards. Original post was written for OCC-225 which ran from June till August 2017.
There are three OCC classes a year – January, May/June, and September.
Where does an OSO fit?
Your OSO works for a Recruiting Station, who works for a District, who works for a Region, who works for Marine Corps Recruiting Command.
There are two Regions; Western Recruiting Region and Eastern Recruiting Region. They are separated by the Mississippi River. OCC boards are conducted at the Region level. The selection rates and demographics do vary. They are looking for the same characteristics for selection but one Region may have higher quality/more packages than the other. It fluctuates.
There are three outcomes from a selection board: selected, deep selected, or not selected.
- Selected obviously means you’re going to that class.
- Deep select means you were selected, but for a future class. For males, they could be deep selected for OCC-224 that goes in January. Since females do not go to OCS in the Winter, some were deep selected for OCC-225 which ships in June.
- Non-selects must completely reapply as they are not selected for any class.
On that note – Deep select is a relatively new concept. It used to be simply select or non-select. They are even doing something new this year that if an applicant is ready to be briefed at an earlier selection board, they will look at his or her package and potentially select them early.
For example
There were a number of applicants applying for OCC-224 in January that were already contracted and ready to go with their OSO. The majority of these applicants are likely graduating in December, making them ineligible to apply for the September class. However, if they were contracted and ready to go – the selection board reviewed their packages this past week and a large number of them were pre-selected for OCC-224.
The actual board for OCC-224 doesn’t happen until November, which means these individuals know 6 months in advance that they were selected. Pretty good deal.
They are doing this same thing at the OCC-224 board in November for OCC-225 that ships next June.
If you are planning on applying for OCC-225, get your crap together today. For one, most OSO’s are running out of slots for that class as we received a reduced mission from last year. For two, you get two looks on a board vice just one.
OCS Selection Rates
Speaking from the Western half of the country – the overall selection rate was 70.1%. The average PFT was 277 and average GPA was 3.14. Prior enlisted Marines did extremely well. Air, Law, and Reserve had very high selection rates while active duty Ground was much lower.
This selection board was a lot more competitive than the three classes from last year. I recommend that if you are wanting to go to OCS and already have your degree, apply ASAP because it’s going to only get more competitive. Last year all of the selection boards were 90% or higher – this year is already starting off tough. Apply now.
Thanks again to Captain Wisotzkey for sharing insights into OCS selection.
You can reach him at
michael.wisotzkey@marines.usmc.mil
Find him on facebook at
West Texas/New Mexico Marine Officer Programs
Or Instagram at
@westtxnewmexicomarineofficer
Candidates, what questions do you have about OCS selection?
Can applicants in their senior year of college apply for September and/or January OCS class or they’re only allowed to do the summer program?
It depends on your graduation date. You can only go to OCC as a college graduate, so if you were to graduate in December you could go in Jan or if you were going to graduate in August after summer classes, you could go in September.
What is the selection rate for plc jrs?
How come women were only recently allowed to attend the winter class? Any reason in specific? Is the winter session tougher/harder to handle??
Previously, there were not enough female candidates applying to OCS to justify the cost of having a female platoon in the winter class. As more and more females applied there was reason to justify the cost of adding a female platoon to the winter class. Difficulty had nothing to do with it because females go through the winter classes at TBS, which is literally across the road from OCS.
I have a lower than average GPA but I have stellar extracurricular involvement; I am the only student hired by my athletic department and am in charge of nearly forty other senior students, for instance.
I also have plenty of character references. Should I even bother applying? It is my dream to serve as a Marine Officer!
I had a 3.8 gpa in college but after i joined my gpa was significantly lower after i chose my MOS. I wasnt excepted the first time is that normal?