Waitlist & Other Possibilities

I recieved the dreaded thin letter yesterday, but I'm not giving up that easy. I noticed that around 66 (5% of the class) people from the class of 2010 and 81 from the class of 2009 made it into the Academy from post-secondary sources (non-NAPS or foundation), and I was wondering how common is this (number of applicants) and what would be my chances for taking this route (do my chances go dramatically up, or just slightly).

The main reason for me making this decision (whether or not to pursue USNA) is based on the fact that I already have an appt to West Point. So if I decide to pursue USNA I would have to decline West Point and go to Virginia Tech NROTC (which I already have the scholarship for), something I don't have a problem with if I at least have a fair chance at USNA.

Thanks, I've listed a copy of my stats below just as a reference.

Leadership:
Eagle Scout
Senior Patrol Leader (Previously Jr. Asst Scoutmaster, Instructor, etc.)

Academics:
1420 SAT (700 Reading, 720 Math)
3.478 GPA
Classes taking Senior year: IB 20th Century Topics, IB English 2, IB Physics 2 Higher Level (opposed to Standard), AP Calculus, IB Economics, Pre-Engineering, Weight Training
Junior Year: IB History of the Americas, IB English 1, IB Physics 1, Trigonometry/Math Analysis, Architecture, Web Design, Weight Training
Sophmore: IB/AP Government, Pre-IB English 10, IB Chemistry, Algebra 2, Basic Technical Design, Latin III
Freshmen: Pre-IB World History, Pre-IB English 9, Pre-IB Biology, Geometry, Latin II
8th Grade: Algebra 1, Latin I
*IB is similiar to AP or Honors courses

School located in Northern Virginia, Fairfax
School doesn't rank students

Sports:
School Cross Country 4 yrs, Lettered Senior year
School Indoor Track 2 yrs, Lettered Senior year
School Outdoor Track 4 yrs, expect to letter Senior year
League Swimming 4 yrs
Tae Kwon Do 4 yrs - Black Belt


Outcome from Class of 2011 Attempt:

Entire App Submitted (September)
Presidential Nomination (September)
Scholastically Qualified (November)
Recieved Nomination from Congressman Tom Davis, VA 11th (December)
Thin-Lettered (Friday the 13th)

Whoa, with stats like that I too wonder why you didn't make it into USNA, but being from VA, I bet the competition is tough there. Suggest that you call your BGO and interview HIM as to what he thought of you, your interview skills, etc. He can speak candidly now that you've gotten the thin letter (by the way, was it a rejection letter or the wait list letter as is perhaps indicated by your post heading? If the latter, there is still a chance for you, though you'll probably have to accept WP or ROTC before and then decide to rescind that acceptance if USNA is what you want.

And that's the most important thing for you to do now - decide which BRANCH of the service you want to be in. USNA and WP (and NROTC) will be great educations BUT you have to know which type of service you want to be in for the following 5+ years. That's the final goal, not which school to go to......

Good luck - we too are in the same boat (USAF Appointment, USNA Wait List, and 4 yr NROTC in hand, with May 1 rapidly approaching...)

Think strongly about the LONG TERM = that's the important goal.

Dknightfam

Thanks for the quick reply,

My guess is that either my eye waiver or my average GPA got me at the end, for which I did recieve a flat out rejection, mistitled header. Of course there will always be the wondering if something was lost in the process making my app look better/worse than it really was, but can't do anything about that, have to keep looking to the future.

That is an important point you make about deciding the service rather than tha academy, given my goal to become a career officer it does have far more lasting consquences than a brief 4 years at any academy. Given that, I would probably have to choose Navy, however I still love the Army as well. But I still have 13 more days to make that decision...

I guess my concern here is to determine my chances, I'm all for taking risks, but calculated ones. That is to say if a few thousand college students apply to Navy but only 60 get in, it may be a little harder to choose this path. The good thing about my situation is that I will be attending a true 4-year college, not a prep school, so if I don't make it into 2012 I can always continue down the NROTC road to commissioning.

Are there any other numbers or known facts availible as to the possibilities of admission from college other than the released numbers on the class profiles?

