I-Day Minus 1

MIDNDAD

10-Year Member
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Apr 3, 2008
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Check out the USNA facebook site. They already have up a bunch of pictures of the NAPS kids processing in. You can tell from the bearing and eyes these kids have seen this before and are dealing with everything just fine.

Tomorrow will be a little different..... Got the following text from my Mid last night:

Dad, classic incomming plebe moment. Sitting at food court in the mall watching a candidate with his parents. He's playing it cool but is scared @@@@less. He's fooling the parents but not us.

The cycle continues....
 
34100_403212403090_94274618090_4415939_1614684_n.jpg


"One of these things is not like the other...."

:yllol:


So they do everything within Alumni Hall now, eh? Interesting!

They also get their watchbelts WAY earlier than we did...

Oh, and we had to show up in our WOOL Service Dress Blues (crackerjacks). Changing to whiteworks was a BLESSING! :thumbdown:

I sure hope Janeen Auelua isn't reporting tomorrow. That would prove......... embarassing. :yllol:

Thanks for the heads-up! That brought back some memories!
 
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And their watchbelts are CLEAN! I remember ours were SOOO gross -- we had to spend hours scrubbing them until they were stiff as boards but oh so white.:shake:
 
That's OK. They just got 'em.

Wait until this evening. :thumb:

What I find interesting is that since they seem to be brand-new, and since they are being issued this early, then it's no longer a part of the communal rifle/bayonet issue like it was in my day.
 
I'm in DTA in the office right now. The town is awash with families and plebes-to-be. Easy to pick them out. Just had a nice chat with parents who had an '08 grad, they are totally relaxed about their '14 son. It's so much cooler than it has been the last few days, and I hope that continues into tomorrow.
 
34100_403212403090_94274618090_4415939_1614684_n.jpg


"One of these things is not like the other...."

:yllol:


So they do everything within Alumni Hall now, eh? Interesting!

They also get their watchbelts WAY earlier than we did...

Oh, and we had to show up in our WOOL Service Dress Blues (crackerjacks). Changing to whiteworks was a BLESSING! :thumbdown:

I sure hope Janeen Auelua isn't reporting tomorrow. That would prove......... embarassing. :yllol:

Thanks for the heads-up! That brought back some memories!

The only reason they get watch belts is because they also get issued a canteen, something that was never done in years past. They carry those canteens around everywhere they go, like little Teddy Bears. The belt's only function is something to attach the canteen to.

Back in the day, we just didn't drink any water. Then again, we also didn't have any air conditioning. That's when men were men. Literally ... MEN! :smile:

BTW, the Class of '79 was the last all-male class.

Then again, we also had the lowest GPA and highest attrition than in the previous 20 years. We had "issues".
 
BTW, the Class of '79 was the last all-male class.

2.0 balls-per-plebe average. :biggrin:

We got canteens back in 1987. I'm trying to remember if we were the first to get canteens or fans. One of the two.

Until we got our rifles and watchbelts, we carried the canteens in-hand.
 
To the best of my recollection, we had no canteens our plebe year.

The only time I recall being severely dehydrated was after PEP or a P-rade. There was a Pepsi machine in every company area (or close to it) and we were allowed to buy sodas. Not great for hydrating. There were also water fountains.
 
So all you "Gentlemen" and lady who went there oh so long ago, is looking at these photos good memories?

Properly in quotes. :thumb:

Well, I don't know about GOOD, but it does bring back memories! :yllol:
 
Do the NAPSTERS have a big advantage when it comes to plebe summer....ie checking in earlier, knowing the military ways..etc.??
Just wondering.
Thanks
 
Overall the answer is yes because they have lived with a military lifestyle for a year already. Plebe summer is basicly bootcamp which they have already experienced.

However, once the AC year starts this is where a lot of the NAPS kids start to struggle.
 
Overall the answer is yes because they have lived with a military lifestyle for a year already. Plebe summer is basicly bootcamp which they have already experienced.

True. If they are prior enlisted, they've been through it twice.

However, once the AC year starts this is where a lot of the NAPS kids start to struggle.

Yes and no, but the field definitely evens out.
 
Lucky the Plebe who has a NAPSTER as a roommate.:shake:

Our son is one of the lucky few who has a NAPSTER as a roommate. When we spoke with him last night, after the Oath of Office Ceremony, he was telling us how much help his roommate was just in the few hours that they were there.
 
Our son wasn't lucky enough to end up with a Napster roomie, we told him to seek them out, they are a wealth of knowelge and wisdom. I was fortuneate to have a preppy roomie at USAFA, and I was so thankful!
 
Do the NAPSTERS have a big advantage when it comes to plebe summer....ie checking in earlier, knowing the military ways..etc.??
Just wondering.
Thanks

Yes, they have a slight advantage at the beginning. Mostly because of their Reef Points knowledge.

Let's face it, making a bunk, marching, and learning how to salute is not rocket science.

In a few weeks, you cannot tell the difference between a Napster and kid right out of high school.

