I was actually in this program a few years back. I had a medical
disqualification. It turns out I am deathly allergic to petroleum
based products, who knew, and you can't get a waver for that. I got
pretty far along in the course before I had these issues so I do know
what I am talking about.

I was in the PLC program. Basically what happens is that instead of
boot camp you do Officer Candidate school, which many enlisted friends
of mine that were at OCS said is much harder that boot.The various
programs are in place because you have to be a college graduate to be
an officer and they want to get you through in a timely manner. The
PLC program did 6 weeks of OCS one summer then 6 weeks the next.
During the year while you are in school there is an office you train
out of and are expected to keep up your physical and mental
performance. There are other programs like ROTC and the OCC. They
are just variations on the same thing. After you graduate from OCS
and college you go to the basic school. 6 months of training that
they say is both the best and worst times you will have in the Corps.
Then you go to your specialty school. The Marine Corps is the only
military force in the world with anything like TBS. The Navy guys
will all talk about how much harder they had it but I hate to tell
them they are wrong but hey, any time we need to go fight they give us
a ride so please don't pick on them too much.

The thing about OCS in the Corp is that they don't help you through.
In boot if you want to be there and try hard they will make you into a
Marine. They have a very low drop-out rate comparatively. OCS has a
60% attrition rate. When I went it was much higher. We had 60% drop
in the first summer session. Not all of those go back and then
probably another 60% that did dropped in the seniors session. The
whole idea is to see if they can get you to quit and if you will break
under the pressure. You learn everything you need at TBS so here they
just try to see if you will quit. It's loads of fun.

Bill