I was told by my recruiter that I can attend BOLC before dental school and was wondering what its like. I heard it wasn't as bad a OCS but it seems pretty intense. From what I saw on the website its 4 weeks didactic, 3 weeks FTX and 2 addition weeks for dental students. Is this correct? Also, will you be recycled if you dont pass the PT test at BOLC. I havn't done PT in a while so I am a little worried about that. Thank you for the input.
BOLC is usually for direct accession people (practicing dentist --> army). students on HPSP would do a 6-7 week course instead, called OBLC (officer basic leadership course). the program is intense, well, mainly because of the intense heat in san antonio in the hottest time of the year (believe me, it is hot, and we had some major casualties on the base), and being exhausted from too much unnecessary walking (from living qtrs to class) and waiting forever to do anything. we did 3 weeks of classroom learning. it's basically 5-7 PT, 8-5 watching the powerpoint (yes, all day). plus we did 3 weeks of field training. it's basically more running and rolling, land navigation, plus shooting M16s and M9s (yay!)--arguably it was the highlight of the program, along with meeting some generals. the program itself in my experience was very good, especially towards the end, b/c you'd get to make some nice friends and get to meet some high ranking officers (mostly PG program directors, including a 2 star general, although i met the army surgeon general, who was a 3 star), and do some interesting things. btw, as officers, you get nights and weekends off (usually), so you can go to riverwalk, the alamo, or get drunk sipping margarita all night.
doing OBLC b/f dental school is a good idea, but somehow i was the only one out of about 70 dental students came to train (they just graduated) b/f dental school. if you do OBLC b/f dental school, you NEED NOT pass the PT exam. b/f d school, you'd need to take the PT exam again after you graduate even if you passed before. you'd just need to pass when you go active (i.e. you have 4 more years to get you in shape). i think you'd take the PT exam when you report to your duty station, and if you fail again, well, you exercise some more and pass it. theoretically you'd need to repeat OBLC all over again, but i doubt the army would actually do that, b/c it'd cost them A LOT of money to have 1 more person go through it again.
having said all that, attending OBLC b/f d school is becoming more difficult, b/c while the class size is limited, somehow there is more who NEED to get trained (i.e. the recent graduates). the class is about 350, mostly med students after their 1st year. they get the priority. i applied to attend in february, and was told in april that i was going, but again told twice (in may and june) that i won't be going because the class was full, but they called me yet again less than 48 hours b/f the program start date if i'd want to go. welcome to the army ways, i guess. so if you want to do it, just apply early and hope for the best. hope it helped!
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