Admissions Politics?

AcademyHopeful_50

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I know of a candidate who was a reapplicant this year and received the TWE again. However, his situation is awfully curious.

First time applying, received principle nom and triple Q. Still didn't get in. Admissions wouldn't give him a straight answer.

Second time applying, received principle nom AGAIN, fully qualified, excellent college grades, TWE again and USNA still won't give him a straight answer. What is going on here?

Is this admissions politics at its best?
 
I think you may have misunderstood something or have the terms wrong. If someone is 3Q AND has a PRINCIPLE NOM they are guaranteed of an offer of appointment. Are you sure those were things that person had? Perhaps there is more to the story then they are telling you.
 
I can tell you that at the Coast Guard Academy there seems to be politics. I got in to USAFA and many other excellent civilian schools and am waiting on USNA but got waitlist on CGA?? Go figuire! I had no weakness on my application: 1 B in highschool the rest were A s, 4.2 GPA. 32 ACT composite, excellent CFA and tons of ECAs.
 
Yes. Absolutely sure. But of course there could be more to the story. It just seems odd that a principal nominee that is apparently 3Q gets denied twice.
 
Were there any previous issues with the law or school conduct?
 
I can tell you that at the Coast Guard Academy there seems to be politics. I got in to USAFA and many other excellent civilian schools and am waiting on USNA but got waitlist on CGA?? Go figuire! I had no weakness on my application: 1 B in highschool the rest were A s, 4.2 GPA. 32 ACT composite, excellent CFA and tons of ECAs.

Or perhaps you weren't strong enough for CGA.... just a thought. A USAFA or USNA class is larger than the entire Coast Guard Academy student body. It's not unheard of to be accepted by some but not all service academies.

But then, I never got a B in high school. :rolleyes:
 
With all due respect, Line in the Sand, not all A's are created equal. Most colleges know that an A from a state where the standards are lower is not the same as an A from a state that ranks in the top 3 in the country for education with a high school that ranks number 1 in that state. To say that because someone got a B in high school is the reason that they are not gettting into a service acadmey is ridiculous. So many factors go into the admissions process.

Your comment that you "never got a B" only leads to more anxiety for these young men and women trying to navigate the admissions process. In this day and age there is so much pressure to perform for these kids in academics, extra curriculars, and athletics I am almost certain we will see an uptick in mental health issues.
 
I know of a candidate who was a reapplicant this year and received the TWE again. However, his situation is awfully curious.

First time applying, received principle nom and triple Q. Still didn't get in. Admissions wouldn't give him a straight answer.

Second time applying, received principle nom AGAIN, fully qualified, excellent college grades, TWE again and USNA still won't give him a straight answer. What is going on here?

Is this admissions politics at its best?

How did the candidate know that he was 3Qd? I know its relatively easy to verify that you are medically and physically qualified, but how did the candidate know that he was academically qualified?
 
With all due respect, Line in the Sand, not all A's are created equal. Most colleges know that an A from a state where the standards are lower is not the same as an A from a state that ranks in the top 3 in the country for education with a high school that ranks number 1 in that state. To say that because someone got a B in high school is the reason that they are not gettting into a service acadmey is ridiculous. So many factors go into the admissions process.

Your comment that you "never got a B" only leads to more anxiety for these young men and women trying to navigate the admissions process. In this day and age there is so much pressure to perform for these kids in academics, extra curriculars, and athletics I am almost certain we will see an uptick in mental health issues.

Immediately jumping to "that school has politics involved because I wasn't accepted" does no better. But I guess it's part of the world we live in, where everyone has to be a winner and if they're not, it's because the cards were stacked against them.

But you know what, sometimes you lose and sometimes you win.

Honestly, the stats posted were stats that many have some rejected, some not.

I got all A's in a nationally ranked magnet high school with only honors and AP courses. I did well on the SATs and ACTs. I had a varsity letter, played multiple sports, had a number of extra curriculars, was selected for a government advisory board and had some fun at Boys' State.

I got into a number of good schools, but for the purpose of SAF, they included the Coast Guard Academy, the Naval Academy and the Merchant Marine Academy. As a back-up, if all of that I had a NROTC scholarship.

