How to Fill Out and Submit AFROTC Form 48: Scholarship Academic Plan

The AFROTC Form 48 academic plan is the term-by-term course map that carries you from your current semester through graduation and commissioning, and you must have a completed one by the end of your first term in AFROTC, before competing for a scholarship, or before the Professional Officer Course Selection Process, whichever comes first.¹ Three people sign it: you, your university academic advisor, and your Aerospace Studies instructor. You then recertify it every fall after meeting with both.²

What to Gather Before You Start

Sit down with three documents: your unofficial transcript, your university’s course catalog, and your degree audit report (DARS, DegreeWorks, or whatever your school calls it). The transcript shows what you’ve completed, the catalog shows what’s left, and the audit reconciles the two so you don’t miss a requirement you’d otherwise eyeball past.

Pull transfer credits and any records from a prior major, too. Credits that count toward your current degree need to appear on the plan so the projected graduation date is accurate. Credits that don’t count still explain why your timeline looks the way it does.

Get the blank form from your detachment. Some detachments use a local version (the University of Houston, for example, uses a local substitute for the standard AFOATS Form 48), but the layout is essentially the same everywhere.³ Ask your cadre for the version your detachment uses before filling out a generic copy you found online.

How to Fill Out the Form

Fill in the body of the form in pencil. You will erase and update it every semester. The only sections that get ink are the signature blocks, which require blue or black pen.¹

At the top, enter your school name and detachment number, your degree type (BS, BA, or the designation that fits your program), and your expected graduation month and year with the fiscal year in parentheses. The fiscal year matters because your commissioning date is tied to it.

The body is a term-by-term grid. For each semester or quarter, list every course by catalog code, an abbreviated title, and credit hours, then total the credit hours at the bottom of each column. If you don’t yet know which specific elective you’ll take in a future term, writing “elective” with the required credit hours is acceptable as a placeholder.¹

Every term must show full-time enrollment. That means at least 12 credit hours for undergraduates or 9 for graduate students, with the exception of your final term before commissioning.⁴ If your university defines full-time differently, the university’s standard controls; AFROTC’s 12-hour floor applies only when the school doesn’t specify one.

Start the grid with your current term and continue through every remaining semester until graduation. Include summer sessions if you plan to take courses then. The plan must also show you completing two full years in the Professional Officer Course, unless you are applying through the one-year program.¹

Aerospace Studies Courses to Include

Your plan has to account for the full Aerospace Studies (AS) sequence alongside your degree requirements. The standard four-year track has two halves.

The General Military Course covers AS100 in your freshman year and AS200 in your sophomore year. These are typically one credit hour each per semester and cover foundational topics like Air Force heritage, leadership, and communication.

The Professional Officer Course covers AS300 in your junior year and AS400 in your senior year. These carry more weight, generally three credit hours each per semester, and focus on leadership, management, and national security policy.

Leadership Laboratory (LLAB) runs alongside these courses every semester and should appear on your plan as well. If you entered through a compressed timeline or you’re a crosstown student attending AS classes at a host university, your cadre will tell you which course codes to list.

Getting the Right Signatures

Three signatures are required on the initial form, and the practical order matters even though the form doesn’t enforce a strict sequence.³

Start with your university academic advisor. Their signature certifies that satisfactory completion of the courses you listed will result in the degree shown by the projected graduation date. Schedule this appointment early in the semester, because advisors get booked around registration periods. Bring your degree audit so the advisor can verify your plan against the university’s actual requirements rather than your reading of the catalog.

Next, your AFROTC instructor (your AS instructor or another designated cadre member) reviews the plan. Cadre check that you’ve included all required AS courses, that your timeline aligns with the commissioning fiscal year on your contract, that your course load stays at or above full-time every term, and that the plan reflects any scholarship conditions tied to your major.

