An issue of timing

[ds1506]

Hello everybody,

I think I'm in a bit of a unique situation. I joined the Civil Air Patrol right before my 18th birthday, and I've been in the Florida Wing cadet program on and off for about a year now. I've heard a lot about the NCSAs and they really sparked my interest. However, I have yet to attend an encampment. Now, given that I attend an encampment this year, what NCSAs can I do before I'm required to become a senior member? Is there anything I can do after becoming a senior member? I'm afraid that I may have waited to long to become a member, is there anything I can still do?

[coudano]

well you can still go next summer, right?

You must be about on your 19th birthday now?
so this summer is too late,
but next summer you could go on an NCSA (on the summer of your 20th birthday)
you can stay in CAP as a cadet until your 21st birthday

which ones are available to you depends only on your rank...  some require the mitchell; some require the earhart (some don't have a rank requirement)



once you are a senior member, you can attend some of the NCSA's (NESA, HAWK, and Blue Beret come to mind)
naturally your role at the NCSA will be different as a senior member than it will as a cadet, even if you are there as a student.


and eventually you can get involved in staffing them, if you so choose, and if there are openings


there are also a variety of non-ncsa activities that are "ncsa-ish" out there that you could try to grab as well.

[SarDragon]

What's your current grade? That can have as much bearing as your age.

I'm guessing that you are now 19. When is your birthday?

If you go to encampment this summer, you will have next summer and the following one, if your BD is late in the year, to go to NCSAs. You should get your Mitchell as soon as possible, because it increases your chances for selection.

[ds1506]

What's your current grade? That can have as much bearing as your age.

I'm guessing that you are now 19. When is your birthday?

If you go to encampment this summer, you will have next summer and the following one, if your BD is late in the year, to go to NCSAs. You should get your Mitchell as soon as possible, because it increases your chances for selection.

I'll be turning 19 in July. Unfortunately with the last year, a few personal things came up and I wasn't able to promote past C/Amn because of attendance issues.

well you can still go next summer, right?

You must be about on your 19th birthday now?
so this summer is too late,
but next summer you could go on an NCSA (on the summer of your 20th birthday)
you can stay in CAP as a cadet until your 21st birthday

which ones are available to you depends only on your rank...  some require the mitchell; some require the earhart (some don't have a rank requirement)



once you are a senior member, you can attend some of the NCSA's (NESA, HAWK, and Blue Beret come to mind)
naturally your role at the NCSA will be different as a senior member than it will as a cadet, even if you are there as a student.


and eventually you can get involved in staffing them, if you so choose, and if there are openings

My main concern is actually being able to actively participate in the activity, so I'm basically trying to cram as much as I can into the next couple years, with PJOC and the other activities that can only be attended by cadets being the top priorities.

[SarDragon]

What day in July?

[coudano]

well uh,

So if you go get promoted to C/A1C in April (I'm assuming it's too late to get promoted in March at this point)
Then you can get promoted 5 times by the Jan 15, 2012 application deadline;  Which puts you at best as a C/MSgt on the Application deadline (even though you could possibly be a chief by the time you were to attend some activity or another).  So you can scratch everything that requires the Mitchell or higher off the list of what will be available.
That still leaves some pretty decent stuff out there, though.
Not to mention possibly rocking something like first sergeant at next summer's encampment.
**you could also catch a bit less than half of 2013's NCSA's right up until your 21st birthday, some of them happen in June and the first half of July (and you may have beaten the rank restrictions by then if you promote rapidly)

With regards to your ability to participate...  when you go to an NCSA you are there for the entire week (sometimes longer) with basically no schedule conflicts our outside distractions, so from the first day to the last day, ALL you do is that NCSA, so there is no reason you can't participate fully.

Some of those activities are heavily stressful physically, emotionally, or mentally.  So your resilience and ability to keep up in those categories is basically on you as an individual; that has very little to do with your age and nothing at all to do with your rank.



That said, being a 19 year old cadet in phase 1 and phase 2 of the program can be a tough road.
Your past year of non participation doesn't bode extremely well for your next year of participation, unless something has changed so that your situation is remarkably different. 

At my squadron, if a cadet who was 'basically inactive' submitted an application for an NCSA, I would advise my squadron commander to turn the application down.  However, your squadron may let it go by.  If an NCSA is your goal, I would be making sure I attend at least 75% of meetings, at least half of activities, and promote pretty close to every 2 months.  You do that between now and January 15th, and they probably won't have a problem approving your application.

