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Dad2020

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Aug 5, 2015
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DS accepted his appointment more than a month ago. Returned all of his paperwork from the BFE. Now he is getting tons of emails from various colleges telling him that his is a finalist for this or that scholarship at various schools.

He feels like it is less than honorable to make the school's go through the process of the interviews and possibly denying a scholarship to someone who wants that school, but he has to have options just in case.

Or are we being paranoid? We have heard horror stories of rare blood disorders and cancer being discovered at I-Day, or the doctor didn't like the look of your gait and sends you home and you end up at community college because you had no backup. Anyone else struggling with this? DS feels like he is not doing the right thing.
 
Does he not already have a plan B or C in place? Is he interested in any of these schools? He is not taking anything away from others by simply ignoring an email. The question is - does he want to look at other schools? Unless he is seriously considering the offer, why bother filling out more applications?

Colleges find the names on lists, just like when you first sign up for ACT/SAT and you suddenly have 20 colleges emailing you.
 
Nah. Before he had the appointment, he applied to about half a dozen other schools. He only wants the academy, but the recurring advice is: it's not done until you say "I do" on I-day
 
The advice I've read is to have a solid plan B, even putting deposit down, figuring out FAFSA or ROTC etc.

I could be wrong, but I believe they have to make it through Plebe summer (not just I Day). Most other schools don't start until August, so if you have a deposit at another school then your spot is held. Kinda like insurance money.

If he has no other plan B, then it's probably a good idea to pick one and pursue it.

Good luck, and congrats on the appointment!
 
Totally agree with EOD! Keep Plan B open!

I know of a case several years ago, where a young man was a recruited athlete at USNA and after one week, called home and had had enough. His dad was heart broken but knew it wasn't meant to him.
This young man came home went to plan B school, graduated to Med school and is now a physician!
 
I would put a plan B in place, but be selective since the likelihood of needing it is slim. The colleges have plans in place for some of those that get scholarships do on go that that school.
 
We have heard horror stories of rare blood disorders and cancer being discovered at I-Day, or the doctor didn't like the look of your gait and sends you home and you end up at community college because you had no backup. Anyone else struggling with this? DS feels like he is not doing the right thing.

I will share with you why you absolutely MUST put a plan B in place and do it now!

My own DS had received his appointment and accepted as well early in the process back in the fall of 2013 with the same kind of attitude. We had read the horror stories as well but took them to heart and acted on the premise that "nothing is complete or guaranteed until you're standing in front of Bancroft Hall on I-Day and say I do" . He put his plan B in place, accepted their scholarship and put down the deposit. Thank God we did.

No "blood disorders or cancer" instead, a late spring small stress fracture in his tibia during a lacrosse game just nine weeks from I-Day. No amount of pleading or letters from physician specialists including team docs for the local NFL franchise who treated him saying he would be 100% by July 1st could persuade anyone and he was medically DQ'd as they felt he would not be ready. End of conversation.

Now can you imagine had plan B not been in place? You can't predict what's going to happen between now and then and it's sort of whistling past the grave yard isn't it? This is the insurance policy you need to take out.

Off to plan B for two semesters...a terrific school with great academics that allowed him to be even more prepared for the challenges of USNA. One that he enjoyed and thrived in because he chose it early and had he not been accepted to the academy would have gone to in any event. Not a school that was a last minute afterthought that he may have been miserable in.

Things like this happen every year....in the same year as my DS was DQ'd I befriended a young man on this forum that had the same thing happen to him with a wrist fracture in a sporting event jsut before I-Day as well. Please take my words to heart as I convey our story as a cautionary tale. Plan appropriately.
 
@Sydney C. What was the re-application process like for your DS. Did he have to reapply and get another nomination?
 
Our son kept his spot in an elite honors college right up until A-Day at USMA. We never considered otherwise.
 
