Fairfax student accepted to four service academies

[Anonymous]

11:15-

The service academies have a mission to take kids from all over the country, so there is some variance in GPAs and test scores, but your information on what is needed for an applicant from the D.C. area to be appointed is wrong, or maybe just out of date.

A kid from our area needs to be the "total package." S/he needs to have very high academic achievement, year round sports participation, and active engagement in leadership roles. A B student with 1200 SATs is highly unlikely to make it unless s/he is a highly accomplished athlete who is being recruited. And if the latter is the case, they will send the kid to a prep school to get ready for the high level of academics they will be confronted with once they get to the academy.

Do you realize every kid at a service academy has at least a minor in engineering, and most have STEM related majors? Have you seen the list of Rhodes and Fulbright scholars the academies have sent off the last several years? Here's a link to a list from West Point alone. The other academies have similar lists.

http://www.usma.edu/excellence/SitePages/Scholarships.aspx

The ultimate goal of a service academy is to graduate leaders. Test scores and GPAs do not always show what kind of a leader a person will be.

[Anonymous]

Congratulations on impressive achievement.

[Anonymous]

Ivies of course. You don't have to be that smart to go to service academies. A lot of politics are involved. I used to work on Cap Hill and all the students had to get letters from the Congressman. A lot of blue collar kids who can't afford college otherwise go. It's a high price to pay ... the chance of going to war and losing one's life.

Anonymous wrote:What's more impressive: Getting accepted at four service academies or getting accepted to all the Ivies?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Ivies of course. You don't have to be that smart to go to service academies. A lot of politics are involved. I used to work on Cap Hill and all the students had to get letters from the Congressman. A lot of blue collar kids who can't afford college otherwise go. It's a high price to pay ... the chance of going to war and losing one's life.

Anonymous wrote:What's more impressive: Getting accepted at four service academies or getting accepted to all the Ivies?

Oh, dear, this information is not at all correct.

There is no politics involved in getting an appointment to a service academy. It is a very complicated application process that involves a number of steps, one of which is to apply to your US senators and congress person for a nomination. The members of congress have committees who read the applications and interview the applicants, so that there can be no "favoritism" involved in the process.

The competition for a slot varies depending on where you live, but the competition for kids from the D.C. general area is intense, to say the least. Kids from this area that get appointments have high GPAs and test scores, are very physically fit and are involved in sports, and are also good leaders a kid has to shine in many categories to be accepted to a service academy.

Go to the websites of each of the academies for good information that is accurate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Congrats to him! But to clarify all of them are "no cost" to all attendees... in exchange for 5 years of service.

What if you want to go to law or medical school? You have to do it after you serve that 5 years?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Congrats to him! But to clarify all of them are "no cost" to all attendees... in exchange for 5 years of service.

What if you want to go to law or medical school? You have to do it after you serve that 5 years?

Yes. Unless you get a waiver from service and get to go at 22 and then serve in the medical corps/JAG after to fulfill your 5 yrs. There's only a limited number of those waivers at every academy though, so you cannot and should not assume you will get one (maybe only the top 3-4 students applying to med/law school will get one); it's often dependent on what's going on - if we're at war, they can't be having people sit out in med/law school, they need 2nd LTs in the field so you are deploying quick after graduation, at peacetime there's more leeway. So if you want to go service academy but being a dr. or lawyer in the end gain - mentally be prepared that you'll graduate at 22, serve until 27, then go from 28-30/31, and then for med you'll do your residency etc. in your 30s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's awesome that a student wants to go to a military academy. And, it is certainly unusual for one to apply to every single one, as if there was no difference between the branches. As others have mentioned, a student who is not a child of career military can't get a Presidential nomination and is unlikely to get nominations to multiple academies from Members of Congress, except in places with few college going students. So it is indeed rare, but for reasons other than individual qualifications.

On the whole, you have to keep in mind that the military academies are not terribly selective. A solid B student with 1200 SATs from Montgomery or Fairfax County Public Schools with any team sports participation is pretty much an automatic admit at the academies. These students would be on the bubble for engineering at College Park or UVa. The academies admit rates are skewed low because they include partial and incomplete applicants that other colleges don't. And, they run very large prep programs so they can admit students who do not normally qualify because of low grades, test scores, or other problems (like high school disciplinary and juvie records).

This is not accurate in my experience. The academies are very selective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Congrats to him! But to clarify all of them are "no cost" to all attendees... in exchange for 5 years of service.

What if you want to go to law or medical school? You have to do it after you serve that 5 years?

Yes. Unless you get a waiver from service and get to go at 22 and then serve in the medical corps/JAG after to fulfill your 5 yrs. There's only a limited number of those waivers at every academy though, so you cannot and should not assume you will get one (maybe only the top 3-4 students applying to med/law school will get one); it's often dependent on what's going on - if we're at war, they can't be having people sit out in med/law school, they need 2nd LTs in the field so you are deploying quick after graduation, at peacetime there's more leeway. So if you want to go service academy but being a dr. or lawyer in the end gain - mentally be prepared that you'll graduate at 22, serve until 27, then go from 28-30/31, and then for med you'll do your residency etc. in your 30s.

The past few years about 12-15 grads from each of the top three academies have gone on to med school right after graduating. They would definitely be the top of each of their classes. Some also go to med school after they fulfill their service obligation.

[Anonymous]

This is from a full professor at Annapolis:

In fact more than a quarter of the class has SAT scores below 600, and our average is lower than the nearby state school University of Maryland. Twenty percent of our class comes through a taxpayer-supported remedial 13th grade (another almost $50,000 per student for taxpayers). They fill our remedial courses (I am teaching some of these this semester, as a full professor)—a second try at getting them up to college level. The top 10 percent are impressive. But they are the exceptions rather than the rule, and almost all (I know from talking to them) are deeply disillusioned by the Academy and by what they found there.

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/05/lets_abolish_west_point_military_academies_serve_no_one_squander_millions_of_tax_dollars/

[Anonymous]

That professor has written variations of this piece a number of times. There are many who disagree with his assessment of the students at the Naval Academy.

Service academy graduates tend to be very successful in life. Maybe test scores don't tell us all we need to know about who is most likely to lead a life of accomplishment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous[b wrote:]That professor has written variations of this piece a number of times. There are many who disagree with his assessment of the students at the Naval Academy.
[/b]
Service academy graduates tend to be very successful in life. Maybe test scores don't tell us all we need to know about who is most likely to lead a life of accomplishment.

NP who agrees with the above. We do not have any child at an academy and probably never will. That said, the service academy cadets and recent graduates that we have known have been exemplary human beings and I cannot imagine anyone implying that any of them are mediocre or any less than some of the best young men and women we've seen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's more impressive: Getting accepted at four service academies or getting accepted to all the Ivies?

Four service academies is more impressive than four ivies.

Agree. Four military academies, including West Point, that is unbelievably hard.