[Music] thank you today I want to talk to you about the top five tips to master your ROTC scholarship interview the interview is worth a really high percentage of whichever branch of service you're applying to for your ROTC scholarship for Army and Air Force it's worth anywhere from 30 to 40 percent and for Navy it's worth about 20 percent so you have to do fairly well on the interview in order to be able to get a scholarship in the first place so our first tip is to research the military value set each branch of service has different core values Air Force Army Navy and they're all different servant leadership and teamwork take precedence over your personal accomplishments and coming to the interview prepared and understanding which branch of service and their core values what those are and how they apply to your life will definitely help you stand out from other candidates that are interviewing our second tip is that each branch of service has standard questions they ask you can find out what these questions are and you can prepare ahead of time this leads us into our third tip which is interview preparation this is such a vital part of the application process you can't afford to skip preparation once you find that list of questions that you're going to be asked get together with a friend a teacher a coach a parent even and just have them ask you those questions the more times you can practice the questions that you think you're going to be asked the better you want to make sure that you've identified your strengths and your weaknesses and if you are talking about weaknesses you have a plan to address those weaknesses when you go into the interview make sure you dress the part and that you're acting the part using sir and ma'am are really important to set you apart from others it shows that you've already taken on that military mindset and that you can see yourself as an ROTC Cadet and when you're doing this interview prep if you dress the part and you use certain ma'am you're already ahead right so you might not slip up during the actual interview preparation especially if you're not used to these things not used to wearing uh business casual or suit or using Sarah ma'am and if you participate in any type of military or organization we highly recommend that you wear your uniform to that ROTC scholarship interview our fourth tip for today is for those interviewing online now Zoom or online interviews they change the game a little bit it's really important that you practice what it's like to interview via zoom in advance because it's a lot different than in person it's a really good idea to get in front of a camera and just work out the Kinks and that means actually setting up a zoom session or whichever type of Technology you're going to be using with a friend in advance and making sure that you're practicing because it's a lot different than talking to someone in person for instance you want to make sure that you're looking at the camera because that actually demonstrates eye contact instead of looking down at the screen or somewhere else and practicing those things in advance will help you overall and our final tip for today number five is to go into the interview and make sure you have questions prepared before you go in because at the end of the interview a lot of times the interviewers will ask do you have any questions for us and there's questions you want to ask and then there's questions you want to stay away from so again the whole point is to demonstrate that you have a military mindset already so going in and asking questions that you've thought of in advance such as how can I best prepare myself if I win this scholarship to be in ROTC Cadet this fall what can I do in the meantime or hey I'm really interested in the summer opportunities that you have in terms of training and I've heard a little bit about them but can you tell me some more summer training opportunities that I could get as a Cadet you don't want to ask questions like how much is the scholarship worth how long will I have to serve after I get out you know those are all questions you can find out in advance and it gives the interviewer the wrong impression right because that's more of a personal what is ROTC going to do for me instead of what can I do for my country and you definitely want to have that service mindset going in