This is all great advice.I have a ?, what if our plan B is an ROTC scholarship school. If DS were to get injured and medically DQ'd before I day, would he also be DQ'd from receiving the ROTC scholarship money while attending the plan B civilian school? DS does not yet have appointment, we are Complete Pending Review, but he has been awarded the NROTC scholarship at 1st choice Vanderbilt but won't know if accepted until April 1), and already accepted into 3rd choice Georgia Tech( but have not contacted NROTC nor responded to email). Wanted to hear about Vandy first. Plus USNA still remains his ultimate first choice.
 
It makes sense to have a plan B. Lots of posts on this in prior years also. You officially start USNA when you take the oath of office on I-Day. Most civilian colleges will understand your plan B and many are helpful in that regard. Obviously, I would only have Plan B for those colleges your son was serious about attending. If he gets random scholarship offers from someplace he had no intent of attending, then I would not pursue that one.
 
@Sydney C. What was the re-application process like for your DS. Did he have to reapply and get another nomination?

Yes, he along with a few others that this happened to did in fact have to reapply to USNA. (I believe the process is somewhat different for WP and USAFA in terms of how they handle that e.g. issuance of an LOA for the following year, etc.)

We learned that there were six appointees that fell into this category and they were offered what we were told a "new" program that the academy had instituted that was called the Civilian Preparatory Program ( not to be confused with the Foundation Program which is often referred to with the same nomenclature). In short, it was an agreement...you go to any college of your choosing (on your own dime) , take the classes specifically outlined with a submitted curriculum they approved (the kids worked directly with admissions on this), achieve nothing but A's and B's, pass the PRT (similar but not the CFA), get medically cleared and get a nomination (they don't carry over). Assuming this was all done satisfactorily, the language stated "we have every expectation you will receive an appointment....etc." Note that it did NOT say 'guarantee" as there really aren't any guarantees. Finally, after all was submitted at the end of the first semester, the Academy wanted to see the spring mid-term grades for all.

These six were pretty much evaluated at the very end of the process and didn't hear until late March early April in spite of their previous appointments and I'm very pleased to report that each and every one stepped up to the plate and all were re-appointed. (We all found each other pretty much on the forum and went through the whole thing together).

All's well that end's well....you never think it's going to be your son/daughter that it will happen to but to those it did, they showed their metal...every one of them.
 
This is all great advice.I have a ?, what if our plan B is an ROTC scholarship school. If DS were to get injured and medically DQ'd before I day, would he also be DQ'd from receiving the ROTC scholarship money while attending the plan B civilian school? DS does not yet have appointment, we are Complete Pending Review, but he has been awarded the NROTC scholarship at 1st choice Vanderbilt but won't know if accepted until April 1), and already accepted into 3rd choice Georgia Tech( but have not contacted NROTC nor responded to email). Wanted to hear about Vandy first. Plus USNA still remains his ultimate first choice.

I would love the answer to this as well! I have won a NROTC scholarship to Notre Dame (waiting on acceptance from school) but I also got into Marquette as plan b for nrotc. I just received an appointment to USMA and am waiting on USNA. How can I cover my butt in the case of a random injury? Should I not deny my NROTC scholarship until later? The problem comes in that I think it would depend case per case if something that dq'd you from Usna would or wouldn't from NROTC. Thanks for any and all help!
 
This is all great advice.I have a ?, what if our plan B is an ROTC scholarship school. If DS were to get injured and medically DQ'd before I day, would he also be DQ'd from receiving the ROTC scholarship money while attending the plan B civilian school? .

While I can't answer your question, I believe that kinnem, one of our moderators, did in fact address this issue some time ago and he can shed some light on this. Suggest you might want to reach out to him as he's an ROTC maven.
 
