USAFA application

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Let'sGoFlying

5-Year Member
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Apr 20, 2012
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Hello everyone,

I am a student-pilot eager to be old enough to solo, and plan to be a USAF pilot. I heard about the Academy in 7th grade and am now in high school (9th grade) working my butt off to have a chance at getting in. I am in AFJROTC and am a Boy Scout and actively involved in my community. I speak English and Russian fluently and am learning French and German. I have a weighted 5.0 GPA (honors classes) and run distance in track and cross-country. I have loved flying ever since I was four, and the opportunity to serve my country doing the things I love is amazing. Anyway, my question is, what else should I do to be able to get in the Academy? I plan to major in Aeronautical Engineering. Have an excellent day everyone and thanks for reading this.

PS: I also heard about the USAFA prep-school. How do I apply for that?
 
Welcome to the forum!

1. You are already doing the right thing by starting early in High School, getting good grades and being involved. The other important thing here is to gain leadership experience in the activities that you are involved in.

2. No matter what your GPA is, USAFA will reweight it, so standardized testing will be very important. Prep for, practice, and retake the SAT/ACT as much as possible to get the best possible result.

3. You don't apply for Prep school at USAFA, it will be offered to you or not (that includes Falcon scholarships).

4. Always plan for other options because any of the service academies are very competitive and you may find that ROTC and college might be a better fit for you.

Good luck!

Hello everyone,

I am a student-pilot eager to be old enough to solo, and plan to be a USAF pilot. I heard about the Academy in 7th grade and am now in high school (9th grade) working my butt off to have a chance at getting in. I am in AFJROTC and am a Boy Scout and actively involved in my community. I speak English and Russian fluently and am learning French and German. I have a weighted 5.0 GPA (honors classes) and run distance in track and cross-country. I have loved flying ever since I was four, and the opportunity to serve my country doing the things I love is amazing. Anyway, my question is, what else should I do to be able to get in the Academy? I plan to major in Aeronautical Engineering. Have an excellent day everyone and thanks for reading this.

PS: I also heard about the USAFA prep-school. How do I apply for that?
 
Let'sGoFlying, you have an ambitous goal--good for you!
FalconFamily has provided sound guidance. You seem involved in multiple activities--enjoy them all and do your best to excel in one or more areas. I would also encourage you to begin communications with the AFA Track Coach and AFA CrossCountry Coach--both are great individuals who can help you establish athletic goals and perhaps recruit you in your later HS years. 9th grade is not too early to establish this contact.

There is not a "golden metric" that you can chase to assure your acceptance into the AFA. It takes the total package to effectively compete.

My advice: You only do high school once. Enjoy it. Work hard. Walk the narrow path and you will find yourself exactly where you belong.
 
Hello everyone,

I am a student-pilot eager to be old enough to solo, and plan to be a USAF pilot. I heard about the Academy in 7th grade and am now in high school (9th grade) working my butt off to have a chance at getting in. I am in AFJROTC and am a Boy Scout and actively involved in my community. I speak English and Russian fluently and am learning French and German. I have a weighted 5.0 GPA (honors classes) and run distance in track and cross-country. I have loved flying ever since I was four, and the opportunity to serve my country doing the things I love is amazing. Anyway, my question is, what else should I do to be able to get in the Academy? I plan to major in Aeronautical Engineering. Have an excellent day everyone and thanks for reading this.

PS: I also heard about the USAFA prep-school. How do I apply for that?


nice credentials. IMO you're a sure-thing, as long as you keep it up with what you're already doing and be half-decent in your essays/interviews.

then again, with all the blue chipping going on these days, you might still not have a shot over the 2.5 GPA football player who's a "good leader" because he can catch a ball....
 
Join the Civil Air Patrol, get your pilots license, if your not doing a winter sport do one. Its not all about GPA and frankly a 5.0 sounds ridiculous. Does your school weight honors classes? Start taking the SATs next year.
 
I would say keep up what you are doing. Reach a high level of physical fitness and stay out of trouble. You still have a lot of time left in high school, enjoy it, but be sure to avoid bad influences.
 
No such thing as a sure thing...

As for the idea of blue chipping athletes...I think there are many types of leaders and the idea that any person with marginal academics can get into USAFA and succeed simply because they can "catch a ball" is malformed.

