Training Under Pressure: Assessing Attrition Trends at Marine Corps Officer Candidate School

Abstract

Marine Corps Officer Candidate School (OCS) serves as a primary officer screening and commissioning source for the Marine Corps. The demanding and physical requirements produce persistent attrition throughout the training cycle. Understanding variations in attrition patterns is important to support officer accession manpower planning. Despite the significance of OCS, there has been no comprehensive study to analyze long-term patterns of attrition, injury-related attrition, and the timing of attrition during training. I conducted a quantitative data analysis of candidate attrition at OCS using administrative records from the Total Force Data Warehouse from 2003 to 2025. I used a combination of descriptive statistics, survival analysis, logistic regressions, and multinomial logistic regressions to analyze overall attrition, injury-related attrition, injury composition, and the timing of injury-related attrition. The results illustrate persistent attrition rates over time generally ranging between 15% and 20%. Injury-related attrition predominantly occurs within the first three weeks of training. Orthopedic injuries remain the dominant injury type over time. These results provide insight into attrition patterns and their significance for officer accession planning.