And then I went of to the Coast Guard Academy is graduated in the bottom 50% of my class.

My stats are typical. My classmates were far more impressive before and during their CGA time. Maybe a few pulled some Bs in high school. Maybe they were stronger in some areas than others, but the overall average of applicants is something to be impressed by.

So before you sum up being rejected as "go figure! CGA politics!" remember all the big fish are competing to be in a small pond, so there's only so much room.

As far as the uptick in mental health issues.... if this is stress that would lead to an uptick in mental health issues (and yes, I know it certainly is a stressful time), they aint seen nothing yet (yes, I know that's a double negative, it's for effect)! Getting in is the easy part, making it four years is the hard part.
 
Line in the Sand, your resume is impressive. Can you add parent of 4 teenagers to that? When you can ...then you can speak of stress. I am sure that your 4 years at CGA was very stressful and I am not trying to diminish that , but your callousness in regards to admissions is not becoming .

There is politics in in EVERYTHING and always will be .... my point was .... just because someone got a B in high school does not make them any less of a candidate.
 
I know of a candidate who was a reapplicant this year and received the TWE again. However, his situation is awfully curious.

First time applying, received principle nom and triple Q. Still didn't get in. Admissions wouldn't give him a straight answer.

Second time applying, received principle nom AGAIN, fully qualified, excellent college grades, TWE again and USNA still won't give him a straight answer. What is going on here?

Is this admissions politics at its best?

USNA does not poste if a candidate is 3Q, so not sure how they would know. As stated before if a candidate is 3Q and has a principle nom then USNA must offer an apointment, so either they did not have a principle nom or they were not 3Q. I would think the MOC who gave the nom would be looking into this. Have they contacted the MOC?
 
I didnt mean to open up a can of worms but I just felt that factors of a subjective nature over took the objective view. I will tell you I am a competitor and do not mind losing to a better qualified individual (such as yourself it appears). I will tell you that I did all of school perfomance while achieving 9 letters (3 music, 3 academic and 3 athletics) and work 12 hours a week at a part time job. Plus I had Boys state and band leadership positions for two years. Oddly enough I felt my best accomplishemnt was my pull- ups on the CFA as I work long and hard to achieve my goal of doing 22 pulls-ups.
 
Never meant to cause any contention here. Just relaying what I was told. Of course aspects of the story may or may not be true, that's just what I heard. Just wanted to know if it was possible for 3q principle nominees to get denied, which apparently it is not... So something else is up. Thanks to all responders.
 
@ Hardcharger.... No worries about the "can of worms" . I was trying to point out that so many factors go into admissions at any school and LINE IN THE SAND saying that he never got a B in high school does not help anyone.

My DS's guidance counselor explained it very well at a college admissions seminar. He said that at the higher levels it becomes a lottery at a certain point. There are so many qualified candidates at these high levels and there has to be a cutoff. Being that we are not in the admissions office at these institutions we will never know what the cutoff is. I have 2 friends who have sons at service acadmies... USAFA and USNA and believe me when I tell you that they most certainly had some B's on their transcript. They might have had something else that those academies thought were more important than the B's they had on their transcript.

Best of luck to you !
 
Line in the Sand, your resume is impressive. Can you add parent of 4 teenagers to that? When you can ...then you can speak of stress. I am sure that your 4 years at CGA was very stressful and I am not trying to diminish that , but your callousness in regards to admissions is not becoming .

There is politics in in EVERYTHING and always will be .... my point was .... just because someone got a B in high school does not make them any less of a candidate.

Only if your 4 teenagers are admissions officers at CGA does that even matter.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying that those 4 years are the MOST stressful, but they are far more stressful than the admissions process. Of course, I would say that those 4 years were less stressful than actually being in the fleet.

And yes, lower grades make them less of a candidate UNLESS something offsets it, like the difficulty of the class or other factors.

Finally I'm not here to give anyone unreasonable expectations. Grades do factor into the equation, as does standardized testing, extra curriculars etc.

And no, I wouldn't say there is politics in EVERYTHING and always will be. Heck, you want to deflate a kid's hopes tell him "there's tons of crap going on that means all of the hard work and good grades means nothing.... good luck!"
 
