SSK

Daaltaraan

5-Year Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2012
Messages
38
The school year is winding down, so could someone please tell me what is in the SSK? That way, I can arrange with all my teachers and counselors exactly what I'll need over the summer.

Thanks in advance.
 
The school year is winding down, so could someone please tell me what is in the SSK? That way, I can arrange with all my teachers and counselors exactly what I'll need over the summer.

Thanks in advance.

SSK - second step kit. An outdated term as they used to mail it, now it's all electronic.

In terms of getting ready for it, getting your gudiance counselor or equivalent school official, math, english, and physical science teacher's contact (email) information during the summer.

When SSK portion of the application is activated in the candidate portal, you have to provide email address for your school official and teachers. They will receive a link to do their part - school official to verify your school activities and your teacher to complete an evaulation of your performance.

I got a heads up from my RC that there might be some delay with some candidates on SSK being released - tied to your competitiveness and your application being more completed. It used to be your SAT score and self reported candidate activities were good enough, but with increased applications, RCs might required candidate essays and 6th semester transcript to activate your candidate portal. Same goes for DODMER exam.
 
Perhaps it would be helpful to provide information from a previous post on the timing of events in the USMA Admissions process:

Second Step Kit (SSK)The SSK (Second Step Kit) is the on-line application for West Point. It will be available on your candidate portal once your RC has made an initial evaluation. He will not make this initial evaluation until he has at a minimum - your SAT/ACT scores.

In the SSK box is a listing of all the 'stuff' you have to do to complete your file. Each item has an icon next to it. When it is first opened, each icon will be red. They will turn to green once that item is complete.

The components of the SSK are:
1) Candidate Personal Data Record (CPDR)
- this in where you enter your personal info
2) Request for Academic Information
- you enter the contact info for your High School's transcript official
3) Candidate Activities Record (CAR)
- this is where you get to enter all of your accomplishments!
- athletics and extracurriculars
- you will also enter the contact info for the person (principal, counselor, school administrator) who will verify that what you entered is accurate.
4) Candidate Statements
- these are your 3 essays
5) Candidate Fitness Assessment (CFA)
- you will enter the contact info of the authorized person that will be administrating your CFA.
6) School Official Evaluations (SOE)
- you will enter the contact info of 3 of your teachers. They MUST be a teacher that you had for English, Math and Physics/Chemistry from grades 9-12.

Your SSK is finished when all the icons are green. IOW - you have submitted all of the forms and WP has received all forms back from school officials.

Your file is now complete. All you need is DoDMERB clearance and a nomination.

Can all of this be done by the end of summer? Absolutely! But as you can see, it is not all up to you. You are relying on someone sending in your transcripts, someone preparing to administer your CFA and submitting it, you are relying on the school official to verify you CAR and you are relying on the 3 teachers to fill out the SOEs and submit them.
Politely ask each of these officials if they could complete their forms this summer and tell them why. Most teachers/school officials want to help their students.

DoDMERB: Once your RC makes the initial evaluation and deems that you are a competitive candidate, he will authorize DoDMERB to schedule you for the medical exam. DoDMERB (through their contractor Concorde) will contact you with instructions on how to schedule this exam. This usually occurs in July. Once you receive the scheduling instructions - there is a time limit on you making the appointments.
If you have a concern about this - ask your FFR, or RC, or call DoDMERB ( 1-800-841-2706 from 7AM-4 PM, Mountain Time, Mon - Fri) or email DoDMERB at helpdesk@dodmerb.tma.osd.mil.
 
After submitting the candidate questionnaire are you able to go back in and add more information? My son filled out the questionaire when the SLS application opened and only had PSAT results at that point.
 
After submitting the candidate questionnaire are you able to go back in and add more information? My son filled out the questionaire when the SLS application opened and only had PSAT results at that point.

I had to have my official score reports sent into wp via Collegeboard and ACT Central, if DS registered online, he should be able to do this as well. SAT scores are free to send for a certain number of reports, ACTs cost $10. After a few days, these scores should appear in his portal.
 
what scores are you sending? how do we know if they r high enough to make it to the next round?
 
After submitting the candidate questionnaire are you able to go back in and add more information? My son filled out the questionaire when the SLS application opened and only had PSAT results at that point.

Yes, you will be able to add more infomation. As stated in the "Second Step" summary above:

3) Candidate Activities Record (CAR)
- this is where you get to enter all of your accomplishments!
- athletics and extracurriculars

SAT/ACT scores should be sent directly to USMA via the respective testing service to provide an official update of the scores.

Hope that helps!:thumb:
 
what scores are you sending? how do we know if they r high enough to make it to the next round?

At a minimum, your scores will need to exceed the following:
When Admissions talks about test scores, it is in terms of the scores of each section and not the composite.

You are not considered an academic risk unless:
- on ACT, scores in any subsection are below a 24.
- on SAT, scores below a 560 in Math or CR

But to be truly competitive, your scores need to be way above the risk level.

I would also encourage you to review the profile for the USMA Class of 2015 and determine your overall competitiveness:

http://www.usma.edu/classes/SiteAssets/SitePages/2015/2015profile.pdf
 
Thank you Hooah1775, the details in the SSK post are helpful. My question pertains to the following part of a previous post:

"I got a heads up from my RC that there might be some delay with some candidates on SSK being released - tied to your competitiveness and your application being more completed. It used to be your SAT score and self reported candidate activities were good enough, but with increased applications, RCs might required candidate essays and 6th semester transcript to activate your candidate portal. Same goes for DODMER exam."

I believe this is stating that before the SSK is released, you are evaluated on what you submitted in your pre candidate questionaire and they want to see essays and 6th semester transcripts. I don't know how that can be submitted before the SSK opens. Maybe I'm reading it wrong.

My son got into SLS, so is he most likely qualified and doesn't have to update his questionaire at this point? He did just have his SAT and ACT scores sent.
 
Thank you Hooah1775, the details in the SSK post are helpful. My question pertains to the following part of a previous post:

"I got a heads up from my RC that there might be some delay with some candidates on SSK being released - tied to your competitiveness and your application being more completed. It used to be your SAT score and self reported candidate activities were good enough, but with increased applications, RCs might required candidate essays and 6th semester transcript to activate your candidate portal. Same goes for DODMER exam."

I believe this is stating that before the SSK is released, you are evaluated on what you submitted in your pre candidate questionaire and they want to see essays and 6th semester transcripts. I don't know how that can be submitted before the SSK opens. Maybe I'm reading it wrong.

My son got into SLS, so is he most likely qualified and doesn't have to update his questionaire at this point? He did just have his SAT and ACT scores sent.

apologize for causing confusion. eassys and 6th semester transcript might only apply to authorizing DOMERB exam. I wasn't paying attention on what actually constitutes SSK.
 
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