Collegiate Times

Cadets Ryan Anderson and David Fulbrook of the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets and the Air Force ROTC detachment are sitting at a table discussing their acceptance into a program that only 25 students a year in the country are admitted to as if they had just won the lottery for football tickets.

Anderson and Fulbrook have been selected for the Pre-Health Program for the U.S. Air Force at any school of their choosing, either civilian or the Uniformed Service University of the Health Sciences. Both cadets are sophomores, with Anderson majoring in biology and Fulbrook majoring in biochemistry.

To have not only one, but two students selected from Virginia Tech's ROTC out of every ROTC program in the country can be seen as no less than a huge achievement for the program.

Students accepted into the program require a 3.5 cumulative GPA and must maintain at least a 3.3 GPA to keep the allocation.

"I've wanted to be a doctor for a very long time," Anderson said. "But I've always wanted to be in the military. My dad's in the Marine Corps, so the military has always been in my blood."

Fulbrook shares the same family ties to the military.

"My dad has been in the military for 31 years," Fulbrook said. "He was stationed in Germany when he met my mother."

Other than impressive GPAs, the cadets applying for this scholarship must also prove themselves with unit commanders.

"We receive a UCR, or a Unit Commander Ranking, determined by grades, PT (physical training), volunteer hours, extracurricular activities and professionalism," Fulbrook said. "They put us into top, middle and bottom rankings. We have worked pretty hard to stay in that top ranking."

Anderson and Fulbrook, armed with their drive to study medicine, will have the option to study at a university such as VCU or Georgetown and have their tuition and textbooks paid for along with a monthly stipend for living expenses. The alternative is to attend USUHS, located in Bethesda, Md., and be commissioned into the Air Force as second lieutenants and receive full pay, benefits and entitlements of an active duty officer.

"I'm looking at the military's program, EVMS or VCU," Anderson said. "I'm trying to stay away from UVa."

It is obvious that the two cadets are close friends as they share stories from their time so far at Tech and their plans to continue on to medical school together.

"We met when we got to Tech, and we've kind of done everything the same," Fulbrook said. "We both knew that we wanted to go medical from the start."

It was not only the love of the medical profession that steered Anderson toward this program, however.

"I don't like to fly," said Anderson. "I mean, I know that sounds weird, me being in the Air Force ROTC and all, but I would just rather stay on the ground and go medical."

The Air Force is not the only branch of the military that offers this program. The USMC, Army and Navy all offer similar programs with slight variations.

"For this program you have to apply sophomore year, other applications are junior year," Anderson said. "You have to know pretty early that you want to go into medicine."

No matter what program they decide to go with upon receiving their undergraduate degrees, they will both be promoted to the rank of captain in the Air Force Medical Corps once they receive their medical degrees.