Personal NUPOC Questions

[shinmoonkang]

Hello everyone,
I'm glad that I recently found this site. Officer recruiters came to my school a week ago and got me really interested in joining the Navy. I've wanted to do something that gave me a sense of fulfillment in life, and I believe it would be great to pursue an engineering career while serving my country. Although it has only been about a week since I've seriously started thinking about applying to NUPOC program, I've talked to a few people (usually older brothers of friends) about the NUPOC program and have heard great things, and I've scanned these forums to possible answers to all my questions. Of course as with all things, I am not rushing into anything, and getting as much information as I can about the program. Although I won't be rushing to make a decision, I have always had a desire to joined the Navy ever since my friend went to the Naval Academy, but I was never aware of the career opportunities for an engineer in the Navy. However, several questions personal to me about the program have come up in my mind ever since I started reading about the competitiveness of the program. Now to the details.

Graduated High School in 2006 from Hunter College High School (3.74 Cumulative GPA)
Currently a second semester junior at the Cooper Union (New York, NY)
Major: Mechanical Engineer
Cumulative GPA: 2.94
The reason for the low GPA is because of my freshman year, when I believed that the Cooper Union could not possibly as hard as high school, and wanted to party as much as possible and didn't go to my classes. That resulted in a horrible freshman year, which resulted in these grades for some classes.
Physics: Mechanics Grade: C
Calculus I Grade: C
Calculus II Grade: F (retook the class, got an A)
Ever since, I have become a hard worker at school, trying my best to get the best grades possible. I've gotten an A in Differential Calculus, as well as B in Vector Calculus. For ME related classes, I have received an A in Stress and Elasticity as well as a B in Solid Mechanics.

I guess my question is, will my freshman year prevent me from considering NUPOC? I'm very willing to restudy all the material necessary to answer any technical questions thrown my way, and I'm trying to learn as much about the NUPOC on my own as possible, but I just wanted to know if I was going to waste their time by trying to apply. Thank You.

-Shin

[HydroDave63]

http://www.nukeworker.com/forum/index.php/topic,15893.0.html

[shinmoonkang]

I saw that post, but he was well overqualified than I was with a Masters and a BS. Also I read that you needed an academic waiver but would my recruitment officer decide that? I also don't have the option to retake classes in my school so that also hurts.

[NukeNTO]

You'll need an academic waiver for any technical classes in which you recieved less than a C.  If you retake them and get a C or better then you don't need a waiver for that class.  Your overall GPA is a little bit low, but certainly not so low as to exclude you.  Your "upward trend" in grades will be taken into consideration as well.  If you're within 30 months of graduating I'd recommend you talk to a recruiter about one of the monthly VIP trips so you can see everything first hand, then make your mind up after you've seen it.  Good luck to you either way!!