School Question

I have a question about West Point (and other service academies) admit applicants. There are several people in my class at my high school looking to apply to USMA in a few years (myself included) and I was wondering how they handle to equally qualified candidates from the same school.

My friend and I are both two sport atheles (I swim and play water polo; he plays football and wrestles). We both have 4.0+ GPA's, are both taking similarly rigourous course loads (I am slightly ahead in math), have identical ACT scores, are both in a prestigious leadership program at school, and are both in NHS.

I have a ton of respect for him because he is a very honest, hardworking kid, and I would consider us very similar applicants.

So my first question:

Does USMA (or any SA) take in to account the number of people they admit from a certain school. Do they say "Oh, we already accepted some one from school X, we'll pick the next candidate from school Y even though there is another qualified candidate from school X solely to "mix it up"?"

And then the catch:
My friend and I are almost identical in our qualifications except for the fact that his father, grandfather, great-grandfather and so on and so forth all went to West Point, going back to the early 1800's

I cannot overstate the fact that I believe my buddy would make an excellent army officer and is in fact a great person and am in no way trying to disrespect him or his family but I was wondering how much of a role legacy plays in admission, and if so should I not get too excited about the Academy accepting another applicant after accepting an equally qualified "legacy"? I know I can prepare myself an incredible amount but there is no way that I can change where my parents went to school.

The problem of applicas from the same school mainly comes in during the nomination process. MOCs can only officially nominate one person for a slot for a given year (sometimes two). You best chances would be if you can both get different types of nominations. This year my school has 4 accepted service academy candidates. We have 2 for USAFA, one is going with a basketball recruitment, and I believe the other has a jrotc connected nomination. That allowed them to both get accepted. From what you said, I would suggest opening you routes, try for an athlete recruitment for either of your sports, push heavily in school, retake the ACT and SAT to max your chances. Make sure your recommendations are from teachers who can write well and think highly of you. Start early and finish early, I got an LoA to WP, which came as a total shock, because I finished my application in August. Blow the CFA outta the water, and go for leadership positions. Whether your friend gets in is up to him to work for. You can only do what is best for you, don't worry about his college prospects, focus on what you can do for your college prospects.

Thank you for the info, I have another question

I should know this, but does each MOC have, let's say 10 slots for USMA, 10 for USNA, 10 for USAFA, and so on OR does each one have 30 slots for all the SAs together and can determine how many he gives for each Academy him/herself?

Here's how it works:

Each MOC can have 5 cadets at each academy. Normally, a MOC has 1 available spot each year at each academy (sometimes, 2). A MOC can nominate 10 people per slot. If he has 2 slots at USAFA, 1 slot at USMA and 1 slot at USNA, s/he may nominate 20 candidates (or less) to the USAFA, 10 (or less) to the USMA and 10 (or less) to USNA.

I believe there are some conditions that makes a MOC slot not considered "filled" even if someone is appointed with a nomination from that MOC. I think that is the case for LOA recipients, for example, but don't quote me on this.

BDHuff09 said:

I have a question about West Point (and other service academies) admit applicants. There are several people in my class at my high school looking to apply to USMA in a few years (myself included) and I was wondering how they handle to equally qualified candidates from the same school.

My friend and I are both two sport atheles (I swim and play water polo; he plays football and wrestles). We both have 4.0+ GPA's, are both taking similarly rigourous course loads (I am slightly ahead in math), have identical ACT scores, are both in a prestigious leadership program at school, and are both in NHS.

I have a ton of respect for him because he is a very honest, hardworking kid, and I would consider us very similar applicants.

So my first question:

Does USMA (or any SA) take in to account the number of people they admit from a certain school. Do they say "Oh, we already accepted some one from school X, we'll pick the next candidate from school Y even though there is another qualified candidate from school X solely to "mix it up"?"

