National nomination pool

Lewis95

5-Year Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2012
Messages
50
I currently have 2 nominations. A presidential military affiliated and a senatorial.

Let's say I don't get the appointment slot in either nomination, are the national nomination pools super competitive? And is that my only other shot? I'm rather worried
 
Obviously, there are various pools to receive an appointment. Whatever pool(s) you received a nomination for, and the national pool. To answer your question: If you don't get one of the 100 appointments from the presidential; and you don't get the slot for your senator; then yes, the national pool is your only other possibility.

As for the question of: Is the national pool competitive? That question can't really be answered, because it's subjective to what your score is compared to the others in the pool. Here's are 2 extreme scenarios:

1. Of the 5,000+ nominations, many are duplicated, like you having more than one nomination. Lets say a person only had one nomination; from their senator. They were #2 and didn't receive the appointment because the person who got that appointment slot beat you out. But lets pretend that out of the entire 5,000+ nominations; approximately 2500-3000 who were totally qualified; the person who beat you for the senator's slot was the #1 in the country with the highest score, and you were #2. Then it doesn't matter how competitive the national pool is, you'd get an appointment because you're the best of all those in the national pool. Only one person in the entire country was better than you, but they unfortunately happen to be from your state and was in the name senator's nomination slate.

2. You could be the #1 on your senator's slate and get an appointment, but if compared to the entire country, you might be almost at the bottom of the list. But because part of diversity is that there is equal representation from each state and each district within a state, there WILL be some individuals who receive an appointment, who's overall score will be lower than someone in the national pool who DOESN'T receive an appointment.

Now; this disparity is rare and definitely an extreme, but there WILL be some who receive an appointment with a lower score than someone from another state/district and in the national pool who didn't receive an appointment. But this is why it's impossible to say if the national pool is competitive. To be competitive, you have to know what your total score is; but just as important, you need to know the scores of all the other people in the national pool. And I will assume that you don't know those scores. I don't either. When those final 2000+ in the national pool are ranked; according to their total score; you could be #1 on the list. On the other hand, you could be #1000, #1430, #1899, etc...

I will tell you that over the past years, the AVERAGE APPOINTEE had a 3.86gpa; they had an average 30ACT; average 2000 SAT; 96% of the appointees played varsity sports; most all of them were class officers or held leadership positions in clubs; most were involved in Boy/Girl state and/or scouts and/or JrROTC and/or many other leadership roles. The overwhelming majority got those 3.86gpa in IB/AP type classes. Now; how you measure up to the average appointee, I don't know. I also don't know if this year's applicants are the average compared to years gone by or better/worse than the past.

Sorry I can't answer your questions. Hopefully I've explained why I can't answer your question, and thus why it's a difficult process. Best of luck to you. Mike....

P.S. One little bit of comfort; maybe. When you are applying for an appointment from the senator or representative's slate, you are fighting for basically 1 slot out of 10. In other words; the academy gives 1 appointment per slate. So that's a 10% chance. On average, there will be about 2000-2500 qualified nominees in the national pool. On average, there will be between 400-500 appointments from that national pool. For the sake of argument; let's assume because of cutbacks, there will be around 300-350. That means you have basically a 1 in 7 chance of an appointment. In other words, you actually have better odds of receiving an appointment in the national pool than you do from your senator or representative's slate. But again, it all goes back to what your score is and WHO your competition is and what their scores are. And that my friend is a question that NONE of us have an answer to.
 
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You know, for a guy "totally isolated in the wastelands of Wyoming" he's pretty good at this!!! :biggrin:

Steve
USAFA ALO
USAFA '83
 
You know, for a guy "totally isolated in the wastelands of Wyoming" he's pretty good at this!!! :biggrin:

Steve
USAFA ALO
USAFA '83

That reminds me. I need to update my passport so I can leave the state once in a while. :biggrin:
 
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