Hey r/NewToTheNavy! This topic comes up a lot, mainly in the "I want to enlist first and then apply for a Commissioning Program, is this a good plan?" In short, no.

This is a large copy-paste from one of those discussions, fleshed out a little bit with some input from /u/a-13-xander. We have a handful of officers who have commissioned through these routes, and others, and I'm hoping they'll chime in to make this a rather comprehensive guide that we can sticky/link somewhere in r/NewToTheNavy. (specifically NUPOC, Medical, JAG, and Crypto).

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, I want to stress a few things here. Enlisting or Commissioning are different, but one is not better than the other. Quality of life will vary, opportunities for advancement and retirement will vary, and the work you'll do are all going to be radically different based on what career arc you choose. Ultimately, though, it is about what is the best fit for you.

If you want to become an officer, talk to an officer recruiter. Do not enlist or begin paperwork with an enlisted recruiter; they can't help you become an officer through the enlistment process.

I enlisted and I am glad I did. Nobody taught me how to go to college for cheap and I figured I'd have to pay the full sticker price and go to college for $90,000+ just to get a Bachelor's degree....I also worked at Sallie Mae and had people in their 80s calling in to make payments on their college loans. I did the math with average pay for a newly minted degree holder in my intended degree path, plus cost of living and realized I'd be paying on my college debt forever. So I enlisted. If I had known I could have CLEPed and transferred credits from a community college or gone through ROTC I would have absolutely done that. (I am generally wary about recommending Dave Ramsey's books to the general public without some sort of caveat because he is either absolutely adored or absolutely hated, there is no middle ground with him, BUT the last half of his Smart Money, Smart Kids book he talks about being able to afford college without amassing debt. You can get similar advice in r/personalfinance. Either way, it can be done, and I wish I had known about this 15 years ago.)

If you don't happen to have a bachelor's degree laying around and you think that going to college for cheap is not possible, please work through the math with me. Here's the Military Pay Chart and BAH Calculator, which give you a rough estimate that a newly minted Ensign stationed in Norfolk will see about $4,500 a month--tell me how long it would take you if you lived very simply (total expenses at ~2000 a month, so total applied to college debt at ~2,500 a month) to pay off a $30,000 college debt? Or a $90,000 debt? Put a pin in that and let's move on.

It's very competitive and difficult to pick up a commission once you're enlisted. Non nuclear STA-21 application acceptance rate varies between 1-3%, nuclear candidates averages 20-25% acceptance. (Your enlisted rating has nothing to do with your acceptance quota here, talking about the Nuclear Officer path.)

Most Commissioning Programs have age limits, with the exception of medical and JAG, I believe most programs cut off age limit is 29. Aviation is 27. Considering that enlisting first and then getting your commission drags your timeline out to an average of 10 years, this is something to seriously consider.

Okay. Enough talk, here goes:

Commissioning Routes With Enlisting First

Path One:

  1. Enlist. Four year contract.

  2. Get out and go to college--GI Bill. 3 more years. Maybe 4. Maybe 5.

  3. Apply. Maybe you don't get picked up the first time, so apply again.

  4. 8 or 9 years total: commissioned.

Path two:

  1. Enlist.

  2. Get fully qualified in rate. Get your warfare pin. Two years.

  3. Work on your degree using TA off and on. I've done this at sea duty and I could barely manage one class at a go and that's IF my ship had good internet.

  4. Five years later, go to shore duty. Go high speed on your degree. Wrap it up in two years if you really, REALLY work hard on it. Remember, your full time job is being a sailor, and if you are doing something like recruiting for your shore duty, your free time will be greatly limited. It is unrealistic to think you'll be taking a full load of college courses on top of working full time for the Navy.

