It’s now a waiting game for the 3,822 Selected Reserve and Reserve Full-Time Support hopefuls seeking advancement to E-8 and E-9 as the release of this year’s advancement selection board nears.
The FY19 Selected Reserve and FTS selection board convened March 5 in Millington, and wrapped up 11 days later. After a board concludes, it usually takes the Navy three to four weeks to conduct a scrub of the selected sailors before releasing the final list. So look for results to pop in NavAdmin sometime mid-April.
Selected Reserve
First, the bad news.
If there’s a dark spot this year, it’s the slight drop in advancement opportunities for senior chief selected reservists who are looking to put a second star over their chief’s crow.
There are 398 eligible senior chiefs this year competing for 45 openings, a slight increase in eligible candidates — last year had 393 — coupled with a decrease in available quotas — 47 last year.
This year’s number of eligible drilling-reserve chiefs looking to make E-8 also increased slightly, up to 1,672 from last year’s 1,664. But in this group’s favor is a quota increase of 28 more chiefs who will get to add a single star to their uniform.
Full-Time Support
The FTS community is small, with a total strength of just over 12,000 enlisted sailors, but the happiest group chasing advancement this year are the FTS senior chiefs who are hoping to put a second star over their chief’s crow.
At E-9, there are just 19 total ratings, and this year, seven of those ratings have openings for advancement, up from only one last year.
Quotas for E-9s skyrocketed this year to 32, up from only 17 last year. Couple that with a decrease in eligible candidates for those slots, and it comes to a 29 percent chance to move up, more than double last year’s 14 percent opportunity.
This year’s bright spot in the FTS community came in the form of a slight opportunity increase to advance to E-8 for the 810 eligible chief petty officers, with 64 quotas, or nearly an 8 percent chance. That’s up from 53 eligible sailors and a 6.5 percent chance in 2016.
[ FY19 Full-Time Support E-8 and E-9 Advancement Quotas ]
Mark D. Faram is a former reporter for Navy Times. He was a senior writer covering personnel, cultural and historical issues. A nine-year active duty Navy veteran, Faram served from 1978 to 1987 as a Navy Diver and photographer.