Nobody gets by at the Academy academically, there is no consideration for an athlete when it comes to classes. No matter what, as a freshman, you will take calc, chemistry, physics, a language, engineering, computer science, english, history, etc - typically 6-7 classes per semester in addition to boxing and your military studies and training. Those 4 - 5 hours that other cadets have to study each day is taken up with practices. You get back to your room after dinner and you study until taps. Repeat each day until the end of the semester.
 
As for the idea of blue chipping athletes...I think there are many types of leaders and the idea that any person with marginal academics can get into USAFA and succeed simply because they can "catch a ball" is malformed.

Nobody gets by at the Academy academically, there is no consideration for an athlete when it comes to classes. No matter what, as a freshman, you will take calc, chemistry, physics, a language, engineering, computer science, english, history, etc - typically 6-7 classes per semester in addition to boxing and your military studies and training. Those 4 - 5 hours that other cadets have to study each day is taken up with practices. You get back to your room after dinner and you study until taps. Repeat each day until the end of the semester.

i'm not talking about cadet life for an athlete vs. non-athlete (that's an ENTIRELY different discussion). i'm saying that the rigorous standards it takes to get into the academy should not be lowered, even one iota, for incoming recruited athletes.

i'm a cadet and i see it all too often: cadets with sub-par academic ability accepted simply because they have a mechanical skill. and those who were more qualified get shafted.

i know "every other college" blue chips, but the academy's mission is to produce USAF officers, not athletes.
 
yeah the academy will completey change your gpa. a 6.0 scale is just stupid. And as for the athlete discussion one could very easily make an argument that all these academic genius come in with no real leadership ablities and can be socially inept. Most likely someone is bluechipped as an athlete will be very outgoing and those people are often natural leaders which the air force wants.
 
yeah the academy will completey change your gpa. a 6.0 scale is just stupid. And as for the athlete discussion one could very easily make an argument that all these academic genius come in with no real leadership ablities and can be socially inept. Most likely someone is bluechipped as an athlete will be very outgoing and those people are often natural leaders which the air force wants.

I wouldn't call it stupid. Every school uses a different scale. In this case however, I think OP uses the 4.0 scale and when his scores are weighted, his full honors load gives him a 5.0.
 
okay highly unusual. School systems should be more standardized cause GPA seems to be meaning less and less. For example his on a 6.0 scale while the valdictorian of our school has a 4.1 with 7 AP classes. Some schools have a 2.5 weighting on AP and a 1.1 on honors while schools like mine have no weights for honors and 1.1 for AP. it should all be unweighted.
 
okay highly unusual. School systems should be more standardized cause GPA seems to be meaning less and less. For example his on a 6.0 scale while the valdictorian of our school has a 4.1 with 7 AP classes. Some schools have a 2.5 weighting on AP and a 1.1 on honors while schools like mine have no weights for honors and 1.1 for AP. it should all be unweighted.
Welcome to 'Merica.

That's why USAFA reweighs everything using the school profile your counselor provides them to make it fair. I would agree that it's annoying, but that's how it is unfortunately.
 
USAFA has a pretty detailed profile of High Schools

As some of you have noted, everyone's GPA will be rewighted by USAFA Admissions and they do so with a pretty detailed profile of your high school. Additionally the ACT/SAT is used as a more objective measure of your ability since it is a standardized test. So the weighting systems used by schools will make little difference in the end.
 
i'm not talking about cadet life for an athlete vs. non-athlete (that's an ENTIRELY different discussion). i'm saying that the rigorous standards it takes to get into the academy should not be lowered, even one iota, for incoming recruited athletes.

i'm a cadet and i see it all too often: cadets with sub-par academic ability accepted simply because they have a mechanical skill. and those who were more qualified get shafted.

i know "every other college" blue chips, but the academy's mission is to produce USAF officers, not athletes.

First of all if I am to understand your screen name correctly you are a soon to be graduate. If so congrats.

Second I agree with you that the mission of the academy is to produce officers, that said - the admissions staff also has to consider the whole person and their potential to be leaders. i.e. David Hackworth was a juvenile delinquent - how did he turn out? Ever consider if Robin Olds, the 2011 exemplar, would have gained entrace to USAFA today (perhaps as a blue chip since Olds was also an All American football player)? Those are the factors that the people in admissions deal with each year, and while there are mistakes, by and large they seem to do a great job of it each year.

Best wishes.
 
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