  5. Apply for OCS. A few times, because you went through one of the degree mills because they sent a professor out to your ship and they gave you the most credits for your navy training. You are competing against applicants that have Ivy League degrees, some of them. Choice of college and type of degree (Underwater Basket Weaving vs Biochemical Engineering will be weighed differently)

  6. Commission around 8-10 years.

Path three:

  1. Enlist.

  2. Reenlist

  3. Potentially reenlist again.

  4. Make PO1. (If you're a badass this could take as little as 6 years. Or it could take you 14 years) Apply for LDO.

  5. Apply for LDO a few more times because you need certain qualifications or better interviews or whatever else your package is lacking.

  6. Commission. At 8 years if you are shit hot or as long as 15.

  7. Alt ending: Make CPO and apply again/as necessary and then commission or commission as a CWO.

Path four:

  1. Enlist

  2. Apply for STA-21

  3. Finally get accepted and go to college

  4. Three years and a degree later, commission. Total time could be as little as four years, but this is highly unlikely because as an E3 you likely have nothing to make you competitive. Most likely you're a PO3 or PO2 and have been in close to five or six years before you go to college.

Path five:

  1. Enlist

  2. Apply to the United States Naval Academy

  3. Finally get accepted and go to prep school. Cut off for this is age 22.

  4. Attend college: four years and a degree later, commission. Total time could be as little as five years, but this is highly unlikely because as an E3 you likely have nothing to make you competitive. Additionally, you can't be married or have dependents and the "plebe year" is rough. The school is very competitive and very well respected. Require a minimum 23 ACT to apply and 27 math/english to be competitive.

Other Paths Without Enlisting:

Path 1: Apply to the Naval Academy

  1. Commission after 4 years

  2. Benefit: you get a college degree and everything paid for and graduate from one of the best schools in the world

  3. Downside: The naval academy is VERY competitive. Less than 9% of applicants are accepted.

Path 2: ROTC

  1. Go to a 4 year college that has a NROTC program

  2. Commission after 3 or 4 years

  3. Benefits: You commission once you graduate

  4. Downside: You have to foot the bill if not selected for scholarship. Scholarships are hard to come by, but if you did JROTC in highschool, this can help you.

Path 3: OCS

  1. Get a Bachelors degree in whatever you choose. Keep in mind that the higher your GPA and the more selective your degree path (ie, STEM vs Art History) the better your chance to be selected

  2. Graduate in 2-4 years with your BS or BA.

  3. Apply for OCS and get selected which is a long process (you are looking at roughly a year to commission from the day you first speak with an officer recruiter)

  4. Commission in 2.5-4.5 years

  5. Benefits: OCS is a 12 week program

  6. Downside: You'll have to foot the bill and to get accepted

Other Commissioning Programs

JAG

Converting to LN is probably not the best way to commission as a JAG. The rate is fully or slightly over manned so getting in is hard, then the education of new LNs is substantial so the service commitment is nontrivial. Since you have to cross rate (typically as an E5) into LN, you'd be spending lots of time before you'd be free to apply.

  1. IPP, which sends enlisted personnel to law school then commissions then, there's like one of these a year and the first LN was selected last year. SUPER competitive,

  2. LEP which sends junior officers to law school, there are more of these every year but not many. (This year there were 6 selected). You would have to commission then go LEP. The maximum amount of active duty time served before entering the program is six years. This includes enlisted time as well as officer.

  3. student program/direct accession which admits the bulk of each year's JAGs, around 80 annually. Go to law school, then apply. (This can be done using your GI bill if you were prior enlisted.)

Option three is probably most likely path, since there's so many more slots. Prior service is always going to be a positive (doubly so if you stay active in the reserves during law school). The downside is that you would be starting law school without a commission guaranteed.

The vast bulk of the JAG Corps is populated by people who entered through the student program or or direct accession program. Of these it's probably an 80/20 or 90/10 split in favor of student program. If you have (or could have) sat for the bar after finishing law school, you need to apply via the direct accession process.

Student program boards are held twice a year and the direct accession boards are once a year. You can start applying during your 2L year and if you're interested, I strongly encourage you to do so. It shows commitment to the program; many of the same people sit on successive accession boards and will likely remember your application.

more info on the JAG program here