The personnel files of several thousand senior field-grade officers will be evaluated in August by one of the most competitive selection panels the Army conducts annually, the basic-branches Senior Service College Board.
This year's Army Competitive Category SSC board is scheduled for Aug. 19-Sept. 2.
The colonels and lieutenant colonels selected by the board will attend 10-month resident U.S. and foreign war college courses that begin in the summer of 2016, or SSC-equivalent fellowships with government and academic institutions.
As in previous years, principal and alternate selectees will be eligible to request enrollment in the two-year Army War College Distance Education Program that awards graduates Military Education Level I credit, the same as the resident courses.
Invitations for the 2016-2018 AWCDEP will be sent to eligible officers in March.
Officers who participate in these programs incur a two-year active-duty service obligation upon graduation or dis-enrollment from a course.
Resident U.S. senior service colleges award a master's degree and Joint Professional Military Education II credit upon graduation.
U.S. schools included in the 2016 SSC program include the Army War College, Naval War College, Air War College, Marine Corps War College, Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, National War College and the Joint Advanced Warfighter School.
Foreign schools include the Argentina Joint War College, Australian Defence College, Bangladesh National Defence College, Canadian Forces College, Columbia War College, Inter-American Defense college, Japanese National Institute for Defense Studies, Korean National Defense University, Pakistan National Defence College and Great Britain's Royal College of Defence Studies.
The zone of consideration for the August board will include Army Competitive Category lieutenant colonels with dates of rank of July 31, 2014, and earlier, and ACC colonels who will have fewer than 276 months of Active Federal Commissioned Service on Sept. 30, 2016.
Officers who meet the eligibility requirements automatically will be considered by the selection board unless they officially "opt out" by Aug. 10. Such declinations only apply to this year's board.
