Advice for getting a pilot slot in the ANG/Reserves

UAShopeful said:
Hi everyone,
I know it's been a while, but I've been busy... Anyway, I just got my scores back so I just wanted to gauge what you guys thought...

My AFOQT scores were Pilot-99, Nav-99, Academics-96, Verbal-98, Quant-86.
My PCSM score is 98.

I understand that these scores are good enough to at least start applying, so I'm going to go back and reread everything you guys said and try to plan my next step. I'm worried about trying to get a board interview because I travel overseas a lot for work so it will be a matter of planning those out early enough in advance, which I hear that most boards alert you a month in advance? Anyone have any info on how early you might know of a pending board interview?

Other than that, if anyone else has any advice on the next step, I'm open to hearing anything and everything you folks have to offer, even if it's stuff you're sure I would've heard by now. I'm going to tidy up my resume, start downloading packet guides from each unit, and get on trying to get some LORs next.

If any of you know anyone in any of the units in the PA, NJ, MD, DE areas, tell them to expect my application ;)
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Hey did you have to do a medical before you put in application packets or do you wait until you've been accepted?
 
Sorry for the late response, I've been out of internet connection for months now. I have not done any kind of medical or have proceeded in that direction yet. I just took the tests as a civilian. Anyone can sign up to take the tests, you just need to find out where you're nearest test center is, tell them that you're a civilian interested in taking the AFOQT and TBAS to prepare for applying for a commission and they should set you up. Just be assertive about it, I had my closest test center tell me that I was not going to be able to take the test because I was not already military and therefore "wouldn't have a sponsoring unit" to allow me to take the test. I tried explaining to him that the test should be available to anyone because not all people who become AF Officers start off as enlisted, and the guy wouldn't hear any of it.

Then, I called a different center and the guy was just like, "Yeah, here's the next test date, directions to the base, and what you need to bring."
 
UAShopeful said:
Hi everyone,
I know it's been a while, but I've been busy... Anyway, I just got my scores back so I just wanted to gauge what you guys thought...

My AFOQT scores were Pilot-99, Nav-99, Academics-96, Verbal-98, Quant-86.
My PCSM score is 98.

I understand that these scores are good enough to at least start applying, so I'm going to go back and reread everything you guys said and try to plan my next step. I'm worried about trying to get a board interview because I travel overseas a lot for work so it will be a matter of planning those out early enough in advance, which I hear that most boards alert you a month in advance? Anyone have any info on how early you might know of a pending board interview?

Other than that, if anyone else has any advice on the next step, I'm open to hearing anything and everything you folks have to offer, even if it's stuff you're sure I would've heard by now. I'm going to tidy up my resume, start downloading packet guides from each unit, and get on trying to get some LORs next.

If any of you know anyone in any of the units in the PA, NJ, MD, DE areas, tell them to expect my application ;)
Click to expand...

Impressive scores. Any study resources you recommend? It seems like none of the AFOQT books out there have great reviews.
 
And those reviews are pretty accurate.

Honestly, the only thing I would recommend would be practice tests. The AFOQT books that I did buy, I bought because they had practice tests in them. One of them only had practice tests for only a few of the sections, but I bought it anyway. I didn't read any of the text in the books, I just took the practice tests. One of the books had a science section I glossed over just to brush up, but that was before I knew they had taken the bio questions out of the tests in the new version. I would tell you which books had the practice tests, but I'm away on business right now and can't look at them, but the reviews should tell you.

This website here also has some practice tests:
http://afoqtguide.com/practice-exams/

I just took them timed, just like the real test. After I finished, I would go back over any question I missed or got wrong and work them out slowly until I got them right. Then a week or two later, I would take the same tests again (mostly because I could only get my hands on about 4 or 5 different tests, but even doing the same questions again was worth it, I think). Just keep in mind that some of the books' answer keys are wrong for some of the questions, so if you grade them and you're pretty sure the book is wrong, it probably is... reminded me of the old FAA writtens...

It definitely helps to set aside time to study vocab too. I wish I could have done that more, but I travel a lot for work and concentrating was difficult.
Other than that, get a good night sleep (or toss and turn, like I did), and get to the test center early (or just barely on time due to a tire blowing out, like me) and you should be good :p

Last thing, is that on test day, don't sweat it. You should have a sense of how quick the test will go if you've been timing the practice tests, which means you'll also know that there's no way in hell you'll answer every question. On those math ones, if it involves long division, just skip it and cut your losses, then come back to it if you have time. Those long division ones are bait leading you into a black hole of low test scores. The practice tests had a few, but on the day of the test I had sooooo many of those, and you can see the effect they had on my Quantitative score...
 
UAShopeful said:
And those reviews are pretty accurate.

Honestly, the only thing I would recommend would be practice tests. The AFOQT books that I did buy, I bought because they had practice tests in them. One of them only had practice tests for only a few of the sections, but I bought it anyway. I didn't read any of the text in the books, I just took the practice tests. One of the books had a science section I glossed over just to brush up, but that was before I knew they had taken the bio questions out of the tests in the new version. I would tell you which books had the practice tests, but I'm away on business right now and can't look at them, but the reviews should tell you.

This website here also has some practice tests:
http://afoqtguide.com/practice-exams/

I just took them timed, just like the real test. After I finished, I would go back over any question I missed or got wrong and work them out slowly until I got them right. Then a week or two later, I would take the same tests again (mostly because I could only get my hands on about 4 or 5 different tests, but even doing the same questions again was worth it, I think). Just keep in mind that some of the books' answer keys are wrong for some of the questions, so if you grade them and you're pretty sure the book is wrong, it probably is... reminded me of the old FAA writtens...

It definitely helps to set aside time to study vocab too. I wish I could have done that more, but I travel a lot for work and concentrating was difficult.
Other than that, get a good night sleep (or toss and turn, like I did), and get to the test center early (or just barely on time due to a tire blowing out, like me) and you should be good :p

Last thing, is that on test day, don't sweat it. You should have a sense of how quick the test will go if you've been timing the practice tests, which means you'll also know that there's no way in hell you'll answer every question. On those math ones, if it involves long division, just skip it and cut your losses, then come back to it if you have time. Those long division ones are bait leading you into a black hole of low test scores. The practice tests had a few, but on the day of the test I had sooooo many of those, and you can see the effect they had on my Quantitative score...
Click to expand...

Thanks for the insight! Gonna try to find as many practice tests as possible. Let's see how it goes.
 
Just as a counter-point, the study books helped me a lot. Barrons is what I used. It explained some math stuff that I hadn't seen since high school or early college and needed a good refresher on. That's not to say there aren't other methods for that, but it was helpful to me.
 
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