My recruiter called on Thursday and said that I've been selected for the 4 year Army Scholarship!!! Within the next month I have to renounce my Canadian citizenship (I'm dual) and do my physical, and I'll be set.
I'm interested in doing OBLC this summer. I've already talked to my recruiter about it and we're going to start the paperwork after I'm commissioned. Are there any advantages/disadvantages to doing it before dental school versus after?
Also, I decided to take the signing bonus, and I've read here that it can affect concurrent payback with specialty programs. I'm interested in the 2 yr AEGD and if I do it, I'm going to try to do it straight out of dental school. So is the following accurate? :
4yrs Dental School
2 yr AEGD (with 1 yr concurrent payback)
5 yr payback
So 7 yrs after dental school?
Or is it:
2 yr AEGD (with 2 yr concurrent payback)
4 yr payback
6 yrs total?
The key being the fact that I took the $20,000 signing bonus.
Thanks! And everyone (Army, AF, Navy) that receives the scholarship, post the good news here along with your questions!
First off, congrats!
I post the below comment some time ago, and made some additions:
Students on HPSP would do a 6-7 week course, 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 (you'd have to pay a fortune to shoot that much elsewhere). the mess hall was clean, and the all-you-can-eat FREE meals were AWESOME. 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. believe me, stuff like this, it's just more fun to do when you're 22, not when you're 32.
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. 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.
as to salary, yeah, you do get some serious (for a college grad) money during the 6 week training. you get the basic salary, accrued leave, uniform allowances, reimbursement for transportations to airport, cab, etc. you'd also get separation allowance, BAS, and BAH II if you're married. add them up, it's a lot. i think you'd end up sucking more $$$ from the army if you do OBLC before, although there are still some confusions on whether school ADT would pay BAH and BAS (i have seen some did and some didn't). OBLC b/f dental school would count as 1 ADT, so if you go to a school in places like NYC or san francisco, the BAH and BAS during your school ADT would offset almost all the money you made during OBLC before school. if not, you're simply better off doing it before. yes, students can do OBLC after dental school w/ O-3 pay, but you get the same amount or more by starting your active duty early (up to 60 days, during june and july). also, some say you're treated better if you're O-3 than O-1, but we were all treated as students; i hardly saw any difference in terms of being appropriately treated as officers.
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 (2 yrs ago), 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 (after i already turned down summer research opportunities), 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!