Don't forget this, however. Napsters went to a preparatory school for a reason. They weren't ready. And those directly out of high school did not need to go to a preparatory school for a reason. They were ready.

I have no statistics to support this, but I'm guessing that non-Napsters do better academically, on the whole.

A Napster may help you make your bunk better but, later on, he may need your help with a Calculus problem.

At the risk of being politically incorrect: Many of the Napsters are athletes who are being accepted into the Naval Academy more for their athletic prowess than their academic prowess.

You can't say this type of stuff on the USNA parent list-server. The moderators would ban you for life.

Oh sure, there is always going to be that one recruited athlete, who attended NAPS, who also has got great grades in Aerospace Engineering. Believe me, that would be a very isolated data point on a much larger scale. (And he probably got recruited for crew or squash, not football.)

There are a variety of academic paths at the Naval Academy. Some will validate two semesters of Calculus, a semester of Chemistry and Physics, and major in Engineering. Others will take the equivalent of pre-Calculus their Plebe year and major in a much softer Group 3 major. The difference is as stark as night and day.
 
OK, I have to jump in. (I wish I had a few years ago, during a discussion re: law school and some applicant's mother -- an APPLICANT'S mother -- offered up, "I doubt any NAPSter will ever get into a law school.")

Don't generalize about NAPSters. Yes, my Mid is one. He's also the one tutoring your kids in Calculus, since he validated it. Can't help them much after Jan. of this year, though -- second semester of his 1/C year -- since he's starting master's degree classes @ Johns Hopkins University before he's even commissioned. That's the VGEP program that accepts 20 Mids out of a class of 1100 or so. He's enjoying leave now, so he'll be energized for his cadre leadership job later this month -- an assignment that's also highly competitive.

As the well-informed moderators often point out, there are a lot of reasons kids get NAPS.
 
From closely observing over more than a decade here, I've seen a good sampling of NAPsters across the performance spectrum.

We had 3 NAPSter sponsor sons within the last 3-5 years, all plucked out of the nuke enlisted pipeline based on their math skills and overall military performance. Two were Bowman Scholars, one a Trident Scholar, all 3 did IGEP (immediate Master's program) right after graduation, 1 Stanford, 1 MIT, 1 Naval Postgraduate School. All 3 racked up an impressive array of academic awards during Commissioning Week. All 3 are now serving in submarines. We had another sponsor son, prior enlisted corpsman, who attended NAPs, competed for and got a med school billet, attended USUHS (mil med school in Bethesda) and is now in his ortho surgical residency.

At the other end of the spectrum, we've had NAPsters who struggled academically and with conduct issues, because they couldn't/wouldn't adjust to living under the same rules as 17 year olds after serving in the Fleet/Corps in actual operational assignements, as opposed to being right out of a schoolhouse pipeline after basic training. A handful have left either voluntarily to return to the Fleet, Corps or civilian world, or were involuntarily separated.

We've also had a chunk of NAPsters in the middle of the bell curve, who cruised right through a middle route.

I think (JMO) it's the policy to send all enlisted personnel through NAPS to ensure their academic skills get a polish, as well as provide some separation and professional transition time from enlisted service to officer candidate and midshipman status. Thus, there will be high achievers out of the technical enlisted schoolhouses who've never been to the Fleet or Corps or other service, and some who will be coming in much more experienced in operational assignments. We've never had a sponsor mid who was a non-military NAPSter, though we've had plenty of Foundation/prep mids who have done just fine.

That's just my experience.
 
To me, there are two type of NAPsters.

1. Those who were in the fleet and have simply been out of academic circulation for a year. NAPS is used to get them back into the swing of things.

2. Those who did not have a strong academic record, did not take challenging enough courses, or who the academy wants desperately because they are such an athletic superstar. The academy is willing to gamble that they will survive.

Of course, I knew there would be a response that highlighted some NAPster who did fantastic. I'm sure that's true. But aren't there over 200 NAPsters with each incoming class? I'm talking statistically, not a single data point.

That would be like saying, "I know of a midshipman who didn't go to NAPS and flunked out." That's not how statistical averages work.

Nonetheless, I'm willing to bet that NAPsters, on the whole (and, yes, I'm generalizing) do not achieve as well academically as those who never needed a preparatory school.

Of course, my point is unprovable because the academy does not (and will never) reveal such a statistic. To dispute my point is equally unprovable.

Like I said, it's just a theory. My intent was not to personally offend anybody. Although, I knew it would not be a popular viewpoint.

There's probably all kinds of other statistics that are TRUE but would also ruffle people's feathers. For instance, I'm guessing that, on the average, midshipmen appointed from Virginia (where it is highly competitive) do better, academically, than those who are appointed from, hmmm ... uh ... let's say ... uh ... Arkansas!

Can you tell that I'm feeling very politically incorrect today? :smile:

OK, it's somebody's turn to tell me about this one kid they knew, from Arkansas, who was a Rhodes Scholar back in 1992.
 
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