Can someone get advanced enlisted rank for college credits or JROTC?

Question: Can someone get advanced enlisted rank for college credits or JROTC?

Answer: Each of the services have different policies when it comes to advanced enlistment rank for college credits and other programs (such as Junior ROTC).

• The Army offers advanced enlistment rank up to E-3 or E-4 for college, and up to E-2 for college/other programs.

• The Air Force offers advanced enlistment rank up to E-3 for college and participation in other programs. The Air Force is the only service which offers accelerated promotion for six-year enlistees.

• The Navy offers advanced enlistment rank up to E-3 for college and participation in other programs. The Navy also offers accelerated promotion up to E-4 for individuals who enlist in certain designated enlistment programs (Such as the Nuclear Field).

• The Marine Corps offers advanced enlistment rank up to E-2 for college and participation in other programs.

With the exception of the Air Force six-year enlistee advance rank program, recruits who join with advanced rank are paid the rate of base pay for that advanced rank right from the first day of active duty. However, in most of the services, recruits do not get to actually wear the rank until they graduate from basic training (in basic, everyone is treated the same -- ie, just lower than whale droppings).

For Air Force six-year enlistees, they enlist and go through basic as an E-1 (or E-2 if they were qualified, such as college credits) and are then promoted to E-3 20 weeks following basic training graduation, or when they graduate technical school (job training), whichever occurs first. Date of Rank as an E-3 is then back-dated to the date of basic training graduation. Airmen don't receive "back-pay" for this, but the earlier date-of-rank makes them eligible for E-4 earlier.

As with other enlistment incentives, advanced enlistment rank must be included on your enlistment contract.

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