Expert: Rod Powers - 6/5/2007

Question
Rod,
 My daughter wants to join the Marines Corps.  She went and talked with the Recruiter and was told that the Females test score is higher than the Males test score.  I have tried looking all over for this and can not find anything except the score in you articles that does not differ from Male or Female.  Can you please let me know if this is true or not.

Thanks

Answer
Hi Scott,

Both the Navy and the Marine Corps have been known (from time to time) to restrict the number of females they allow to enlist in a given year.

The Navy does this when they think they are enlisting too many females, because the number of female berths on Navy ships are limited.

The Marine Corps does this when they feel they are enlisting too many females, because -- by law -- females cannot be assigned to any job, or any unit which is considered "direct ground-combat."

When the number of females enlisting in either branch become a factor, in order to decide which female applicants they will take, and which ones they can't take, both services generally raise the minimum ASVAB score requirements for female applicants, to ensure they are accepting the "best qualified" for the limited slots, rather than "who applied first."

I have not seen any recent Marine Corps Administrative Messages (MARSADMIN) (http://www.usmc.mil/maradmins/maradmin2000.nsf/maradmins), requiring higher ASVAB scores for females, but it's quite possible it was addressed by an internal Recruiting Command memo, and wouldn't be available on the Internet.

For more information about the United States Military, feel free to visit my U.S. Military Information Site at: http://usmilitary.about.com

Hope this helps!

Rod Powers
http://usmilitary.about.com