Great advice given above. First, decide which career you desire. If your decision is Navy, definitely go the ROTC route. For non-Foundation and non-NAPS, a good four year college ROTC is far better than the prep school route. Take Calculus, Chemistry, and English compositin, maintaining a minimum of 15 credit hours. Call your BGO and listen to what he says but he does not have your full package in front of him. When the dust settles from this years admissions process, call the CGO and get a good debrief. You have some strong areas in your package but you obviously had some week ones also. Don't speculate. The area of the country where you live had nothing to do with your rejection. Once the mandatory nominating source positions are filled, acceptance is in the national pool and based solely on order of merit. If your eyes are 'waiverable', it perhaps made competition a little greater but a successful year of college will definitely move you up in the order of merit ranks.

By obtaining at least "B"s in your college coursework, demonstrating leadership potential, and being physically fit, you should have a very good chance of admission should you decide to reapply. Your DodMERB status will remain in effect for reapplying next year. ROTC will also open up an additional nominating source to you since NROTC Commanders can nominate up to three of their midshipmen to USNA appointments each year.

Good luck.

Thanks for the tips, I'll give my BGO a call this week.

Would taking any additional courses beyond your suggested be of use (such as in High School it was suggested to take AP, IB, making the hardest courseload possible), or are there any other electives looked on favorably? I'm already looking at all the clubs and extracuriculars you can do there and getting really excited, so no matter what I'm going to have a fun time.

Also, how much will H.S. grades factor into my new file, or will they be overshadowed by college results?

Amazing how perspectives change, 24 hours ago I was hesitating pursuing a naval career. Now that the shell shock has warn off, it's going to take more than one bump in the road to stop me.

As a BGO in NoVA (but not yours ), I can tell you that most of us wonder why some candidates get in & others don't. Every year, I tell my candidates that I long ago gave up making predictions b/c I'm frequently wrong. I've had candidates with your qualifications (or better) not get in and those some might consider "less qualified" get the golden ticket. Also, needing an eye waiver can definitely be a problem in competitive geographic areas like ours.

A couple of questions -- you can PM me with the response if you prefer. Did you do Summer Seminar and do you think it went well? Did you do well on all aspects of your CFA, especially pull-ups? Did you have any leadership positions in school (president of a club, student gov't, team captain)? Were your higher grades for your GPA in the math/sciences or in the humanities? Do you think your BGO interview went well?

I agree that you should discuss your situation with your BGO. Also, you can ask your BGO to contact CGO -- AFTER JULY 1 -- and see if they'll provide any insight. Contacting CGO now will only annoy them as they're still very busy trying to fill the class; there is some lag time in the summer where they might be more receptive to such an inquiry.

I agree wholeheartedly with USNA69 and others that you must consider what you want to do w/the rest of your life in determining whether to go ROTC or USMA. While only a small number of candidates come from college, realize that not a whole lot apply, compared to the number applying directly from high school.

The one thing I would say is that your academic record seems competitive, even from NoVA. If you decide to reapply, it's critical to figure out what ultimately led to the thin letter b/c simply reapplying with the same "package" and hoping for a different result may not work.

Good luck w/your decision. Feel free to PM me if you have additional questions.

Even though I am only a sophomore and have yet to apply to the Naval Academy, I would guess from looking at your stats that your GPA wasn't strong enough as the first big deductor and the other deductor was that you did not have enough leadership.

The leadership is speculation because I'm not sure what the academies look for in that area. You are an eagle scout and were senior patrol leader, but other than that it doesn't appear that you had a lot of leadership experience (to me).

The question you really need to ask yourself is what do you want to do in the military and then base your service decision on that. For me, I want to be a fighter pilot, and I believe that naval aviators are the best pilots around. So that's why I want to go into the Navy rather than the Airforce. If what you want to do is in the Navy then don't go to West Point-do a 4 year college and keep applying to Annapolis every year. Make sure that whatever you choose, you choose the service that you're going to enjoy and want to be in for the next decade or so (I'm not sure how long you're planning on being in the military).

Good luck. Hopefully my comments will help you.

The academies (and most colleges for that matter) do not look at your GPA. You GPA is rather meaningless by itself because every high school calulates it differently.

What they do look at is: a) class rank - this shows how well you stack up academically against your peers; and b) the final grades in your core courses and the level of those classes.
They want to see if you are taking core classes (English, History, Science and Math) at a high level - Honors? AP? or just College Prep? They then look at the grade you earned in the class.
Did you challenge yourself with your high school curriculum? or were you content to work at whatever level you could easily earn that A?
It seems that JConnolly was pushing himself curriculum wise with the IB curriculum that his high school offered - the question is what USNA1985 asked - did he get decent grades in his math/science or did he "use" electives to pull his gpa up?

