If I could offer some advice - while I can't speak for every SMC- I know VMI pretty intimately and have a better than passing acquaintance with West Point. There are some things that only parents and non-cadets obsess over- and rank as a Cadet is one of them. While I can't tell you what it takes to be a "ranker", I can tell you that one very good way to be disdained by most of your classmates is to come across as someone who is overly concerned with getting rank. So if you really want to be respected by your classmates as well as by the Commandant's staff etc... just do a good job at juggling your academic, physical and military requirements and don't be seen as a suckup. The rank will follow, and then at the end of it all you are all exactly in the same place- as alumni.
I know that Parents don't understand a lot of the dynamics that go on in these places- but sometimes I think that it would be very enlightening to them to have little microphones planted in the middle of the parade ground to hear the Cadets comments in the middle of one of those glorious parades (I suspect that there would be mothers holding thier fried ears all around the parade ground
.) There is a definite love hate relationship that goes on at these schools and you have to distance yourself from it as a parent.
While you can give useful general advice ("pull your grades up"; "make a decision before the ticket prices go up" etc...) but you just can not take everything you hear or see at face value, nor can you or should you get wrapped up in the daily challenges that your kid will be facing. It's their world and you don't really understand it because you aren't living it. So my advice- if you want to do your son and yourself a favor- don't worry about, or worry him about the military stuff: rank, demerits, penalty tours, etc... Leave the helicopter at home. You will both be happier.