Moordian--I hate to just say this so bluntly but 'NO' In my opinion an applicant was not simply rejected being 3Q with a principal nomination. Just 'No'. When you become an old fogie like me you realize there is ALWAYS 'the rest of the story.' (Wow I am old!)

Reapplicants--couple of points about reapplicants-one thing that, again in my opinion, people miss, is when you reapply you still compete against your slate-not against your old resume. So lets say you have well above average test scores, good grades, solid sports history, good CFA scores and pass Dodmerb but there was a Rockstar on your slate and you didnt get in so you reapply. So you went to college. Got straight As in hard classes and even played a sport. There still maybe a Rockstar on the next slate.

Regarding all As not being equal. Aint that the truth. My son has a 4.4 GPA (out of 4) and I am not sure he is even in the top 10%. Our school over inflates those GPAs like nobody's business. I dont think GPA though is as big of a deal as the other parts of the admission process. Some of the admission "points" are things we as parents never know about. I have no idea what the teachers wrote on their electronic LOEs. The could have damned my son with faint praise or made HIM the rockstar. I will never know. The same with the BGO interview. We as parents may think the world loves our kid, but maybe the people who write letters of recommendations about our kids only really like them.
 
I didnt mean to open up a can of worms but I just felt that factors of a subjective nature over took the objective view. I will tell you I am a competitor and do not mind losing to a better qualified individual (such as yourself it appears). I will tell you that I did all of school perfomance while achieving 9 letters (3 music, 3 academic and 3 athletics) and work 12 hours a week at a part time job. Plus I had Boys state and band leadership positions for two years. Oddly enough I felt my best accomplishemnt was my pull- ups on the CFA as I work long and hard to achieve my goal of doing 22 pulls-ups.

And here's what I'm saying.

Your qualifications are great. Your activities are great. And at this point, you've done all you can to set yourself up for success.

You're not the only one who can say that, though, there are tens of thousands of others with their hearts and sights set on a service academy. Often they're type-A go-getters who want to win. Nothing wrong with that. But in the end, some of them will be selected and some won't. Just because some aren't selected doesn't mean there was politics involved. Just because one academy selects you doesn't mean you're a shoe in for the others.

I take issue with people who want to immediately blame someone else when it doesn't work for them.

But the good thing is, you have USAFA, and maybe USNA. You didn't get USCGA. No worries. The Air Force Academy is a great place. If you get into the Naval Academy, that's a great place too. You're in a position tens of thousands of other highly motivated men and women would like to be, so you should be very excited.

Politics in the application process, for USAFA and USNA would most likely occur in the nomination process, which is literally political. Other than that, diversity for diversity's sake could come up. But there isn't an automatic "go figure" if you aren't accepted to a service academy.... most people aren't.
 
.... just because someone got a B in high school does not make them any less of a candidate.

It does if the person they are competing against didn't get any Bs in high school. It is really about who you are competing against for the nomination.

Father of 3 here, so I hope I pass your credibility test.

LITS is absolutely correct in that your grades are going to be very important in the selection process, and everyone on these boards should be studying any trying to get all As. With the caliber of applicants to the Academies that are your competition you should strive for nothing less.

Stealth_81
 
@ Hardcharger.... No worries about the "can of worms" . I was trying to point out that so many factors go into admissions at any school and LINE IN THE SAND saying that he never got a B in high school does not help anyone.

My DS's guidance counselor explained it very well at a college admissions seminar. He said that at the higher levels it becomes a lottery at a certain point. There are so many qualified candidates at these high levels and there has to be a cutoff. Being that we are not in the admissions office at these institutions we will never know what the cutoff is. I have 2 friends who have sons at service acadmies... USAFA and USNA and believe me when I tell you that they most certainly had some B's on their transcript. They might have had something else that those academies thought were more important than the B's they had on their transcript.

Best of luck to you !

BTW I did not get into my #1 choice-Yale.
 
It's very possible something else may be an issue that the candidate is not sharing with you. Sometimes people keep those dirty little secrets in the dark and because you only have part of the picture, the rejection doesn't make sense.
 
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