Confidence builder! What do you think my chances are?

[awint]

I'm a 27 year old male in good shape, i do crossfit, made a afqt score of 99, and am going through the process of entering the nuke program.

The important info is that I have a possession charge for marijuana on my record 7 years old and am obviously going through a moral waiver process as well as an age waiver.

I know the Navy is pretty saturated right now but have been told by my recruiter that they are in need of good nuke candidates.  His opinion is that i have a very good chance of being granted my waivers however being that i want this like nothing i ever have before I'm nervous.

Based on these facts, what do you all think my chances are?

[JsonD13]

As long as you are/were honest, pretty good.

Jason

[JustinHEMI05]

You shouldn't have anything to worry about.

But noticing your age, just realize that just about everyone you are going to work for is going to be much younger than you. However, considering you are mature enough to make this sort of decision at this point in your life, I am betting you are mature enough to handle that.

The thing to worry about is getting mixed up with your underage classmates in the pipeline. I am going to give you friendly advice now, don't do it, at least not if there is alcohol involved in some way. If you are with a group of underage drinking peers, YOU will be held accountible. I wouldn't even put myself in that position. Just a thought.

Good luck and keep us posted.

Justin

[HydroDave63]

I knew where Novaya Zemlya was and knew the injection temperature in the Matochkin Strait was about 35F,

Nothing like those salmon runs in the Sea of Okhotsk!

[lwrozans]

I'm in a similar situation
I've been hearing good things from all of these guys though
Best of luck
Hope to see you at NNPTC in a few months

[awint]

Awesome feedback guys and/or gals! My main goal is to kick ass scholastically and with honor.  This opportunity is they key to the rest of my life and I will treat it as such.

To the "youngsters" out there hehe, mad props to you all.  The sort of dedication and maturity needed to achieve the goals you have, without having to have life deal you daily spanks, is absolutely awe inspiring.   I may be coming in late, but I hope to make this community proud.

First MEPS meeting is in 5 days.  More posts to come.

Cheers

[awint]

An update and new question for you guys and gals.

Was told today by my recruiter that he had good and bad new.  Good news is that both the navy and Nuc "screeners" seem to have no trouble waiving my possession charge, bad news is that the Nuc "screeners" are up in the air about my age.  Totally thought it would be the other way around but I digress..

My question is geared to the validity of  the advice and info that my recruiter gave me.  I have MEPS in 2 days at which I will obviously have to choose a rating.  Being that I have a waiver pending up to 30 days, he recommended choosing AECF and setting my ship out date to February or so.  The thought process is based on the idea that IF my waiver goes through, the navy will roll me over into the Nuc program and alter my ship date to the next available opening.  If I don't get it awarded I will still have a good rating and can apply to ship out sooner than February.

My concern is that while that sounds like a great plan, I will have signed a contract for AECF and may be forever bound to it regardless of my waiver being accepted.

I suppose in the grand scheme of the situation there really aren't any other options to take, but what are your opinions? Advice?

[Gamecock]

An update and new question for you guys and gals.

Was told today by my recruiter that he had good and bad new.  Good news is that both the navy and Nuc "screeners" seem to have no trouble waiving my possession charge, bad news is that the Nuc "screeners" are up in the air about my age.  Totally thought it would be the other way around but I digress..

My question is geared to the validity of  the advice and info that my recruiter gave me.  I have MEPS in 2 days at which I will obviously have to choose a rating.  Being that I have a waiver pending up to 30 days, he recommended choosing AECF and setting my ship out date to February or so.  The thought process is based on the idea that IF my waiver goes through, the navy will roll me over into the Nuc program and alter my ship date to the next available opening.  If I don't get it awarded I will still have a good rating and can apply to ship out sooner than February.

My concern is that while that sounds like a great plan, I will have signed a contract for AECF and may be forever bound to it regardless of my waiver being accepted.

I suppose in the grand scheme of the situation there really aren't any other options to take, but what are your opinions? Advice?

If you want to be a nuke, then don't bite on the recruiter's plan for advanced electronics.  Don't gamble 6 years of your life on the idea that you MIGHT get a waiver, because the truth is....you MIGHT NOT get it.

Cheers,
GC

[Neutron_Herder]

I'm with GC on this one.  If you want to be a Nuke, don't sign a contract for anything else until you know the outcome of your waiver!