My DS is at USMA now, but we had the plan B in place, as well. When he received his NROTC and AROTC scholarships, he accepted both of those as soon as he received them. (Make sure you accept the scholarship within the timeline that they say you must, even if you have not been admitted to the college, yet). When the May 1st deadline came for making college decisions, he had already accepted his appointment to USMA, had previously declined USNA and then we made the decision that his Plan B school was going to be one that he had received a full-tuition merit scholarship to, that was not one where his NROTC or AROTC scholarships were to, so he declined those scholarships then. We knew we could not afford for him to go to either of those schools without the ROTC scholarships, so we felt that if he were injured and couldn't report for A-day, then we didn't want to take the chance that whatever the injury/illness was would keep him for being able to contract for the NROTC/AROTC scholarships. The plan B school did have ROTC at it though, so the plan would have been, if medically DQed for USMA, that he would have gone to the Plan B school on the merit scholarship and enrolled in ROTC with plans to go to West Point the following year. For us, there was a complicating factor, in that our HS Guidance counselor would not permit our son to "enroll" in two colleges (USMA and Plan B school) at the same time after the May 1st deadline, without us getting special permission from both West Point and the Plan B school saying they were okay with it under the circumstances. Without this permission, she refused to send the final transcripts to both schools, (saying it was an ethics violation pertaining to college admissions) which of course is necessary to secure the spot in the Freshman class before enrollment is locked in. She had also said that if highly selective schools were to somehow find out that the kid had enrolled in 2 schools, they could revoke their admissions offer. We got the permission and a great note from the admissions officer at the Plan B school letting him know that he was a former Army Officer and his son was a USMA grad and would hold his spot and his full scholarship to be used any time he needed it!! Once DS made it to R day, he sent an email to the Plan B admission officer letter, letting him know he made it through Beast and was staying and West Point and no longer needed his slot/scholarship at that college. I have heard that the very selective schools may not be as accommodating due to their wait lists, etc. Our DD, who had both NROTC/AROTC scholarships ran into DODMERB issues. We were stressing until the last day of April (when she was finally medically qualified) and had reached out to the admissions officers at the AROTC school and the NROTC school a couple of weeks before the May 1st college decision deadline, asking if the schools would allow an extension until we could find out if she would be cleared, as we didn't think we would have the issue cleared up in time for the formal deadline. The AROTC school said they would give an extension. The NROTC School (Notre Dame - Where she is a Midshipman now) at first said they wouldn't allow an extension. They finally gave her a couple of extra days, but we ended up not needing the extra days. So it all worked out in the end for both of them, but we definitely wanted to keep all options open, as long as possible, in case something happened.
 
If your plan B is a highly selective school I would want to make sure there admissions was on board with them being a plan B. Who knows you may want to do graduate work there in the future.
 
It sounds as though the school counselor didn't really understand the SA application process - and decided to impose her own rules! I'm so happy that everything worked out.
 
It sounds as though the school counselor didn't really understand the SA application process - and decided to impose her own rules! I'm so happy that everything worked out.

Actually, she was very familiar with the process, as our network of schools typically sends several kids to the academies every year and she was the head guidance counselor. We were very grateful it all did work out.
 
DS feels like he is not doing the right thing.

Depends on the situation. We're from a resort town in Colorado that runs a very large giving foundation. Every year they donate a full 4 year scholarship to a senior. It was February, when a member of the Board calls my son and asks him point blank if he would accept the scholarship if given to him. My son says "no", give it to someone else, this isn't my "Plan A". Guess What? He gets wait listed on the only SA he applied to (should have done EA!). Scholarship goes to his good friend, a very deserving, very intelligent, first generation American. We know the family, and we were very happy for them. I tell my son, that was dumb, and he tells me that I lack faith. Sometimes children make very selfless adult decisions. His Plan B was how to get back to Plan A.

I know a lot people don't think on a local level anymore. When I see the other kid's dad working in the Supermarket, I ask him how the boy is doing, and he says "¡Muy Bien!". When we see someone from the Foundation, and they ask us how our son is doing, we say "¡Muy Bien!". I'm not a "Flying Monkey" (Hillary supporter), but maybe it does take a village, because I'd like to thank all those that wrote letters in support of my son. He did get into the SA of his choice the next year. I'm also positive both these gentleman will return to their community the good tidings that were given to them. This is the American way.

Dad2020, your son sounds like a really thoughtful considerate kid.
 
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