Reply to Are service academies like West Point considered prestigious?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I understand they seek well rounded young men and women who have character and a knack for leadership.

But giving extra points to an applicant who can throw a basketball farther than another applicant?  Is the basketball a stand in for a grenade?  My point is that they need to come up with revisions to the application process reflecting what it means to be in the military in contemporary times.[/quote]

the application process reflects the ability to get a congressman to nominate you more than anything else. You can be an eagle scout with a 5.0 GPA who wins robotics competitions at the international level, but if your congressman and senator don't like you, you're probably SOL unless you are in some way otherwise qualified (i.e. mom won a Medal of Honor or dad died in combat) [/quote]

So, the congressional representative her/himself typically has little to do personally with choosing the applicants who get the nominations. Each office has a committee of usually former military members who read the applications and interview the applicants. Part of the point of nominations is to be sure to have geographic representation in the military officer corps. [b]It’s a very fair and impartial process[/b].

You need a nomination to move forward in the application process, a nomination does not automatically get you an appointment. Each service academy’s admissions committee then looks at all the applicants with nominations.

And the basketball throw is part of the overall fitness test which is the bar applicants have to pass. Yes, it is hard to do but it does show a type of upper body strength and flexibility. 
[/quote]

that really depends on the congressman. [/quote]

In other parts of the country (yeah, mainly the South), the member of congress can specify a "principal" nominee, without regard to merit unless you count some connection to his family.  The academy will have no choice but to give that person an appointment.  I'm pretty sure Eleanor, Jamie and the other local pols do not play that political game.  They just provide a list of 10 to the academy and let the academy decide based solely on merit, to include that basketball throw test.[/quote]

Pretty much every decision in the south is decided on by who you’re related to. I’m sorry if you were a victim of this. It’s a horrible feeling to watch someone less deserving and less qualified get something you worked hard for.  Once they get there, they must be awfully surprised that no one cares who their daddy is. [/quote]

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