Early Commissioning Program

[NOLAdentist2016]

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I was just looking around the Army dental corps website and I noticed that they also offer an "Early Commissioning Program". It seems like this is an option to take if we don't get the HPSP, but I'm not too sure of the specifics. This is what their website says:
EARLY COMMISSIONING PROGRAM (ECP) As a dental student, you are eligible to be commissioned as an Officer in the U.S. Army Medical Service Corps. You will be assigned to an Army Reserve control group while attending dental school. When you enter active duty, you will receive credit for pay, retroactive from the date of appointment in the ECP. Reserve time served in the ECP does not count for credit toward retirement. ECP participants are eligible to participate in the Health Professions Scholarship Program.


Does anyone know how this works? And would we still be eligible for the various bonuses when we reached our first duty stations? I'm mostly just concerned about the pay info.

 

[krmower]

I'm not an expert - but I can make an educated guess. By signing up for this program the "clock" for your pay will begin. What this means is that if you sign up as a freshman, by the time you graduate and come on active duty you will get paid as a Captain (O-3) with 4 yrs of service. This means you will have already jumped up 3 pay steps on the salary scale and will give you quite a bit more then your buddies that graduate and come on active duty.

That would be the only benefit for joining - your pay would be higher when you did come on active duty. Check the pay charts to see financially what it would mean.

All the bonuses would be unaffected by this program and you would get them just like everyone else. You could also look at taking loan repayment when you came on active duty.

I'd verify all this with a Health Care recruiter.