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Congratulations! I'm an E-6 (AT1) and it's funny, I dropped out of college after three semesters, then joined the Navy, aced my ASVAB and haven't looked back. I took the NFQT and missed it by one question. They offered me a re-take but I decided to go with AT instead. If you haven't selected a rating yet, let me HIGHLY recommend an aviation rating, of course I'd plug my own rating highest, Aviation Electronics Technician. We have the best working conditions, high advancement rates, and very high re-enlistment bonuses should you decide to stay in for another tour (I got $20K at each of my two re-enlistments). If you do go nuke, remember that subs are volunteer only and you will need to physically qualify for sevice aboard one. If you don't want to do subs, as a nuke you're pretty much going to be on an aircraft carrier. I've done 4 deployments now aboard carriers, 3 of them on CVN's, and I can tell you that a carrier is both the best and worst ship to be on. Best because we have all the amenities that smaller ship's can't have. Since we have such a huge crew we have more facilities and better chow than anyone else. But such a huge ship can be very impersonal (even for the Navy). On a frigate or destroyer you have a very close knit crew of about 200-300. Everyone knows each other. On a carrier, your DIVISION might be bigger than that. You will see people every day and not know a thing about them other than their rank and last name.
With your high ASVAB scores, they're most likely not going to stick you in the Navy undesignated, and don't let them try. Get an A school, make sure it's something you're going to enjoy. If you don't like working on cars, don't pick AS, for example. If you want a nice, clean job, we have office type jobs, JO, LI, PN, DK, SK, YN but those would seem to be a waste for you. Like I said, go into aviation. We have high advancement rates (I made E-6 in 6 1/2 years, just took my 2nd Chief's test and if I make it will have chief in just under 10) and exciting jobs. Please feel free to PM or e-mail me to discuss it more. Your recruiter will never flat out lie to you (he will lose his job and any chance of ever getting promoted himself) but he CAN leave things out to try to steer you in a particular direction that he needs filled. As you said, you already have a leg up on some of the people you're coming in with. Never mind your GPA, the important thing is how many credits did you actually pass? If you have a certain amount you can come in at a higher paygrade. I want to say it's somewhere between 25 and 35, that you can come in at E-2. I had 45 between 3 semesters at Buffalo and 2 at a community college and that was the cutoff for E-3.
Best of luck and maybe I'll see you in the fleet. Again, PLEASE ask me or any of the other squids any questions you have, and get ready for what can be the best, most rewarding time of your life, or the worst thing you've ever done. It's all in your attitude and how you approach everything. Don't worry about boot camp... it's the easy part.
-Mikey
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