LOA Received Today!!!

Roadking

10-Year Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2012
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406
DS received a letter of assurance today! He is jumping through hoops and his Mom and Dad are very proud of him. His Grandpa (82nd Airborne) is smiling down on him I am sure...It is something that he wasn't sure he would receive, given the policy change regarding rolling admissions. He is a recruited athlete and did attend an official two day visit. The point of the thread is to alert other candidates that there are still LOA's being given. Just to be certain that it is not an LOE, the first paragraph reads:

"Congratulations! The Admissions Committee has recommended you for an appointment to the United States Military Academy (USMA). Accordingly, I have reserved a cadetship for you contingent upon receipt of a nomination and continued excellent work in school. When these matters are resolved, you will be appointed a member of the USMA Class of 2017".

Good luck to all candidates, it really can happen!

GO ARMY!!!!
 
Congrats Roadking!!! Would you mind sharing your son's stats and EC's?
 
"Congratulations! The Admissions Committee has recommended you for an appointment to the United States Military Academy (USMA). Accordingly, I have reserved a cadetship for you contingent upon receipt of a nomination and continued excellent work in school. When these matters are resolved, you will be appointed a member of the USMA Class of 2017".

Yep - that's a LOA!

Congrats to DS of Roadking!
Awesome! :yay:
 
Congrats Roadking!!! Would you mind sharing your son's stats and EC's?

Hi dlee96,

DS is a recruited athlete(not football or basketball) so take these numbers with a grain of salt unless of course you are also a recruit...He has fairly good ACT-31, with 33-english, 33-reading, 30-science,28-math and 29 writing. Passed his CFA at SLS, and passed DoDMERB in early August. His class rank is 130 of 354 in a VERY STRONG school (3.58 GPA unweighted). Completed his file as soon as DoDMERB cleared.

Boys State
Model U.N.
Student Leadership Counsel
German Club
Regularly volunteers locally with underprivileged kids

I thought his essays were outstanding....not sure how much they helped but they blew me away.

Good Luck to you dlee96!
 
In my opinion, its the recruited athlete card that got him the LOA - according to Admissions, LOAs will be few and far between. Congrats none the less.... don't let your DS sit in his laurels... keep pushing to the finish line - there have been some LOA recipients who stopped pushing during their 2nd semester of senior year who have had their LOAs yanked.
 
In my opinion, its the recruited athlete card that got him the LOA - according to Admissions, LOAs will be few and far between. Congrats none the less.... don't let your DS sit in his laurels... keep pushing to the finish line - there have been some LOA recipients who stopped pushing during their 2nd semester of senior year who have had their LOAs yanked.

JRANGITSCH, first off let me say that you have my respect for your service to this country. That being said I think you are off base with your comment about the athlete card in my sons case. Isn't it true that 99% of admitted applicants are varsity athletes in high school? My DS happens to be very good at his sport and was recruited by the ARMY coach after DS made contact with the coach. DS is a young man that first wants to serve in the US Army and also compete in Division 1 athletics. I understand that there are very strong candidates that will not get in a service academy. I believe athletes are an important part of the Academy and the Military as a whole. There is an excellent post by rebel91 from the Naval Academy and I have attached the meat of Rebel91's post. I hope you understand my point of view.


Rebel91:

"To those who have posted on this thread and the recent NAPS thread with some level of sarcasm regarding "lower" standards for recruited athletes, simple question: have you ever served with a USNA, USMA, or USAFA graduate who was a varsity athlete at a Service Academy? I have -- went to USMC OCS, TBS, and IOC with plenty of these men/women and served with them in the Fleet Marine Force and on deployments in combat. I also trained over 3,000 Lieutenants at Quantico and without a doubt, the former Academy athletes performed far better than their non-varsity athlete counterparts.

Why? Probably many reasons, here are few:

- Better at time management, setting priorities and multi-tasking.
- They are far better at pushing themselves to perform during strenuous training and combat environments. Simply put - most are physical bad asses.
- They have many years of practical leadership experience in their chosen sport. Many are winners who don't give up and know how to motivate their peers and subordinates.

True, there are some recruits who get into USNA via NAPS who have less than stellar GPA and SAT/ACT scores. If they are admitted and graduate from Navy, they are likely to be one hell of a good officer, which is the point, right? Think a Sgt in the Marine Corps or a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy cares what your SAT score or class standing was? But you better believe the enlisted men and women have serious respect for an officer's ability to lead physical training sessions, make timely and sound decisions and communicate them effectively and look out for them as a teammate.



For those who plan to respond and continue to criticize the admissions process for recruited athletes, remember that NCAA athletics is an important part of the entire U.S. collegiate program/culture and our nation's service academies have a long, proud tradition of competing. Most importantly, these Midshipman that graduate typically do quite well serving our nation."

