Commissioning into the military as a nurse. Which is harder, Navy or Air Force?

[Fullmetaljacket96]

Hi guys, so I'm currently working on an associate degree in nursing and I'm seriously considering going into the military as a commissioned officer nurse after I get my bachelor's. The two branches I'm looking at are Air Force and Navy. I'm kind of leaning towards the Air Force since I'm a little more familiar with it and I've got a few cousins in the AF, but I've been reading a lot of stuff online and everyone is saying that it's extremely difficult to get into the AF as a commissioned officer, especially for nurses, that it's very competitive because there aren't many positions open, and if you aren't in the ROTC program it's especially going to be tougher because most positions are given preference to the incoming ROTC graduates. So I don't know if all of this is true or not and I virtually know nothing about the Navy, their website isn't as informative as the AF's. Is there a big difference in admissions into the AF or Navy for commissioned nurses or is it the same?

[nurse2033, MSN, RN]

Just apply to both and see what happens.

[St.BaptistRN, BSN]

It wasn't hard to do, just really tedious. I applied to both Air Force and Army, they were each looking for about 15 critical care nurses. Despite that, I got accepted by both and went with the Air Force, I can't speak about the Navy. In case your interested, the Army's packet was a heck of a lot longer than the Air Forces. It took over a year from the time I walked into a recruiting office to going to training. If you've only got associates, then you've got time to prepare and get your stuff ready.

[Fullmetaljacket96]

Interesting. So it's not too early to start doing paper work and talking to a recruiter, instead of waiting til when I get my bachelor's?

[St.BaptistRN, BSN]

I'm not sure how far you'll get, but maybe you could get some paperwork and forms started

[Fullmetaljacket96]

Alright, thanks for the advice.