My DD went to SLE last summer, but decided not to complete her application to West Point. She discerned that she would prefer a traditional college experience and applied for ROTC scholarships instead. As it stands now, as long as she is medically qualified it looks like she will be going to Notre Dame on a NROTC Scholarship. My DD also attended the SS at the Naval Academy and to her, there seemed to be marked difference in the attendees between the two. Now granted SLE only had 500 attendees and SS had over 2000, but she felt that the attendees at SLE were all VERY motivated and seemed like the caliber of students that would get accepted to West Point (although you can't really tell as you don't know the GPAs, test scores, ECs, etc.) They seemed to be fit, within weight standards, quite engaged, etc. She said when she went to SS, there were kids who acted like they really didn't want to be there and some even dropped out while they were there. Some were very unfit and seemed to be out of shape, etc. Now, obviously, this was not the true of ALL of the attendees and the vast majority were what you would hope to see at this. But to sum it up for her, she felt that SLE was not as much as a recruiting/diversity tool (as SS seems to be for USNA), but truly had been a very competitive process to get in. Now who know, if West Point had over 2000 attendees, she may have seen the same profile of attendees. Obviously this is just her perception and this is not to discredit anybody who went SS last summer.