National Service/Military Academies?
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Anonymous
| If your DC got into a military academy this year, please post here and share a bit of his/her profile (e.g., straight a student, all-met athlete, rotc, private or public, etc.). Thank u. |
Anonymous
| My sister graduated from the USAFA. The academies have an exchange program between them so she did a semester at West Point (hated it - very dark, depressing, violent) and a semester at USNA (not as depressing but not welcoming toward women). She did experience some gender discrimination at USAF. Guys broke into her room at night to grope her and her roommate at least once. She got her degree and served her five years. She says if she had to do it again she wouldn't but at the same time the military culture is ingrained in her. |
Anonymous
West Point as "dark, depressing"?!?!? |
Anonymous
| I was accepted to West Point and chose not to attend after meeting with several female cadets. Their descriptions of life on campus really turned me off -- way too strict. Their big, fun story about "breaking the rules" involved sneaking a pizza into the dorm after lights out at 9 p.m. And they practically flinched every time a man in uniform walked by. This was many years ago, so things likely have changed, but as PP noted -- this is NOTHING like a typical college experience. It's bootcamp. |
Anonymous
Interesting last point there - what do you doif you live in dc? Is it just EHN? |
Anonymous
The DC shadow Senator and Congressman CAN and DO make academy appointments. You will need to contact their offices to learn what items (application, resume, essay, interview etc.) they require to make an appointment. |
Anonymous
| In past years Norton has often had more appointments available than students interested in pursuing them. |
Anonymous
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Yes, I've often seen annual emails from Holmes Norton's office reminding students they can apply for nominations, etc.
The service academies are all long application processes and you want to get started early, though. The most competitive candidates apply for things like the high school students' summer seminar in their JR year. (Which, bonus, gives you a better idea before you do the whole long application process whether this gig is for you.) They have some great students and faculty at the service academies but, were my kid to want to be an officer, I think I would encourage ROTC at a good university that gave them a chance to have a more traditional college experience. (Though the networking benefits of the service academies are very real.) |
Anonymous
| So you first to get nominated by your state senator before applying to any of the military academies?! |
Anonymous
West Point, Annapolis, and USAFA require Congressional nominations, in a throwback to the days when services feared that members of Congress on military approps and oversight committees would dominate appointments. Each Member of Congress and Senator has an allocation number - all equal. The number in total is much much bigger than each Freshman/plebe/midshipman/cadet class, and in some cases it's a formality. You often don't have to be nominated by your own member -- if you have a connection to a different Member/Senator, that person can nominate you, but even if you hate your Member/Senator's politics, this is often seen as a customary constituent-courtesy to simply give the nomination (Members/Senators who are swamped with applications will sometimes require an application for nominations). Children of certain categories of vets, and ex-enlistees, and a few other categories don't require nominations. Each academy can request from a pool "unallocated" nominations that haven't been used up, for the benefit of un-nominated preference recruits, like some athletic recruits. The US Merchant Marine Academy (which confers Navy, Marine Corps and sometimes Coast Guard reserve commissions) operates like the 3 military service academies. Each of the 3 military service academies also has a one-year prep program, usually for ex-enlistees but NOT always, and if you graduate from the prep school you usually don't need a Congressional nomination. The Coast Guard Academy has been completely non-political since forever, and requires no nomination. |
Anonymous
Interesting. Thanks. So do you know, for instance, how many kids were nominated by DC, MD, and Va, respectively? |
Anonymous
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As PP said, all states have the same number of nominations, so assuming enough students ask, MD VA and DC would all nominate the same number.
When I applied to West Point, I got nominations from both senators and my congressman. |
Anonymous
Friends and family members who have attended all three schools. IMO, the three schools are visually very representative of their services. West Point is gray stone, sitting high on the Hudson River. Beautiful, imposing and yes, dark in the winter. Reminds me of the solidness of an army. USAFA is in the mountains. Chapel is visual reminder of contrails of jets aiming skyward. USNA, for those of you that have been there, appropriately sits on the water. White buildings, blue-ish roofs emblematic of the sea. Make no doubt about it, this is the military and they are not only educating these young men and women, they are preparing them to defend the nation. And, after 10yrs at war, no young person should enter one of these academies thinking that there isn't at least a halfway decent chance of being in a combat zone at some point. Yes, sneaking a pizza in is a major rule breaker. A family member got significant demerits and had to "walk tours" when he was caught kissing another (female) midshipman. There are rules and uniforms and codes of honor that are taken seriously. They are all beautiful places with amazing educations. They've also had their share of honor problems over the past decade with incidents of sexual misconduct and cheating. Things that likely happen at colleges all over this country, but make front page news because these are the military academies and we expect more of these future officers. |
Anonymous
Re the PP below -- this is all accurate. Please remember that every Cadet/Mid is also, from the date of execution of the oath, an active-duty member of the US Armed Forces. Issues with local police? Reportable, and the Academies will find out. Essentially the Cadet/Mis/Plebe summer and the entire 4th Class/First year period is conducted on basic-training discipline. Serious disciplinary infractions (what the services, not you, regard as serious) can be punished by criminal prosecution. The Cadets/Mids are paid while in the Academies, as junior/mid enlistees (the cash is largely held in a forced savings system until graduation). There are active-duty assignments most of each summer, and these are required. The Cadet's/Mid's records are considered military personnel records, not strictly Buckley Amendment, and much will be available to future commanding officers. Unhappy? Kid may not be able to drop out, and if permitted to drop out, may owe a simply staggering refund for deemed value, may owe active or reserve time as an enlistee, and leaving w/o being successfully commissioned may impose eligibility issues later on as to civilian Federal employment. Kid has a personal issue while a Cadet/Mid? There are limitations on Academy physician/counselor/chaplain privacy rights, and the Cadet/Mid command is often notified. Want to volunteer for your Democratic member of Congress's campaign? Guess what -- you're subject to the Hatch Act. The service obligation ranges from six to eight years active duty, plus additional obligations for those who are trained to fly, and there are recall/IRR obligations that can last for ten further years. Decided on a major? Not so fast -- allocations of majors are subject to the needs and discretion of the service, so for instance a certain percentage of USMA graduates are required to be engineers. A kid doesn't go to a service academy -- a kid joins the service as a service academy Cadet/Mid. These are excellent colleges, but in each case they are also active-duty military bases, and the students are members of the service, subject to the orders of the command.
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Anonymous
So in terms of numbers, is it right that someone from a small state like MD (or non-state like DC) would stand a better chance, numerically, of getting a nomination than if they lived in California or NY? |