I know the Nuke program is demanding from what I've heard. I'm a meteorology student at Oklahoma and our program is so demanding that we typcially start out with around 150-175 and only about 30-40 of those make it through the program. What are the statistics like for the Nuke program? How many people get accepted versus how many actually make it through? What makes the Nuke program so hard? Is it moreso the amount of work, or is it the difficulty of the material? What are some good tips to help ensure success getting through the program?
WXMel,
Some of this is already discussed above. As I perused through the thread, I noted a lot of questions and a couple of answers that recent policy has changed. Please keep in mind throughout this response that I believe the Navy Nuclear Power pipeline is a great career start for intelligent hardworking young folkes, but I'm not a recruiter (to each his/her own).

Just out of curiousity, what rate is your boyfriend?

The best way to make it through is certainly noted in the thread ... hard work. The program used to have statistics of 33-50% attrition. No more. As Adidas noted, it is now around 10% with academics less than 5%. If you want to make it through, you will. The majority of the losses now are drugs, underage drinking (repeated offenses which leads to your reliability to operate a nuclear reactor, and the inability to obtain a clearance due to debt, pre-service offenses, etc.). Very few drops due to academics (most of these are realistically lack of motivation).

The schools today are nothing like what they were when most of us went through. The MM A school is everythng from Valve Operations to Air Compressors to Plant Thermodynamics to Quality Assurance. EMs are now almost identical to ETs in that they are taught Basic Electricity, Electronics and Microprocessor Theory. The EMs are then forked off to Power Generation topics, while the ETs continue off with more advanced Microprocessor Instrumentation and Control topics.

The curriculum has changed to Computer Aided Instruction and Structured Notes. No more of the instructor writing as fast as he/she can for an hour while students write as fast as they can. Now, instructors have time to teach. The average to pass on to Nuke School from A school was adjusted to 2.50 (62.5%) to make it more reasonable. As an aside, as someone noted above, often those students who barely make it through the school are the biggest successes in the fleet (my opinion only).

Someone also mentioned SRBs above. Zone A, B and C still exist. But zone C has also been added into a supervisory enlistment bonus and probably in October of this year Zone D will be added to this program. I have attached the NAVADMIN at the bottom. That of course is written in Navy lingo, so any questions, please post and someone will answer. SRB currently ends at 16 years, but the supervisory bonus will extend to at least 20 years of service and maybe more. Now keep in mind, the reason the Navy is willing to pay those bonuses, is that we are in a highly competitive hiring field. The civilian work force wants you too! (which is why I stated earlier I believe the pipeline is a great thing for the younger work force).
http://www.bupers.navy.mil/navadmin/_vti_bin/navadmin-search.html0.idqI taught at Nuke Field A School about 3 years ago (Digital and Microprocessor Theory) and then served as the ET Class Director. Many of us thought of the program as a dinosaur that would never change. When Admiral Bowman came in, things changed.
For you/boyfriend or Adidas or LHef, I'm one of those old giesers about to retire. I am attached to the USS Portsmouth as the EDMC which is also about to retire. So, if you have questions or concerns, I have left my e-mail addy open. (You can guarantee neither you nor your significant other will ever be attached to my command) and btw, I don't get offended easily.
Have a great Navy day. ;') Charlie (ETCM(SS))