Checking out the military’s AFQT requirements for special programs
Achieving the minimum required AFQT score established by an individual branch gets your foot in the door, but the higher you score, the better. For example, if you need a medical or criminal history waiver in order to enlist, the military personnel who make those decisions are more likely to take a chance on you if they think you’re a pretty smart cookie than they would be if you barely made the minimum qualifying score.
Individual branches of the military tie many special enlistment programs to minimum AFQT scores:
Army: The Army requires a minimum AFQT score of 50 to qualify for most of its incentive programs, such as a monetary enlistment bonus, the college-loan repayment program, and the Army College Fund.
Marine Corps: Like the Army, the Marine Corps requires a minimum AFQT score of 50 for most of its incentive programs, including the Geographic Area of Choice Program, the Marine Corps College Fund, and enlistment bonuses.
Navy: Applicants who want to participate in the Navy College Fund or college-loan repayment program need to achieve a minimum score of 50.
MILITARY OPENS COMBAT ROLES TO WOMEN
Jobs that were traditionally open only to male members of the U.S. Armed Forces are now open to women — but it took 378 years for the military to change the way it does business.
The first militias in the New World began organizing in 1636, and men were the only ones who served. Even after June 14, 1775, the official “birthday” of the U.S. Army, the military denied women the opportunity to enlist. However, females sometimes traveled with the troops to act as nurses, laundresses, and cooks if they could prove their usefulness to troop commanders.
History occasionally reveals a woman who disguised herself as a man to join the fight between 1776 and 1948. (During the Civil War, a nominal number of females served as spies while others continued to fight on the front lines disguised as men.)
Congress passed the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act on June 12, 1948, which gave women the right to enlist during peacetime and to collect veteran benefits.
Sixty-seven years later, on December 3, 2015, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter ordered the full integration of women in the Armed Forces. Under that order, all military occupational specialties are now open to women — including ground combat roles and special operations, such as Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces and Rangers, and Air Force Special Tactics.
New, gender-neutral job titles replaced traditional titles such as “artilleryman” and “reconnaissance man.” Now those jobs are referred to as artillery technician and reconnaissance Marine.
Do-Over: Retaking the ASVAB
An AFQT score between 0 and 9 tells the military that you’re not trainable, so no branch of the service accepts people who score in that range. Even if you score higher than that, you can fail to achieve a score high enough to enlist in the service branch you want. This means you need to work on one (or more) of the four core areas: Mathematics Knowledge, Arithmetic Reasoning, Paragraph Comprehension, and Word Knowledge. Parts 2 and 3 of this book are specifically designed to help you improve your scores on these four subtests.
When you’re sure you’re ready, you can apply (through your recruiter) to take the ASVAB. After you take the ASVAB for the first time, you can retake the test after one month (taking the ASVAB in high school does count for retest purposes). After the first retest, you must wait another month to test again. From that point on, you must wait at least six months before taking the ASVAB again.
You can’t retake the ASVAB on a whim or whenever you simply feel like it. Each of the services has its own rules concerning whether it allows a retest, and I explain them in the following sections.
U.S. Army retest policy
The Army allows a retest in one of the following instances:
The applicant’s previous ASVAB test has expired.
The applicant failed to achieve an AFQT score high enough to qualify for enlistment.
Unusual circumstances occur, such as if an applicant, through no fault of their own, is unable to complete the test.
U.S. Air Force retest policy
For the U.S. Air Force, the intent of retesting is for an applicant to improve the last ASVAB scores so the enlistment options increase. Before any retest is administered, the recruiting flight chief must interview the applicant in person or by telephone and then give approval for the retest.
Here are a few other policies to remember:
The Air Force doesn’t allow retesting for applicants after they’ve enlisted in the Delayed Entry Program (DEP).
Current policy allows retesting of applicants who aren’t holding a job/aptitude area reservation and/or who aren’t in DEP but already have qualifying test scores.
Retesting is authorized when the applicant’s current line scores (mechanical, administrative, general, and electronic) limit the ability to match an Air Force skill with their qualifications.
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