The Service Academies: Military, Naval, Air Force, and Coast Guard (/imported-20110121194859/2008/9/2/attending-us-service-academies.html) provide excellent education and training for students intending to serve in the armed forces upon graduation. ROTC programs are another means to the same end: /imported-20110121194859/2011/4/8/the-rotc-reserved-officers-training-corps-scholarship.html. Then, there is a hybrid of the services academies and ROTC: the senior military colleges.
Each of the six senior military colleges is unique. All are public save Norwich University (VT). All combine traditional students with a ‘Corp of Cadets’ save Virginia Military Institute (VMI ). There the entire class of 1,400 cadets is in ROTC. VMI’s ambience is Spartan, the discipline strict, and the curriculum focuses on engineering, the sciences, and liberal arts, the real liberal arts. At VMI, liberal arts is not composed of ‘fluff’ electives or deconstructed feminist studies, but a solid core curriculum of rigorous analysis, composition and readings of the Great Books such as Aristotle and Shakespeare. It has produced more Rhodes scholars (11 since 1921) per graduate than any other state college or university in the United States. Furthermore, each cadet is bound to adhere strictly to the Honor Code which emphasizes, “Excellence in all things: military bearing, discipline, and conduct…” Upon graduation, cadets may either enlist in the armed forces (and many do), or pursue a civilian career.
VMI, and certainly the Citadel (SC), are steeped in tradition. VMI, the West Point of the South, includes among its alumni Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson (famed general of the Confederacy), and George Marshall (heralded WWII General, creator of the Marshall Plan, and Nobel Prize winner). Eight VMI cadets who perished defending Shenandoah Valley against a Union siege at the end of the Civil War are now buried on its 134 acre campus.
Probably one of the key reasons the senior military academy alternative is not on many application lists is because, as mentioned, there are only six such schools in the country and all except Texas A&M, the alma mater of Rick Perry, the current governor of Texas, are on the East Coast. The list of schools includes the following:
Virginia Military Institute (VMI): Lexington, VA—a public senior military college
North Georgia College and State University: Dahlonega, GA—public senior military college also enrolling civilian students
Texas A&M University: College Station, TX— public senior military college also enrolling civilian students
The Citadel: Charleston, SC-- public senior military college also enrolling civilian students
Virginia Polytechnic Institute: Blacksburg, VA-- public senior military college also enrolling civilian students
Norwich University: Northfield, VT—private senior military college also enrolling civilian students
An example of a campus that mixes traditional students with cadets, Norwich University (VT), was founded in 1819 by Alden Partridge a former West Point superintendent, and is the granddaddy of senior military schools. It has served as a model institution for VMI and is where the ROTC program originated in 1916. Norwich, like its southern counterpart VMI, produced hundreds of officers during the Civil War—so many, in fact, that the class of 1864 contained a mere seven students. Today, it is a vibrant school with classes composed with equal numbers of cadets and ‘traditional students’ studying nursing, computer science, engineering among the 30 bachelor degree programs offered. In all areas of the campus and its activities, except in residential and military exercises, the traditional students and cadets freely mix.
If you enjoy tradition, understand the importance of discipline, and seek an education that recognizes your individuality and your inherent need to excel, a senior military college might be a perfect fit. Attending one doesn’t obligate you to enlistment in the services, but all six provide superior educational experiences with value (VMI’s COA for out of state students is $40,000; Citadel’s $38,000; Norwich University’s $43,000), and all know how to create leaders bold in action. You might just find yourself at ease in one of them.