Army ROTC is an elective curriculum you take along with your required college classes. It gives you the tools, training and experiences that will help you succeed in any competitive environment. Along with great leadership training, Army ROTC can pay for your college tuition. Because Army ROTC is an elective, you can participate your freshman and sophomore years without any obligation to join the Army. You will have a normal college student experience like everyone else on campus, but when you graduate, you will be commissioned as an Officer in the Army. At that point, you will have a wide range of interest areas you can specialize in called branches.
At the University of Maryland the Terrapin Battalion has excelled at producing Officers of the highest caliber through our diverse and expansive training opportunities, program outreach, leadership development, internships in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area and longstanding networks our program has developed. The program has sent cadets to Greece, Panama, China, Slovakia, Morocco, and other countries through its Cultural Understanding Language Proficiency Program (CULP), and to Barcelona, Spain through its Study Abroad program. Our cadets have won their division in the Ranger Challenge Competition multiple times, and won the 4th Brigade Ranger Challenge Competition, placing first out of 39 schools. Even with busy schedules and difficult training, cadets are able to maintain a battalion average GPA of 3.2, and a battalion average Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) score of 267/300. They perform well at the Cadet Leadership Course (CLC) which all cadets participate in at the end of their junior year.
Because of all of our achievements, 87% of cadets receive either their first, or second branch choice when cadets commission and join the Regular Army
Find out more about Army ROTC at the University of Maryland in our Fall UMD Army ROTC Newsletter.
The Terrapin Battalion takes physical fitness very seriously – to measure your success in ROTC and to compete for special schools, training opportunities, and branch assignment. You will be expected to maintain your body like you would maintain your equipment. Don’t worry though, we’ll help you do it!
The whole Battalion has opportunities to compete with other Army ROTC programs in the Ranger Challenge. A test of all the skills learned in ROTC, our Ranger Challenge team has placed in the top three amongst 39 other schools four times in a row. We have won numerous accolades for our team, holding more trophies for Ranger Challenge in just fifteen years than most schools have in the last fifty.
A true measure of discipline and respect for the service, our Color Guard has presented the National Colors during the University’s basketball and football games. Each year we present the colors for outside agencies and civilian conferences. We've presented for the U.S. Department of the Interior, a Naturalization Ceremony, the director of the Citizenship and Immigration Services, a cybersecurity firm, and the President of the United States.
Project Global Officers (GO) is a Department of Defense initiative for ROTC students that:
The U.S. military needs future military officers who possess the necessary critical language and cross-cultural communication skills required for effective leadership in the 21st century operational environment. Find out if you are eligible.
