Looking for information on the differences between Marine Corps Platoons Leaders Course (PLC) and Officer Candidate Course (OCC).
If you're highly motivated and not an Air or Law contract, 9 times out of 10 you want to be an Infantry Officer. What separates and determines, from this large pool of guys who want to be Infantry Officers, who actually gets the opportunity to go to IOC? In other words, what thins out the pack or decides who actually will get to live out there goal of being an Infantry Officer, and who will be left with an MOS secondary to what they wanted?
Essentially OCC is for college graduates and PLC is for those still in school. See my brief breakdown below:
OCC:
-Go after college
-Train for 10 weeks
-Commission
-Report to TBS immediately
The cons of OCC are that selection is more competitive and the 10 week straight course length.
PLC:
-Go during college
-Train for two 6 weeks periods over summer (or one 10 week for PLC Combined)
-Commission after college graduation
-Report to TBS in a few months
The cons of PLC are the two 6 week periods of summer you spend training and the length of time between college graduation and TBS. I know some guys that had to wait over year before going to TBS. The average wait time though is around 4 months.
I'd check out https://www.marines.com/becoming-a-marine/officer.html for further information as well.