Service Academies should not be ranked with LACs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So you tiger mom’d your kid through a bunch of ap 4/5’s, a very good sat, and weird extracurriculars like cello or fencing, and they picked a super fancy lac that no one outside the east coast tiger mom community knows about, and you’re upset they’re being compared to kids from Lmc or mc backgrounds at Annapolis and West Point. Got it.

Realest thing I’ve read on DCUM to date.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I feel you. Last week I was telling a colleague that my kid went to Bowdoin even though my colleague didn’t ask. I had to suffer not only the slight of them having never heard of such an elite school, but I had to explain to my colleague that it was ranked #9 by USNWR, and that it was only that low because of the grubby service academies with their SAT dummies. It should be #6!

I explained all of this in detail but after 25 minutes my colleague suddenly said she forgot to feed her cat and walked off. She seems to have been avoiding me ever since, I bet she wouldn’t if only my kid had gotten into a WASP!

Thank you for my Sunday morning laugh! And yes, worrying about USNWR ranking is a real waste of your time and sanity. Let it go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:USNWR ranks service academies amongst national LACs, but this makes no sense given their specialized purpose, the narrow opportunities for application, and their relatively low test scores.

Perhaps, they excel at upward social mobility, but the quality of student - based on test scores - pales in comparison to the schools they’re typically ranked amongst (LAC top 10). For example, most service academies have SAT 25/75 around 1200/1400. That means the top 25% of academy kids are the 25th percentile of the schools they’re ranked amongst. Makes no sense.

Thoughts?

I think I know a lot of kids at SLACs that could never make it into or last very long at a military academy.
It's an entirely different beast and for that reason alone should be treated entirely differently.

[Anonymous]

This is just the beginning just wait until your adult children enter the real world and are in the same stack of resumes. They will be compared to each other and an academy grad may be chosen above your child. The horror!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. No, I haven’t previously posted about service academies, and, yes, I respect their graduates.

My thoughts were more around the weirdness of ranking them amongst non-military LACs for all the reasons I posted earlier. Again, while the schools may be fine, their students objectively are less brainy than those at the other schools they’re ranked amongst. For a ranking, that’s weird. But, yes, I understand that USNWR can do whatever they want to do, even if it’s not helpful for someone choosing a college.

Wow. Just wow. Pretty sure you’ve never actually met a service academy graduate. Their SAT scores may not be quite as high on average as your typical UMC well tutored and prepped LAC kid, but these kids are incredibly impressive and well rounded. Disciplined, athletic, and smart. They are highly sought after in the corporate world too. Step out of your bubble.