The question did not mention if you have attended or graduated from college or are still a high school student. If the latter, any high school student who can write as logically and clearly as indicated here should probably be joining the Navy in the sense of being enlisted in the navy reserves in a non deployable capacity while in college earning a 4 year degree and an ensign's commission at the Navy's expense-NROTC.
If you have already graduated from college then you should be looking into OCS(Officer's Candidate School) and you need to speak to a Navy OPO(Officer's Program Officer) instead of an enlisted recruiter. Maybe some of these "rates" will make you want to "jump on the job."
http://www.cnrc.navy.mil/sanfrancisco/opo/general-information.htmhttp://www.cnrc.navy.mil/sanfrancisco/opo/ If you are a high school student or just beginning college a 4 year nrotc commissioning program is available. For college students with 2 years remaining a 2 year commissioning course is available. A good description of nrotc:
http://military.berkeley.edu/naval.html List of universities offering nrotc is available at first link at bottom of this webpage:
http://marineofficer.com/page/NROTC-O.jsp An unofficial account of nrotc:
http://www.lukeswartz.com/nrotc.html Reading through these FAQ will answer many questions about nrotc:
http://www.sandiego.edu/nrotc/faq.php Calculate regular military compensation for various ranks and locations at the following link. Location makes a significant difference due to the housing allowance(BAH.) Single enlisted sailors below E-5 live in the barracks and do not collect BAH.
http://www.defenselink.mil/militarypay/mpcalcs/Calculators/RMC.aspx 2nd Lt( Army, Air Force and Marines) = Ensign(Navy) = O-1.
1st Lt( Army, Air Force and Marines) = Lt JG(Navy) = O-2.
Captain( Army, Air Force and Marines)= Lt(Navy) = O-3.
Advancement to O-2 by about the 18th month.
Advancement to O-3 by about 37th month
The salary nukes can make sounds enticing now, but one has to want to work in certain of those environments-nuclear submarine and a nuclear power plant. A Navy Lieutenant can make just under or over $100,000 in certain locations. For civilian salary comparison purposes, let's assume he was stationed in New York City and had 4 years of service, with his BAH and not including any special pays, his compensation would allow a lifestyle equivalent to a civilian salary of $112,839.83, which is fairly comfortable even in high cost NYC. Let's assume that he then decided to leave the Navy and with the good grades he earned in college and his significant managerial experience as a naval officer was able to gain admission to a great business school like NYU Stern or Columbia. His GI Bill benefits would help finance his professional school education. This is significant because most of the financing available for professional school is of the loan rather than grant variety. On graduation, he would be offered jobs with starting salaries ranging from around the 120,000 level to the 200,000 level, not including sizable bonuses which are the standard in more normal economic times. And his salary will escalate from this point, whereas a navy nuke without a college degree might make $120,000 on leaving the navy but his salary is not going to leave the narrow range of his job throughout his career, advancing for increased time on the job and cost of living
If you are in College the Coast Guard also offers a commissioning program:
http://www.gocoastguard.com/find-your-fit/officer-opportunities/programs/college-student-pre-commissioning-initiative Also if you are a HS student and want to experience a military lifestyle while in college, Coast Guard offers direct commissions to graduates of USMMA and the six state funded maritime academies: California Maritime Academy, Maine Maritime, SUNY Maritime, Massachusetts Maritime, Texas Maritime and Great Lakes Maritime:
http://www.gocoastguard.com/find-your-fit/officer-opportunities/programs/maritime-academy-graduate NROTC is also available at some of the maritime academies and direct commissions to any service branch are available to USMMA grads.
re: additional details...if you received a 1270 on the old SAT which has not been administered for I think 4.5-5 years, then you must have been in 9th or 10th grade at the time. If you scored a 1270 when unmotivated then there is little doubt you have the aptitude to go to college. That is way over the score required to be eligible for an nrotc or nrotc mo scholarship:
https://www.nrotc.navy.mil/eligibility.cfm#eligibility
That is about the middle of the middle 50?ange of candidates appointed to the naval academy, which you are still eligible to enter till you are over 22 on july 1.
http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=2998&profileId=6 This means you could conceivably self prep for a year and apply.
http://www.nmmi.edu/prep/aboutourprogram.htmhttp://academic.nmmi.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=2&poid=8&bc=1 NMMI is very reasonable even for out of state. Even without an available rotc scholarship grants available by completing the fafsa will probably pay for most of it.
http://www.vfmac.edu/SAP.html nmmi and vfma also have the ecp but this is army only:
http://www.vfmac.edu/ecp.html usmma is not as limited in terms of age-25 rather than 22. Direct commissions are available to any service branch. And in the merchant marine grads starting salaries are in the 90k range.
http://www.usmma.edu/military/ Also possible to go to a JC that has cross town school arrangements with a university rotc program:
http://airforcerotc.berkeley.edu/_crosstown-schools.htm [20 of the 36 cross town schools are junior colleges.]
Not many JC's have cross town relations with NROTC programs but at some there are other ways to take the classes as at Berkeley or UCLA through concurrent enrollment in University Extension:
http://military.berkeley.edu/naval.htmlhttp://www.unex.berkeley.edu/info/enrollment.html#concurrent Till transfer to Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD or another University with an NROTC program is possible as a Junior:
http://www.ucsd.edu/prospective-students/admissions/undergraduate-admissions/transfer/tag.htmlhttp://www.admissions.ucla.edu/Prospect/Adm_tr/ADM_CCO/tap.htm Berkeley does not guarantee transfers. About a 3.7 GPA and meeting all prerequisites is usually required:
http://students.berkeley.edu/admissions/transfer.asphttp://students.berkeley.edu/files/Admissions/12626_5.Info_TransAdm.pdf Cal Maritime is only 19 miles from Berkeley at the Carquinez Straits and relatively easy to gain admission to as a freshman or transfer and they accept sophomore transfers. The two Coast Guard programs mentioned above are available at Cal Maritime:
http://navyrotc.berkeley.edu/http://www.csum.edu/http://www.csum.edu/military/militaryoptions.asp There are also Universities with NROTC programs where a 1270 SAT score will meet the eligibility requirements based on standardized test scores alone, regardless of HS GPA or class rank, if the required college prep HS curriculum was completed. For instance U of Missouri requires a 1080+ (CR + Math) SAT score:
http://admissions.missouri.edu/howtoapply/freshman/requirements.php Good Luck!