What did I get out of applying to USMA?
It is a valuable experience. It can only make you better.
@
BarettaM59, yours was the "Eureka!" comment here for me. Having to go through the SA application process made me gain so much on a personal level that even if I had not gotten my appointment, I can safely say it made me a better person for now and the future. The process forced and/or allowed me to:
(a) Focus on my academics and my involvement in sports and ECs in a much more strategic and, ultimately, fulfilling manner.
(b) Get into the
best physical shape of my life.
(c) Begin my college application process in the winter of my Junior year -- gathering my resume, focusing on my testing, analyzing my personal profile and identifying gaps -- so that when I finally applied to "regular" colleges in the fall of my Senior year, it seemed almost comically easy.
(d) Through SLS and MOC interviews and USMA events, meet some of the most amazingly (and honestly
scarily) capable people I have ever met in my entire life. This goes for MOC interviewers, current USMA cadets, and fellow candidates.
(e) Learn time management skills that I never would have learned as a high school student -- and do it while accomplishing (a) above. There is SO much to do for the SA process that if you don't schedule it and tightly execute, you're cooked.
(f) Personally own a process so important to my life and my future, without a safety net. Sure my parents and teachers and guidance counselors and friends all cheered and supported (and, when necessary, hugged) me all along the way, but this thing was
mine to drive, to own and to succeed at.
(g) Come away knowing that anything I set my mind to, I can give it my fullest without fear of being viewed as an "over-achiever". Coming from a large public high school, where the height of the expectations bar is often set to "mediocre", that meant a lot to me.
So,
JokerSixActual, if you want an experience like this, regardless of the outcome, then you owe it to yourself to go for it!
Good luck.