AFROTC PFA disagreement with failure notice

Are cadet 300 levels the appropriate supervisors for the PFA for a 200?

My son attempted his third and final attempt at passing the PFA. His first two tries were during his freshman year and he was simultaneously working to lose 50 lbs to meet the weight requirement. He lost the weight, got in shape and went to pass this one. He had done practice runs and met all requirements for a passing score and was excited about it.

Two female cadet 300 levels were overseeing the six or seven cadets completing the PFA. Once my son had finished what his partner had counted off as 38 pushups in one minute, the 300 yelled out he had not done 90% pushups and she only counted 29, six below minimum, and that he was done.

I have heard rumors that if a 300 doesn't like a particular 100 or 200, they can make their ROTC life miserable. I didn't want to believe it, but now am questioning why a 300 would wait to tell him after the one minute mark that she didn't feel he was doing proper form, instead of giving him a heads up during the minute, so he could adjust and still complete. With having two supervisor 300's watching seven cadets, I would imagine she caught the form issue early into the minute.

Does he have an appeal chance, or does he just have to take it and possibly lose EA and future with this detachment. BYW, she ignored him the rest of the challenge, but he went ahead and finished situps and running, but mentally had given up and did not score well.

Thank you for your thoughts

That's complete BS. If there was a problem the form then it should have been corrected as the cadet was doing them and not after the PFA was over. A cadet can't just say, "you were doing those push-ups wrong so I'm going to subtract a few from what you actually had." If there was no correction during the actual push-up part of the test then the number that was given at the end should be the number that's put on the scoring sheet. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Thank you for your response. That is what I thought. My son said it was stated at the PFA that the "observers" have the right to deduct points as they see fit. My concern was if they can do that after all is said and done, AND why is a 300 overseeing the PFA of a 200. Son is not sure he can appeal, though I told him to contact the major to inquire.

I would for sure fight the ruling/scoring of your son's PFA. They should be making corrections as the cadet attempts his/her push ups. If the cadet fails proper form, the spotter should be saying something like "1,2,3,4,5....5....5 lower at 90 degrees 6,7,8" during the count. Perfectly standard for 300 levels to spot the PFA, but I don't think that a female cadet is suppose to spot a male.

a lot of Cadets are unaware of the proper form for doing the push-up portion of the PFA. I hear a lot of " you have to break 90 degrees." but here is what the regs say
"from the starting position (elbows extended), the member
will lower the body to the ground until the upper arm is at least parallel to the floor(elbow bent at least 90 degrees or less) before pushing back up to the starting position"

As far as the counting goes

"The counter/monitor will count the number of push-ups out loud. If the member breaks correct form, the FAC staff/augmentee repeats the last correct number (e.g., one, two, three, three, four, etc.), aswell as gives instruction on what was done incorrectly (e.g., you are not extending your
arms fully, keep your back straight, etc.)."

Google AIR FORCE INSTRUCTION 36-2905 then look at 3.8.2 and then 3.8.6

If they were not counting out loud and correcting him during the test, I would definitely take it to the cadre. Stick to the regs and forget about the 300 being bias. Chalk it up as failure to follow instructions all around.

Powers45 said:

I would for sure fight the ruling/scoring of your son's PFA. They should be making corrections as the cadet attempts his/her push ups. If the cadet fails proper form, the spotter should be saying something like "1,2,3,4,5....5....5 lower at 90 degrees 6,7,8" during the count. Perfectly standard for 300 levels to spot the PFA, but I don't think that a female cadet is suppose to spot a male.

Click to expand...

That is definitely true. Males and females generally aren't supposed to touch each other during PT and, since spotters need to hold a person's feet for the situp portion, only males can spot males and so on. IDK if the 300 was right in that your DS was not doing the correct form, but even if she was, she did not have the right to just deduct points. If someone isn't there from the very start counting out loud (which is something they are always instructed to do btw), then there is no way they can definitively know exactly how many correct pushups were done. Your DS said there were about 7 cadets taking the makeup and 2 "supervisors", the supervisors can't pay attention to all of them at once.

I think he definitely has a case to bring to the cadre, make sure he drags his original spotter in with him to verify the chain of events. Some dets have an additional FTP PFA in January before the boards meet to give 200s another chance so if that's an option, he needs to work his butt off over Christmas break because it looks like competition for EAs may be even stiffer than last year. My advise for you to give to him would be to fight like hell to get this overturned. This may be the end of the line for him if he doesn't because the cadre are going to take a look at this PFA and his string of failed ones and can decide not to even allow his package to go through for an EA this yr.

Don't bring up the theory about the 300 being biased, it'll probably just sound petty and wont do him any favors, may even get him a good deal of unwanted attention later on. Just stick to the regs like ieatsquirrels said, they are on your side. Also, try not to call them up yourself about it, let him take care of talking to the cadre. I can imagine he's feeling down about it so definitely push him to address it if you have to, but it won't look great if you do all his championing for him.

Normally when we take a PFA, we pair up and one cadet counts while the other does the exercise and then we switch. We're always girls with girls and guys with guys too. There should definitely have been a 1 to 1 ration of spotters to cadets taking the test because one cadet cannot count for two cadets at once. He should be able to request to retake the PFA. He should talk to his cadre- they really want everyone to succeed and definitely want to know if something like this happens. Also, were any of the cadre members there at the PFA event? One cadre member (commissioned officer) must be present at any PT or PFA event - it's a standard regulation, and if there wasn't one there, then it probably wouldn't be able to count.

Thank you all so much for your input. I definitely would not contact cadre directly, but felt I could do some research here to relay to my son. I have looked into the regulations as pointed out from ieatsquirrels and am happy to see the definitive definitions there. That should help. I don't want to point fingers at the observing cadet, it just doesn't smell right when my son won an award last year for "cadet of the year", and also for the fact that no one has corrected his pushups at any of the prior PFA's or in any of the PT classes.