First of all, the HSCP is a NAVY only scholarship. With that said, the officer rank for the Navy HPSP is Ensign (O-1). Here is the difference. With the HPSP, you are an officer in the IRR - not on active duty. Your school is paid for and you get a stipend. With the HSCP, you are on active duty and you pay the school expences out of pocket, but if you go to a state run school that has low fees, the HSCP is worth it because you will get more money in the end. I get about $10,000 more with the HSCP in Texas than if I had taken the HPSP. Plus since I will retire from the Navy, the HSCP will allow me to retire 4 years earlier.
With the HSCP, as mentioned, you are on active duty, but in your contract it should state you will be in school and cannot be called to sction (not necessarily in those words). You might think enlisted -vs- officer - that would suck, right? Well, I have an HSCP scholarship and I was an officer commissioned in 1999. I resigned my commission last year to take this. Would I recommend this to anyone? Hell yes. I thought there was a catch at first, but now I think otherwise. The rank is only for pay purposes. Yes, in the military's eyes you are enlisted, but you aren't treated as such in the eyes of the recruiter (who will be your boss) and other dental officers. You are a college who are basically officers who just happen to have the rank of an enlisted person for school purposes. The only way you'd be treated poorly is if the dental personnel treated an officer, in your chain of command, poorly and they hated dentists. That would be their way of getting back at the profession, but if that would happen it would be extremely rare. The HSCP gives you and any immediate family member - spouse and dependants - full medical, dental, vision insurance.
With the HPSP, the only benefit in a low cost state school is that you can call yourself an officer. If you feel you have to boost your ego or feel youare too good to be called an officer, then this is the route to go. If you get accepted and accept a slot in an expensive school, then the HPSP is the better way to go because ALL tuitioin and fees (and other things) are paid for along with the approx. $1300/mo stipend. In this case, the HPSP is worth more than the HSCP.
Don't worry about the rank. If I worried about being an enlisted, then I wouldn't have taken the HSCP. But since I don't think I am too good to be classified as an NCO, I am going for where it will benefit me more.
In the end, only worry about the benefits, pros and cons of the scholarship, not the rank. That is only a formality.