You sign last, certifying the information is accurate. All signatures must be in blue or black ink.³

There is a final certification block at the bottom of the form. Do not sign it. That block is reserved for just before commissioning, when you confirm you have completed all degree requirements.³

Submitting the Form

Hand the completed, signed form to your detachment’s cadre. Most detachments handle this through a physical hand-off, though some accept secure digital uploads. The cadre enters your academic plan into the Web Intensive New Gain System (WINGS), the database that tracks your status from applicant through commissioning.⁵

Once your plan is in WINGS, it becomes the baseline for every future term audit. At the end of each semester, detachment personnel review your transcript against the approved plan to confirm you took the courses you said you would, maintained full-time status, and kept your GPA above the minimum threshold. The mid-term counseling section on the form, which you leave blank during initial completion, is filled in by cadre during these periodic reviews.¹

Recertifying Every Fall

Form 48 isn’t a one-time document. You must recertify it during the fall term each year after consulting with both your academic advisor and your cadre.² Retrieve your current working copy, update any courses that changed, erase and replace future-term placeholders with actual selections as registration firms up, and get fresh signatures from all three parties.

This is where the pencil pays off. Minor adjustments like swapping one elective for another or shifting a course to a different semester are expected and routine, as long as the overall graduation date and full-time status don’t change. If either of those changes, you’re in different territory.

Reporting a Major or Graduation Date Change

Any planned change to your academic major, college, or graduation date must be reported to cadre immediately, and commander or headquarters approval is required before you make the change official with your university.³ Cadets most commonly botch this step by updating their major with the registrar first and telling AFROTC after the fact, which can trigger a scholarship suspension.

Who has approval authority depends on the type of change:²

Non-technical to non-technical, or technical to technical within the same fiscal year, can be approved directly by your Detachment Commander, unless your original major was a prerequisite for a specific scholarship type like nursing, foreign language, or engineering.
Non-technical to technical within the same fiscal year can be approved by the Detachment Commander, but if you hold an Enrollment Allocation (EA), the commander must first request an EA change through AFROTC/RR via a WINGS personnel action request.
Any other change, including technical to non-technical or any switch that pushes you into a different fiscal year, requires AFROTC/RR approval before you proceed.

Once approved, complete a new Form 48 starting from the current term forward through your updated graduation date.³

Your commissioning date is contractually tied to a specific fiscal year through your AF Form 1056. If you can’t meet that date, the detachment must either change it or initiate a Commander’s Review.² The Detachment Commander can approve a shift to a later date within the same fiscal year for cadets who have an Enrollment Allocation; moving to a new fiscal year requires AFROTC/RR approval.

Keeping the Plan Valid Once It’s In

Two performance thresholds tie directly back to your Form 48, and missing either creates a Conditional Event (CE) on your record.

Scholarship cadets must maintain both a term GPA and a cumulative GPA of 2.5 or higher.⁶ A first Academic CE carries no automatic scholarship action, though your Detachment Commander may suspend your scholarship at their discretion. A second Academic CE means mandatory suspension, waivable by the Region Commander if mitigating circumstances exist. A third Academic CE brings termination, again waivable by the Region Commander, though terminations for cause generally cannot be reversed.⁷

A suspended scholarship means you lose funding for an entire term, and that money does not come back later; the unfunded term still counts against your total authorized entitlements.⁷ GMC cadets on suspension also lose their stipend. POC cadets continue receiving a stipend during suspension while still attending AS classes.

Two other triggers tie directly to what’s on your Form 48:⁷

If your completed credit hours for the term fall below full-time, you receive an Academic CE. The Region Commander may waive it if you properly withdrew from a course and the withdrawal doesn’t change your commissioning fiscal year.
Earning a D or F in any AS course (including LLAB) triggers an immediate scholarship suspension and a Commander’s Review, skipping the graduated CE ladder entirely.

All counseling related to academic performance, scholarship status changes, and conditional events is documented on AFROTC Form 16.⁸ The Form 16 is a counseling record, not a punishment in itself, but it’s the paper trail that supports any future adverse action like disenrollment or scholarship termination. If cadre hand you a Form 16 to sign, take it seriously; your record now carries documentation that will follow you if things don’t improve.

1
Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps. AFROTC Form 48 Academic Plan
2
Air Force ROTC. AFROTCI 36-2011V3 – Cadet Operations
3
University of Houston. AFROTC FORM 48 Academic Plan
4
Air Force ROTC. AFROTCI 36-2011 Volume 3 – Cadet Operations
5
University of Southern Mississippi. AFROTC Cadet Enrollment Guide
6
U.S. Air Force ROTC. College Student Scholarship Application Process
7
Air Force ROTC. AFROTCI 36-2011 Volume 3 – Cadet Operations
8
Syracuse University. AFROTCI 36-2011 – Cadet Operations