Ratings don't like to lose a qualified applicant, and like you said you might be stuck in the advanced electronics even if your Nuke waiver comes through.  I'm not bashing the electronics field though...  If you want to do component level electronics stuff, that is definitely the way to go.  Nukes don't troubleshoot much below the card level anymore, and that "troubleshooting" is merely hooking up a computer to tell us which card to replace.  If you go the conventional way you'll be a "real" Electronics Tech instead of the ones we have in the Nuke program. 

I'd hold out for Nuke, but I'm obviously biased...

Good Luck!

Jay

[navsteve]

I was a navy nuke and I did a recruiting tour prior to getting out in 03.  I can answer a few of your questions based on what I remember.  

First of all, I did have success with age waivers for the nuke program, but I don't remember ever having to do an age waiver and a moral waiver for the same applicant.  Marijuana possession was a big deal for entry into the nuke field and is never taken lightly.  If that is all you have on your record, I can see them possibly approving it.  As far as both waivers getting approved, unfortunately I don't know what will happen.  At some point you will probably talk to the XO of the recruiting district and you need to be able to explain to him why you went wrong and show remorse.  He will be the one that forwards his recommendation for the nuke field waiver.

As far as the AECF program is concerned, it is a good program.  Generally, the nuke field would be thought of as the top enlisted program to enter and AECF would be 2nd.  If you are willing to enter the AECF program, I would go to MEPS and join under that program (with the hopes of getting the waiver).  If you are not willing to enter the AECF program, do not go to MEPS and join.

Being a former recruiter, I know your objection to joining as AECF and waiting for the waiver for the NF would be, "Will they change my program to NF or are they just telling me that?"  I can tell you this, if your waiver is approved, they WILL switch your program.  The Navy always needs nukes and the recruiting districts are given NF goals that they need to meet.

If you are set on joining the NF and not AECF, I recommend trying to get your waiver pushed through prior to going to MEPS.  I don't know if they will without your physical complete, but it's worth checking.  If they won't, you need to ask your recruiter to let you go to MEPS for a physical only and then wait for the waiver.  You need to make that very clear, because they WILL try to get you to join when you go to MEPS.  I can't emphasize that enough.  This is much bigger than your recruiter.  Recruiting districts need to make goal and every effort will be made to get a qualified applicant on deck to join.

Best of luck!

[awint]

Above par responses as usual guys! I'll be swearing in in 2 days and all i can do is cross my fingers at this point.

Here's hoping to becoming a member in your amazing community!

[awint]

So it seems that in light of my age waiver I am being asked to take the nfqt, personally I believe this to be a good thing.  If I preform well it can only further improve my position to enter Nuc school.

I attempted to search for some adequate information on this test in and outside these forums but haven't really found anything satisfactory per my inquires.

I am aware that it will be mostly math, consisting of algebra and trig (maybe more?), classical physics, and some minor chemistry.

How in depth into these subjects does this test dive? Am I going to just be doing some basic uses of sin, cos, tan...Cartesian <-> polar plotting and conversions? What level of algebra? Just order of operations stuff, or getting into the use of functions, conics, logs etc...?

Any insight would be much appreciated as I am trying to blow this test away as hard as I can to ensure a sign off on my waiver.

I apologize in advance if I just haven't researched enough, and will take any resulting textual lashing in stride.

Thanks in advance.

[BuddyThePug]

I attempted to search for some adequate information on this test in and outside these forums but haven't really found anything satisfactory per my inquires.

Did you ever take the SAT? Try to cram and learn new stuff beforehand, or brush-up on concepts you already knew? NFQT would be the same. Review what you already know, and test as well as you can.

Be the best sailor you can be!

[IPREGEN]

You have 2 chances

fat chance
and of course
slim chance.

[awint]

Well Ipregen, I suppose I can not argue with your statements since they seem so absolute, I must therefore consider "fat chance" to be best interpreted as a "large chance". ;-)

Took the test today and scored a 67.  Personally I was hoping for a higher score, but for the purposes of which I was taking it, the results were adequate.

Meps in 2 days...can't wait to see what new hoops I shall need to navigate through then!

Thanks to all who offered the advice that lent some of the support that has helped me thus far.  

[JustinHEMI05]

Congrats! Keep us posted!