July 2012 Air Force NTP Board

Hey, I am also in the process of applying for the NTP boards in July, with a tentative graduation in May. My recruiter has been rather difficult to communicate with and I wonder as well what to do with my down time. I was told to call his office in June if I wanted to apply because February was too early?

I was planning to apply for local positions in addition to the Air Force because I heard that there are very limited slots for the program this year. I also thought about just working for a year in the civilian world and avoiding the entire NTP process.

Please let me know if you hear anything, and good luck!

jan 30 by aura_of_laura

quote from ln75

i didn't go through ntp because i already had several years of nursing experience - i think anyone who has less than one year of rn practice goes through ntp. there are only a few locations to do ntp, scottsdale, az, wright-patt, oh, and i think in florida. we used to do it at travis, but i think they're stopping it after our current class. i think that they sometimes use civilian hospitals, but you'll be with a cohort of military nurses, with an instructor guiding you through everything. it's very much like a preceptorship, from what i understand. i think it's 10 weeks...

my cot class was 5 weeks (about 33 total days, i think). they're talking about making it longer to match the bot class (which is 10 weeks, i think), but i don't know what the time table is for that to go into effect.

you don't actually apply for ntp, you're applying for a commission. time from application to notice of acceptance is pretty standard - about a month after the board date, give or take a few weeks. time from acceptance (you can commission any time after that) to cot depends on what slots are available. i had four weeks between getting my acceptance and leaving for cot. some people have 8 months, just depends.

as for specialties, as a new nurse you don't really have options - l&d or med-surg. if you have more than a year icu experience, you may be able to work icu. most icu and ed nurses are 1lts or captains, and lots of majors. i think they even want clinic nurses to have experience, since they do telephone triage. coming through ntp, you'll all be the same afsc - 46n1 - general nurse. some specialties will change that afsc (i'm a 46p3, psych nurse), some just add an identifier (icu nurses get an e enabler identifier, i think). you'll usually get the opportunity to specialize after a few years. flight nursing is very competitive (almost everyone coming in wants to be a flight nurse).

there's a big push for all inpatient nurses and staff to wear scrubs. at dgmc, we wear the uod in to the hospital and change into blue scrubs. we have to change every time we step outside the hospital. most clinic staff don't change.

as for bases, i know a few new nurses that got to go to alaska, and one that went to england for their first duty station. it doesn't hurt to request it. lots of nurses go to travis, lackland, and florida, though they can go almost everywhere. travis is a great base, and we have the biggest af hospital (which isn't huge).

Thanks for the post LN75. Are you all done with your application now? I'm so ready to finish up the last few weeks of school and take the NCLEX.

yeah…i think i'm done. all my paperwork has been submitted, i had my interview last month, and my physical and other stuff has been done for awhile. the only thing i might still do is get some letters of recommendation written to include with my package. i read on another forum on this site that some recruiters submit the 1373s and letters of recommendation, to help add strength to the packages. my recruiter didn't offer that, so i need to talk to her and find out why. are you including any letters of recommendation with your stuff or just the 1373s?

hang in there with school…i know how you feel! it's soooooo nice when you're finally done and you can focus on just working. and dont get too down on yourself if you walk out of the NCLEX thinking you totally failed it! everybody thinks that, and for most of the hard-working motivated people you end doing ok.

LN75, I was wondering the same thing about including letters of recommendation in addition to the 1373s. Like you, I saw on here that some recruiters added that to strengthen the application, but my recruiter did not offer it either. I tried asking him about it and he didn't really seem to understand what I was asking and pretty much made it sound like they won't accept letters of recommendation....so let us know what your recruiter says about it.

LN75, I was wondering the same thing about including letters of recommendation in addition to the 1373s. Like you, I saw on here that some recruiters added that to strengthen the application, but my recruiter did not offer it either. I tried asking him about it and he didn't really seem to understand what I was asking and pretty much made it sound like they won't accept letters of recommendation....so let us know what your recruiter says about it.

will do. it doesn't seem like a fair fight if some recruiters are including letters of rec and others aren't. but then again, if the board members just toss the letters or set them aside or whatever and only look at the official forms, then does it really matter? i suppose at the very least, it can't HURT to include a couple of letters, and if the board members dont wanna read them…fine…if they do, then hey…good for us right!?

ln75, how was your interview? i go for mine next week and i don't really know what to expect. was it like a typical job interview? thanks

slc2010, good luck with your interview, finishing up school, and the nclex! it really is such a relief when everything is finished. have you gotten your interview scheduled yet?