Appalachian State ROTC has been selected as 1 of the 8 University ROTC teams to compete in this year’s Sandhurst Military Skills Competition. This year's competition will be held on Saturday, 18 April 2009 and is open to spectators. The Sandhurst Military Skills Competition has run in various configurations since 1967. This year, it is a two-day event conducted at the United States Military Academy West Point, New York.

At its core, Sandhurst is an inter-company competition for USMA. However, West Point teams now compete, not only amongst themselves, but against teams from their fellow United States Service Academies, 8 select University ROTC teams, the United States Military Academy Preparatory School team, and international teams from Britain's Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS), Canada's Royal Military College (RMC) , Afghanistan's National Military Academy and, for the first time in 2009, The Chilean Military School.

Each USMA Cadet Company and Visiting Team selects a 9-member Squad (at least one member must be female) with two alternates. This squad is required to perform a series of challenging military tasks during a rapid, non-tactical move along a partly-prescribed 7 mile route.

The winning squad will be determined by the total time required to negotiate the course. The squads total time will be a combination of the time taken to complete the course from start to finish as well as any time penalties incurred throughout the course and on the marksmanship portion.

Awards will be given for the squad that negotiates the course in the least amount of time as well as the top squads in Marksmanship and Orienteering.