@katehowa – Post #3 in the “Student to Lieutenant” series specifically covers reporting to BOLC. You can read that post here. Or, you can read the entire series just for funsies!

If you have the opportunity, I recommend arriving (not necessarily reporting) one or two business days early. It will give you an opportunity to informally familiarize yourself with the area and the installation. Business days, because the installation activity will be open and operating, and that is valuable to experience. Arriving and not reporting, because once you report officially, your schedule is whatever the unit tells you. In some cases, there is value in reporting early. In the case of BOLC, you’re probably okay reporting on the scheduled day. But, arriving early may provide you the opportunity to speak to peers that have recently started or just finished your specific BOLC. They will ALWAYS have the best insights. They are experiencing BOLC and PCSing from the same perspective as you and they have knowledge of how the institution and installation are running currently. #AlwaysTrustTheSoldierOnTheGround

For ABOLC, start here and read everything on the page. Then, take a look at the attachments for the ABOLC Welcome Letter and the Mandatory Online Training. You could do this training ahead of time, if you have a CAC Card and/or AKO login and password.

To know what to expect in the course, TRADOC now requires BOLCs to have “Individual Student Assessment Plans” (ISAP). This is the institutional Army’s version of an approved course curriculum. For ABOLC, you can find that here. I would also recommend reading the phase overviews that will give you the general timeline of when to expect major course events.

I hope this helps!

~Jeff

JOF “BOLC” Topic Lead