Should I wait until I'm team captain to turn in my application?

janglin5

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Looking at class statistics, a large number of students at the NA were Varsity Sports captains and I've also read that being a captain is something that is good for applications. I haven't been a Varsity captain yet, but I have two sports this year that I have very good chances of being captain of. I'll find out if I'm captain of my Water Polo team in a couple of weeks, so I'd at least like to wait for that before I turn in my Activities Record (of course, this is assuming you can't go back and edit your application documents once you've submitted them). The other sport, swimming, is in the winter and I wouldn't find out if I were captain till sometime in November.
So, my question is: Should I wait to turn in my Activities Record until I find out whether I'm swim team captain, or just turn it in after I find out about Water Polo captain?
 
Is the WP Coach also the Swimming Coach?

Does Coach have the complete say on who is Captain ? or is that a vote of the Team?

If your Coach is the 100% 'Captain-maker' , by all means go to her/him, explain what your doing and ask him/her, directly! I am sure you know if you are 'Captain material', so if the odds are good, why beat around the bush? The only thing that could happen is they say yes or no.

My daughter did this for her NASS/Pre-USNA application in January this year; she knew selection for Captain was 4 weeks away but her application was due right away. Coach confirmed she was going to be the Captain.

This World needs more young people who are not afraid to just step up and ask a question.

Don't be a timid! Being a Team Captain counts and adds to your Whole Person Score, and that is the bottom-line!
 
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The activity record asks for accomplishments your senior year. The only way to fill it out is to project what you will accomplish. This is particularly true for those spring sports.

Submit the form.
 
5Day is exactly right. IF you DO NOT become team captain, then you need to notify USNA.
 
Is the WP Coach also the Swimming Coach?

Does Coach have the complete say on who is Captain ? or is that a vote of the Team?
They are different coaches. The swim team coach does it purely by vote, but we just got a new water polo coach this year so I'll need to ask her if she's doing a vote or just deciding. Thanks for the help!
 
Here's what I did I was a lacrosse captain as a junior and went ahead and put it for senior year. I was one again, so it didn't impact me.
 
Since you have not been named captain yet I would not make the assumption and have to possibly retract - that would not be good, you do not want to embellish, you want to give a true representation. I would wait the two weeks to see about water polo, or ask the coach assuming you have a strong enough relationship to do so. If/when you are named captain for swim you can absolutely have it added by emailing your admins contact that you are assigned. My son had to make a few adjustments (for one he grossly underestimated his community service hours before actually verifying them and two he was inducted into the National Honor Society). He was told it would not be a problem to add the info.
 
The guidance, given specifically to me by an admissions counselor, is that candidates should include (mark and submit) activities/positions that they REASONABLY think they have a chance at. While documents/awards/accomplishments can be added throughout the cycle, those items are ONLY added to the candidates file; some calculations are not updated as a result. That being said, I would agree with socalfan and wait the two weeks for water polo, but I would not hold submitting your activities record for swimming. You need to decide whether you have a REASONABLE shot at swimming team captain. Additionally, you can include a note/comment with the form such as "marked swim team captain in anticipation of being named to that position."

I agree that it would look bad if you checked quite a few activities/positions and all (or almost all) of them had to be redacted. One or two changes won't look like one was embellishing.
 
Thank you socalfan and usnabgo08 for the latest two replies. You guys are really giving me some good things to think about. I'll have to talk to my WP coach about how she is doing captains this year and then talk to the swimmers and try and feel out how voting will go for swim team captain. Will likely end up doing what usnabgo08 suggests and put a comment about swim captain when I submit. Again, thanks for all the help!
 
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