I hope it is OK with the moderator that I used Rebel91's post from the Naval Academy...
 
Roadking, I sure didn't see jrangitsch's post as being critical of your son or of recruited athletes. This year it has been stated that USMA will issue very few LOA's and they will be used for target groups. He simply pointed out that the recruited athlete part was likely what got your son the LOA. Your son has good stats and I don't believe it has been implied that he is not qualified.

Congratulations to your son. I am sure you are very proud of him and excited about the opportunity he has earned.
 
JRANGITSCH, first off let me say that you have my respect for your service to this country. That being said I think you are off base with your comment about the athlete card in my sons case.

I don't think JRANGITSCH's comment is off base. He simply stated that being a recruited athelte helped your DS get an LOA. He didn't say anything about your DS's qualification.

My reply to Rebel 91 is how many recurited athlets didn't graduate vs non recurited athletes? I don't know answer, but while I agree with most of Rebel91's comments, he or she is only telling the good side.
 
Packer and MemberLg thank you for setting me straight! I perceived some negativity but I was wrong. GO ARMY!
 
Since my post is quoted and now commented upon, I feel the need to respond and provide a bit of context. Sure, there are examples of recruited athletes that don't graduate. As there are examples of 750/750 SAT and top 2% of HS class cadets who can't take the stress of military training, physical hard-ship, long ruck marches, etc. Pointing out deficiencies in any one group was not my point, and in light of this thread re: USMA and LOAs, I will offer a bit more insight.

I will agree that due to a new USMA admissions policy, it was likely this candidate’s athletic ability as a legitimate recruit (not just a 3x varsity letterman), combined with being academically qualified (if not very competitive), that resulted in the LOA. Here is where I have an issue

Congrats none the less....

Perhaps not intentionally in this instance, but those that minimize the value of Div I athletes to a Service Academy by saying “None the less” or “lower standards for recruited athletes” don’t factor into the whole-person that USMA wants at their school. Sure, there is “formula” for getting a Whole Person Score, but reality is that Admissions staff know that military leadership is art vice science and is more about understanding the human factors of combat. So a candidate that clearly has academic ability (31 ACT in this case), with the leadership depicted, AND is a blue-chip recruit, is very, very attractive to Admissions. Moreover, LOAs are needed for these prospective student-soldier-athletes as they are often recruited by Ivy League (lacrosse players), Big 10/Pac 12 (think Stanford, Cal, Michigan for all sports) and obviously competing Service Academies.

I have recent firsthand knowledge of this process for the SAs and Universities listed above.
 
This will likely come up later, so I'll go ahead and throw it out there now. It sounds like roadking's son was what is known as a "blue chip" recruit. That means WP wants this athlete, and is willing to hold a cadetship for him. I am pretty sure we'll hear of more recruited athlete LOA's. My son, like his, made first contact w/ the coach...and was then recruited. His stats were OK, but nothing remarkable. However, he got an LOA because the coach wanted him. JRangitsch, as a MALO, knows his stuff. Thanks for weighing in on this, Joe!
 
Congratulations on the LOA:
Some facts:
1. Recruited athletes and minority candidates generally have an easier road getting admitted-there is no question about this
2. Many of these athletes and minority candidates are highly qualified and would be competitive even if they were not in a special category.
3. Many of these athletes and minority candidates would NOT be competitive if they were not in a special category

Therefore you can not make any definitive statement about the qualifications of athletes and minority candidates compared to other candidates.

In sum - I have seen some athletes and minority candidates admitted every year with scores substantially lower than the average scores of admitted cadets. I am not saying this is good or bad - but just a fact.

The key is the performance of the Cadet after they enter. If they do well the entrance scores become unimportant
 
Recruited athlete

Whenever people pick on recruited athletes, I take it very, very personally. I was a recruited athlete to a service academy 20+ years ago. My stats: 420 SAT reading but a 800 SAT math. I participated in my sport all 4 years at the academy, was a team captain my senior year, and qualified for NCAA Div II championships (back then the female sports were Div II). I was put in a remedial English class my freshman year with all the foreign cadets (an English as a Second Language type course). I graduated #6 out of approximately 1000 cadets and received a grad school spot immediately upon graduation. The almost 9 years that I served my country, I was well respected by everyone and moved up the ranks very quickly.

The only reason I was able to attend the academy was due to being a recruited athlete. SAT scores don't tell you everything. They don't reveal work ethic, leadership skills, time management skills, or physical fitness. Those characteristics of recruited athletes is what makes them such desirable candidates.

To the original poster: Congrats!
 
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