Novelty in the Navy: Senior Ben Rodriguez’s journey to receiving a $200,000 scholarship to the NROTC at Purdue University

Then-seventh grader Ben Rodriguez knew he didn’t want to waste his $50 of souvenir money on cheesy Washington D.C. souvenirs. He wanted to ride the fighter jet simulator — three consecutive times. 

His fellow campers at Naval Academy’s STEM summer camp weren’t as enthralled with the gears, shifts and rolls of the ride as he was.

Now-senior Ben still craves the rush that he felt when he entered the fake cockpit and intends to fulfill his seventh grade dreams of becoming a naval aviator at Purdue University after receiving a $200,000 scholarship from Purdue’s Navy Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.

“I couldn’t get that feeling and that experience out of my head,” Ben said. “This is something that is in my head and never left me since then… [and] everything I’ve done in high school is really just [helping me get accepted to the navy].”

The NROTC is an extremely difficult program to get into, for example last school year, 5,000 students nationwide applied for the navy ROTC and only 1,200 students were accepted, according to rotccounsulting.com. 

Ben was sitting in his AP Psychology classes when the acceptance email from Purdue was sent to his inbox. He suddenly couldn’t breathe.

“I was genuinely stunned,” Ben said. “I couldn’t breathe or talk or do anything. I remember zooming home and planning to surprise my mom. I said I needed her to proofread an email. She popped up screaming and hugged me.”

From commanding his classmates to “drop and give him 20” pushups in first grade to “play army” to doing 50 push-ups when he woke up and 50 before bed to train for his physical tests for NROTC applications, Ben never turned his attention away from his one objective.  

Ben’s mom Michelle Rodriguez applauds his achievements and has supported his military dream since elementary school.

“He’s very patriotic, very proud of being an American,” Michelle said. “[His] military interest and fascination with it and desire to serve [has] always been a part of him.”

Ben’s application process to the NROTC database consisted of a PT test, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test — a multiple choice test over military knowledge and airplane engine parts — as well as his ACT score and an interview.

The PT test, which Ben performed on the East track, consists of two minutes of push-ups, two minutes of sit-ups and a mile sprint — or so Rodriguez thought before taking it.

“Three weeks after I submitted the application, the Navy ended up changing it nationwide,” Ben said. “So you had to do a plank instead of the situps. I had to do the entire test all over again.”

Ben was frustrated. He’d trained all summer for the test, spending five to six hours in the gym and 10-20 miles biking and running per week — all for his running time of 5:05 to be slower by nine seconds for a score of 5:14. Still, he submitted his score to the ROTC database. Despite the set-backs, this score still got him a scholarship to his number one choice school.

He will train to be a naval aviator at Purdue — the position he’s wanted since the moment that he left the simulator ride in Washington D.C.

“Naval aviation is not just like a top-down fad thing to me,” Ben said. “It’s really something that’s been a part of me, and it’s the only thing that makes me full when I talk about it.”