How competitive is getting into 17A (Cyber Warfare Officer)? What can I do to be more competitive?

Cyber is a highly selective branch and has an accessions process DIFFERENT from all the other branches. Your best path may be to start out MI or SC and then apply to move over. You need to have both a technical aptitude and leadership skills. I was the president of the last RC 17A panel and the packets are very strong. Folks with multiple degrees, significant cyber work experience, and demonstrated leadership. Best of luck with the process.

1. My personal opinion would be to keep your degree in mathematics since you are so close to graduating. What your degree in does not really matter at OCS. Anyone can branch into anything with all types of degrees. However, cyber has a different selection process and computer science may be more attractive to the cyber field. I honestly can’t attest to if either or would be more beneficial. My two cents would be to finish the degree you are already almost done with since you are so close but that’s just my opinion.

2. OCS works all on an OML (Order of Merit List). Everything you do at OCS is graded and all of your grades are kept track of. These grades determine your OML ranking, meaning that the better you do, the higher you will be on the OML. The OML only really matters for the active component candidates because these candidates compete for their jobs based off the OML. Essentially HRC authorizes a number of slots in each branch for each OCS class and the students compete for those slots. For example, if your class had 80 active duty candidates, HRC would allocate exactly 80 different branch slots to that class. These slots are a mixture of each branch the Army (with the exception of cyber, aviation, and medical services) has but it is all entirely dependent on needs of the Army. So if the Army is not in need of many signal corps LTs at the time, there will be less slots of those in the 80 total. It is completely up to needs of the Army in the allocations so you can have like 10 infantry slots, 8 ordnance slots, 3 MP slots, etc that will all in total make up the 80 slots. When it comes time to branch, the branching system works essentially like a draft. #1 person on the OML gets the first pick out of the 80 choices. The #2 picks from the remaining 79 choices so on and so forth. If you place really high on the OML, there is a high chance you will get your number 1 choice. I say really good chance because I placed in the top 10 of my class and received my second choice. With that being said, Cyber is not included in these branch allocations because they have their own specific selection process. You would have to apply through the cyber branch and complete whatever packed they have set forth separately. The Cyber branch reviews its own specific applicants and selects who they want in their corps.

3. Your ASVAB score is obviously pretty good but doesn’t play too big of an effect in getting accepted into either OCS nor Cyber (I would assume). It’s a general test set forth to measure your qualifications to see what jobs you could potentially pick from had you enlisted. The only scores that truly matter is your GT line score. You will need atleast a 110 GT score in order to even get accepted into OCS. There may be other updates like score requirements now but that’s the only one I know of for sure.

4. The whole application process takes a hot minute for OCS. By the time you begin your application to the time your school date begins, it will have been about a year if not longer. A majority of the application process is driven by you, so you can get a majority of it done on your pace. However, once it is turned in and awaiting review/approval, it’ll be completely out of your hands and will take a while to receive results. Be patient with the process because it is most definitely worth it.

5. If you want this bad enough, you will see it through. It’s not impossible but will be a challenging process. Don’t hesitate to ask questions or seek help with this! Your entire career is only driven by you!