And then the catch:
My friend and I are almost identical in our qualifications except for the fact that his father, grandfather, great-grandfather and so on and so forth all went to West Point, going back to the early 1800's

I cannot overstate the fact that I believe my buddy would make an excellent army officer and is in fact a great person and am in no way trying to disrespect him or his family but I was wondering how much of a role legacy plays in admission, and if so should I not get too excited about the Academy accepting another applicant after accepting an equally qualified "legacy"? I know I can prepare myself an incredible amount but there is no way that I can change where my parents went to school.

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There are 13 alums from the school that my DS attends who are currently enrolled at USMA. Multiple members of a class from this school are routinely admitted. Perhaps it varies by school but it clearly isn't a factor where my DS attends.

jocomom said:

There are 13 alums from the school that my DS attends who are currently enrolled at USMA. Multiple members of a class from this school are routinely admitted. Perhaps it varies by school but it clearly isn't a factor where my DS attends.

Click to expand...

But does your son go to a school that all students are from the same congressional district? That's THE question.

SA2017 said:

But does your son go to a school that all students are from the same congressional district? That's THE question.

Click to expand...

Not all, but certainly some that are applying and are subsequently admitted are from the same district. The congressional district issue is one of the questions, but not the only one. Most highly selective civilian colleges would not consider admitting that many applicants from the same school. It would appear that high school distribution, congressional appointment aside, is not an issue.

As mentioned in some posts above - offers are made to people from the same school. You are competing with all of the people from your Congressional District (including the people at your school) for the one (sometimes two) vacancies from your congressman. A congresssman can nominate 10 people for each vacancy but only ONE will get admitted for that slot. A nomination is important, but it is just the legal authority to continue considering you for admission. There is usually at least 3000-4000+ people with nominations each year but only about 1150 will get admitted. Be excited when you get a nomination, but realize that most of the people with nomination will not ultimately get admitted.

It is possible that multiple people from your Congressional District get an offer but only one of those will be from your congressman's vacancy. Others might have noiminations from other sources (service connected or from the NWL).

The thing for you to do is to apply for every possible nomination - represetative, senator, VP and service connected if you qualify.

The other thing is to complete your file very early and make sure that you have entered ALL of the information that makes your file strong. WP will give you a secret ranking on their WCS (whole candidate score) which will be critical in getting an offer. Do everything you can do to make that number high. No two files are exactly equal as everyone has a distinct WCS number.

In my opinion, your friend has a little edge from his legacy connection (although that is not an official policy). In addition, I believe combat sports like football and wrestling are favored over your sports. The main thing in sports, however. is to be a team Captain. In any case do GREAT on the CFA-well above average on every event.

Good luck - forcus on your qualifications and do not worry about others.

Thank you all for the info, it is much appreciated.

BillSL, do you mean that if one recieves a LoA he/she can be given a nomination that does not count against a MOC's slots?

One thing I noticed you did not mention about you or your friend was leadership positions (with the exception of a “prestigious leadership program"). The whole candidate score includes academics, athletics and leadership. If you are not already you need to seek out and serve in some type of formal leadership roles. There are many ways to accomplish this. You could serve as a Club President, Class President, Team Captain, church youth group leader, and etc. If you are in scouting get your Eagle Scout rank AND serve as your troop’s Senior Patrol Leader. Look into attending Boys State and serving in a leadership role while you are at Boys State.

Good Luck!

The Program was an outdoor-based leadership club- 150 people in my grade were nominated, 26 (inc. my bud and I) were accepted out of a class of 500.

That was last (freshman) year. The school decided that after 11 years they didn't want to pay for the program anymore and that this past year (sophomore) would be the last year they would run it.

Needless to say, I was disappointed. But I guess it drives home the fact that I need to look for more leadership than I already have. There is a good chance I'll be a co-captain for each of my sports senior year, and I am going to run for the exec council for my NHS chapter

I know I have a lot of work to do but I know if I work hard enough I can achieve my goal