Your impression is correct. I think what JWP was referring to was the subcategory of scoring called leadership. Attending Boys State contributes to those leadership points. However if you've already got lots of leadership (which you can max out on BTW) perhaps it make more sense to attend SLE, rather than racking up unneeded leadership points. Of course I have no idea how to tell where you are at on leadership points, in which case I would opt for the more conservative route and attend Boys State. JMPO.I was under the impression that attending Boys and Girls State will add points to the WCS, SLE will not.
Thanks for the replies, I'm a parent. My son went to both Boys State and SLE, he got a lot more out of SLE, just LOVED it, made really good friends and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. He just got Eagle scout too which I hear is a lot of "points" . It's just nerve wracking. His one "oops" was on the CFA at SLE he dogged on the mile run, wasn't feeling well and got a cramp in his stomach almost immediately . He's about to take it again, he's been in football training and has not had a good time to do it previously. I'm sure he'll get the mile down to high 6's or low 7's. He hasn't gotten an LOA or LOE so we have no "reassurance" that he's on track. Frankly his FFA is not particularly friendly or helpful, very abrupt, not encouraging at all.
This sounds just like my son, he has wanted West Point since he started middle school. He was ecstatic when he got his SLE slot. I remember one of the first days he said he'd learned more in one day about West Point than he had in years before (we live 1/2 hour away so we've been there quite a bit). If he was gung ho before going he was twice as certain after but he did see others that figured out that it wasn't for them.My son chose SLE over Boys State. That year, for our state, they were both during the same week and my son was adament that he was not going to miss SLE since he'd been wanting to go for years. We knew nothing about Boys State (except that WP looked favorably at it). In looking back, I can say that my son had plenty of leadership on his application so I don't think he 'needed' Boys State. He did 'need' SLE because attending was a long time goal of his. He came back from WP with a Super Hooah attitude and that never wavered. He loved everything about that week. I recognized just how happy he was there when we got a text one day that said, "Today we got to do PT in the rain." Cracked me up but then we knew, this is where he belonged. I'm so glad WP agreed.
What?attendance at SLE or NASS does not help in the admission process
attending SLE or NASS (or both) does make you a more competitive candidate.