Promotions in the Army?

Promotion points are (or should, rather) be pretty straight forward. Things like your APFT score, weapons qual, and certain schools (e.g. airborne, air assault, pathfinder, etc) will all earn you points. As far as points go, it is pretty much pass/fail. Either you have the points or you don't; that being said, points fluctuate for the different ranks and the less that you have in relation to the demand for NCOs in your specialty will make your chances of getting picked up better or worse. Now, depending on your MOS, the most difficult part of the process will be getting the recommendation and passing your board (as both E5 and E6 promotions in the army require you to pass a board at your unit before being granted P [or promotable] status). Pass the board -> bring all of your point-awarding paperwork/qualifications to the unit S-1 -> play the waiting game. I would also advise that even after getting your points settled with the S-1 that you continue to go about earning points. You never know if you are going to miss the point cut off and may need more. If you are going for SSG/E6, college credit hours are going to play a greater role than correspondence courses/military education. The expectation is that you should be a leader and proficient in your MOS and soldier skills by this time and you should be focusing on bringing in more expertise to the profession from a college education.

I hope this helps. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.

I took a bunch of correspondence courses. I found some not in the normal correspondent course. There was one course had one book and was worth 50 points. It was from the logistics school. Also college I took some and retired with an AA degree from central Texas College now I have another and over 550 college credit hours. Not bad for a high school drop out.

Check out AR 600-8-19
You'll also want to check out the new changes to E5 and E6 listed on the HRC Enlisted promotions website. You'll need to learn these because as an NCO you will be counseling your soldiers about promotion.
Once you pin Staff Sergeant the promotion process is completely different. You'll want to look at the AARs for your MOS saying what were the factors that made candidates the most competitive.