Navy: Policy change for Navy

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I'm reading that people are being denied the Navy HPSP because their schools are under initial accreditation. I know in the past years students have been awarded the scholarship regardless of the status. Has the Navy made a change to their policy? If so can any of you cite the source because I can't seem to find it.

I suppose these wouldn't be considered completely official, but they're the best I can provide based on my own case with Midwestern.

As of now, the Midwestern Arizona students are fine, as they receive full accreditation this month, so from what I've heard people are getting sworn in already, however my recruiter was not able to do this for me, so I have to wait for official notice of full accreditation. (my grace period is till June), but otherwise I'm officially selected.

The attached documents are my letter and an internal message (it's a jpeg, sorry I had to shrink it for SDN) from Navy Recruiting District in LA.

Thanks a lot. I wish I would have known this earlier. I would have selected another school. I'm going to Western U and they won't receive full accreditation until next year.

Thanks for doing all the leg work kahr

No problem fellas.

Though I think it's quite strange and frankly, ridiculous, that the Navy is doing this, especially considering the fact that many students at "initial accreditation" status schools had already received the scholarship in past years, and still are this year with other branches (Army so far to my knowledge).

I feel for you guys, this must be a nasty surprise.

So am I to understand that, should you swear in, this is a non-issue? As I mentioned on the other thread, I swore in some time ago with the Army.

To think how close I came to applying to the Navy instead...

It was definitely a big concern for me because I am going to attend Midwestern-AZ. I was informed of the policy change after I was professionally recommended. I had been accepted by both Army and Navy, so my recruiter worked diligently to make sure I got the scholarship so I could decline the Army's offer. My recruiter was successful, and I commissioned last month. I guess it was the leverage gained by being accepted by both branches that motivated my recruiter to work as hard as she did. I'm very thankful for all of her hard work.

I can see why Navy is denying awards on initial accreditation. Since one needs to attend an accredited school as part of the terms of the scholarship, there are no definitive guarantees, even though very likely, that any of these new schools will in fact be fully accredited. I mean take LECOM for example. Supposedly, D4 students are required to work in the field in private practice since the school lacks patients. And because dentists will not risk some newbie performing complex cases on their patients (thereby risking loss of patient and/or lawsuit), the D4 student is essentially paying $90K to serve as a dental assistant. I don't know about you but if I were the ADA I would no way give accreditation to LECOM. And why Navy is reluctant to invest $400K on initial accreditation.

This happened to me. I was recently told I was nonselected because WesternU is not fully accredited. This totally sucks because WesternU DMD students in the past have received the scholarship and Western should be getting full accreditation in 2013. I guess those who applied for the scholarship in 2012 with an acceptance to WesternU got totally screwed over. Hopefully, I can get off the waitlist from some of the other schools soon and then send my app back to the board.

Just thought I'd throw out there that MWU in Glendale just had it's last inspection for accreditation and was recommended for full accreditation. That means that when the commission meets next August MWU will be fully accredited. If that helps anyone out who was considering MWU and Navy HPSP you may be able to still work it out.

So I've heard that this policy of denying scholarships to students who attend schools that aren't fully accredited is now general among all the branches. Does anyone know anything about this?

bump

Originally Posted by Tirekicker

So I've heard that this policy of denying scholarships to students who attend schools that aren't fully accredited is now general among all the branches. Does anyone know anything about this?

You know, even if it is, the Army seems to have magical ways of waiving or getting around just about anything. It SHOULD be all branches, the policies of the HPSP should be uniform across the board IMO. Perhaps I'll give a few recruiters phone calls on Monday to see what they know.

Originally Posted by Kahr

You know, even if it is, the Army seems to have magical ways of waiving or getting around just about anything. It SHOULD be all branches, the policies of the HPSP should be uniform across the board IMO. Perhaps I'll give a few recruiters phone calls on Monday to see what they know.

Thanks Kahr!

I mentioned this to my Navy recruiter a couple of months ago when I last saw her. She said she hadn't heard anything about this potential new policy. She said as far as she knows there is nothing stating you can't go to a school with initial accreditation.
But then again, she may just not know, since my school is fully accredited and I'm her only dental recruit right now.