Hi,

I have a question.

As some of you might remember from my previous posts, my wife has been through 68K AIT and is now stationed at Walter-Reed. She wants to become a clinical laboratory officer in Medical Service Corps.

According to the information I found on Internet, it appears that the basic requirement of this 'clinical laboratory officer' is to be certified from ASCP or NCA as a MT(or CLS). However, education requirement part is very ambiguous.

My wife completed her university education outside of US and has foreign degree. Should this be a problem in applying for direct commission of 'clinical laboratory officer' position even if she meets all other qualification requirement (she is now a US citizen, has NCA CLS certification)?

Please enlighten me with any bit of information. Thanks in advance.

Your best info will come directly from an AMEDD Accessions Officer (AMEDD recruiter) who recruits only officers. I don't know if this is a direct commission or not, but that's where I'd start.

Fort Meade is your local recruiting batallion HQ - check there, and ask for a referral if there is no one nearby (though I would find that hard to believe in the DC/Balto/Phila area).

Tell your wife congrats on making it through 68K AIT.

Follow Cider's advice in directly contacting an AMEDD recruiter. Your wife may even want to prepare a good resume/CV and get a copy of her college transcripts.

Hi, ugajeepgirl. It's been a long time. Thanks for your words.

It seems that she already tried contacting two different AMEDD recruiters in the different regions via email and got somewhat contradicting answers about this issue. One recruiter said 'no' and the other recruiter said 'possibly'. She of course is planning to start something with the second recruiter, but just wants to make sure of the information she got. That's why I wanted to get some FIRST-HAND stories from this board.

Anyway, thanks so much for your response. I will have to dig more about this. In the mean time, if you have any other pieces of information, please keep me updated.

Okay, I got bored while waiting for my laundry to dry ...

Your wife first needs to see if the Army recognizes her alma mater as being an "accredited school". Was your wife allowed to enlist as an E4/SPC? If so, the Army recognizes her school as accredited.

In order to get "proof" of accreditation or non-accreditation, your wife needs to get her transcripts formally evaluated. The Post Education Center should be able to do this. Tell her to take her transcripts and have a sit down with an ed counselor. She should tell them that she is interested in pursuing an Army commission and is checking her eligibility. Hopefully, they will tell her "Hey, you received your degree from an accredited university. You're good to go." Once she's armed with this info, she can present it to an AMEDD recruiter. This information should help the recruiter make a more thorough assessment of your wife's eligibility and chances of being selected.

At the very "least", she'll be eligible to apply for OCS if she can prove her degree came from an accredited school.

Thanks again. Yes, she was enlisted as E4. I will let her visit her post education center and talk to an education counselor there. Wish me luck~~!

Good luck. Let us know how it goes .

If the direct commission path doesn't work out for her and she decides she is interested in OCS, let me know. I can help her with her packet.