Joel Schofer's Career Planning Blog

How to Find Out Your Reporting Senior’s Fitrep Trait Average

Posted on September 20, 2016 Updated on October 8, 2016

One of the most important markers of a good fitrep is that your trait average is above your reporting senior’s trait average.  Since most officers initially write their own fitrep and create their own trait average on the first draft, it is important to find out your reporting senior’s trait average so that you can try to be above it.  Here are a few ways to find out what it is.

First, in order to have a trait average, your reporting senior has to have served as the reporting senior for officers of your same rank from any corps.  If they have not done this, they’ll have no pre-existing average.  For example, if you are a LCDR, your reporting senior does not have to have ranked LCDR physicians.  If he/she has ever ranked a LCDR of any kind (nurse, Medical Service Corps, line officer, etc.), then they will have an average.

If they have an average, here are the ways I know of to find it:

• If you’ve already received a fitrep from them in your current grade, then you can look at your Performance Summary Report or PSR, which you download from BUPERS On-Line.  The number in the lower right in the “AVERAGES” column (circled below) is their average for that rank.

• If you haven’t received a fitrep from them, maybe you have a friend in the same rank who has received a recent fitrep from them.  You can look at their PSR if they’ll let you.
• You can ask your chain of command or command fitrep coordinator.  They often know because they are trying to make sure that all of the fitreps being done don’t change the reporting senior’s average in ways he/she doesn’t want.
• You can ask the reporting senior.  They just may tell you.

The bottom line is that if you are drafting your fitrep, you want to try and find out the average and grade yourself above it.  In the end, the ranking process may move you below it, but by submitting the draft with an above average grade you may increase the chances you stay above it.