[EMT-83]

When applying for an activity next year, what you lack in grade might be regained by your age. An older cadet receives a slightly higher numerical rating than a younger cadet.

Without looking at the formula I don't know the exact numbers, but a 19 year-old C/MSgt should have a pretty good shot at acceptance.

[ds1506]

What day in July?

The 7th, so sliding in during my last weeks of being 20 will be kinda hard.

With regards to your ability to participate...  when you go to an NCSA you are there for the entire week (sometimes longer) with basically no schedule conflicts our outside distractions, so from the first day to the last day, ALL you do is that NCSA, so there is no reason you can't participate fully.

Does this include being a senior member at the activities that both senior members and cadets can attend?

That said, being a 19 year old cadet in phase 1 and phase 2 of the program can be a tough road.
Your past year of non participation doesn't bode extremely well for your next year of participation, unless something has changed so that your situation is remarkably different. 

At my squadron, if a cadet who was 'basically inactive' submitted an application for an NCSA, I would advise my squadron commander to turn the application down.

My participation has already been improved since last year and my squadron seems to want to help me get back into the fray as much as possible lately. So I'm not anticipating much of a problem getting approved for an NCSA by next year.

When applying for an activity next year, what you lack in grade might be regained by your age. An older cadet receives a slightly higher numerical rating than a younger cadet.

Without looking at the formula I don't know the exact numbers, but a 19 year-old C/MSgt should have a pretty good shot at acceptance.

That's good to hear, it seems like I'm going to need as much help as I can get.

[coudano]

What day in July?

The 7th, so sliding in during my last weeks of being 20 will be kinda hard.

Remember we're talking about 2013 here...
You can do ANY activity (that you qualify for by your rank) in 2012 (the summer that you turn 20)

Still in 2013 you could catch apjoc, many of the flight academies, suptfc, security forces, and some others

With regards to your ability to participate...  when you go to an NCSA you are there for the entire week (sometimes longer) with basically no schedule conflicts our outside distractions, so from the first day to the last day, ALL you do is that NCSA, so there is no reason you can't participate fully.

Does this include being a senior member at the activities that both senior members and cadets can attend?

Actually, with a few small exceptions, yes; the senior members are usually locked in for the entire activity with few to no distractions as well.  There are some cases where you will see senior members come and go or only participate a portion of an activity, There will virtually always be a cadre of people who are there for the entire thing.

It almost sounds to me like the real question here is more like "should I switch and become a senior member flight officer and then try to go to an activity that way".  The answer is going to depend on what activity you want to do, but in most cases the answer is no.  You can go do NESA or Hawk or NBB and I think participate in a 'student' role in a similar way to how cadets do.  But

If you are asking about things like PJOC, SUPTFC, any of the other familiarization courses, and so on;  forgetaboutit.
If you even got asked to be on senior staff for something like that (very unlikely especially at your age), your role would be *entirely* different from the cadets role at the activity.

Once you become a senior member, your role as a cadet ends.  Instead of having great training experiences, your CAP membership becomes primarily about the safety and well being of your cadets, and secondarily about conducting the training program by teaching and mentoring cadets.  Sure, us 'old guys' have fun too, and we might even get the chance to do some 'cool stuff' that was set up for the cadets (from time to time).  But it's not your main role once you become a senior member, and it's nothing at all like being a care free teenager just having a good time.

When applying for an activity next year, what you lack in grade might be regained by your age. An older cadet receives a slightly higher numerical rating than a younger cadet.

Without looking at the formula I don't know the exact numbers, but a 19 year-old C/MSgt should have a pretty good shot at acceptance.

That's good to hear, it seems like I'm going to need as much help as I can get.

You can go here http://ncsas.com/frequently_asked_questions.cfm?show=entry&blogID=89
and figure out exactly how many points you are going to have.
Looks to me like for 2012, 38 based on what you've said here.  That's out of 60 possible.

I don't believe any numbers are published out there on the scores that cadets who have actually been slotted have been.
I can tell you that I know cadets that are slotted this year with points in the low-to-mid 30's.

[HGjunkie]

I got slotted with 23, so You would probably have a really good chance of getting what you wanted.