Anyway, this example is one reason why the posting of one's "statistic" is mostly an excercise in futility.

Now as far as the decision to accept USMA or NROTC - this decision should be rather easy to make - either you want to be in the Army or Navy. Simple as that. Do not pick USMA for the "experience" or "prestige" of attending a service academy. Remember you have to give the Army or Navy 8 years after your education.

Just_A_Mom said:

Anyway, this example is one reason why the posting of one's "statistic" is mostly an excercise in futility.

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True. And, there are variables that no statistic can capture, such as teacher recs, BGO rec, NASS performance, etc. Occasionally, something will leap out from stats (i.e., a very low math SAT) but there is no way to know for sure if that was dispositive or not.

Now as far as the decision to accept USMA or NROTC - this decision should be rather easy to make - either you want to be in the Army or Navy. Simple as that. Do not pick USMA for the "experience" or "prestige" of attending a service academy. Remember you have to give the Army or Navy 8 years after your education.

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I think the best way to think of this is whether you'll be happy at USMA and in the US Army. Several years ago, I had a candidate who didn't get an appt from USNA and went to USMA. Sad to say, that person isn't very happy there. The good news is that he/she is making the best of it and sticking it out. There are some excellent books on life at WP -- more current ones than about USNA. I encourage you to read them as you make your decision. Good luck!

jconnolly said:

I recieved the dreaded thin letter yesterday, but I'm not giving up that easy. I noticed that around 66 (5% of the class) people from the class of 2010 and 81 from the class of 2009 made it into the Academy from post-secondary sources (non-NAPS or foundation), and I was wondering how common is this (number of applicants) and what would be my chances for taking this route (do my chances go dramatically up, or just slightly).

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These quantities are pretty normal.

As far as a dramatic or slight increase in chances of an acceptance following a subsequent application, you 3Qers have got to realize that you were almost there this time. Only around 2000 3Qs and 1500 offers. Usually one or two identifiable weaknesses which the CGO can relate to you as soon as they get this class finalized. Find out why you weren't selected for Class of 2011, fix it, continue to challenge yourself academically and physically, and reapply.

Just_A_Mom said:

The academies (and most colleges for that matter) do not look at your GPA. You GPA is rather meaningless by itself because every high school calulates it differently.

What they do look at is: a) class rank - this shows how well you stack up academically against your peers; and b) the final grades in your core courses and the level of those classes.

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Mmm, I didn't know that. Thank-you for that information. I will make sure to worry less about my gpa and more about how tough my classes are. (I know this thread isn't about me) so I'll just say that I've been taking a tough enough schedule that I can still get all A's (I've made sure the science, math, and english are all honors and AP). But if a more tough schedule and getting like a 3.9 or 3.8 will look better than should I be doing that? I think gpa still has some influence since the average gpa I believe for the classes is a 3.8. I don't want to take this thread away from being about JConnolly, but if someone could elaborate more, I'd appreciate it.

Aeroman, a candidate similiar to me (almost exact same leadership, sports, Eagle Scout, etc.), but lower SAT with higher grades (3.8) in lower (non AP/IB) classes, recieved a Foundation scholarship, obviously because they saw his other qualities as outweighing his coursework. I on the other hand couldn't be considered for those programs (which started to be decided in December) because I was already 'scholastically qualified', thus didn't need any additional academic prep (the primary focus of the NAPS/foundation).

Which leads to a kind of confusing system, but as many have said, do the best you can and you can't go wrong. My work got me to the final round of USNA and a full NROTC scholarship to Virginia Tech (ugh, sad thing).


Back to my situation, are there any other general things I can do at VT to increase my chances, such as specific clubs, etc. that seemed to be looked upon more favorably than others?

Jconnolly:
You are correct that since you are scholastically qualified you do not qualify for NAPS or a Foundation scholarship. BUT it also means that as USNA1985 and USNA69 you are "almost there" admissions wise. Continue to do well in your studies.
If you go to VT and are in NROTC then do well. That certainly will look very favorably on your application next year.
I would also suggest you join one or more Club Sports teams. Club sports in college are great and give students a chance to continue their high school athletics or try out new sports.

Join an activity you "always wanted to try" but never did in high school. If you always wanted to be a DJ then get a show on the campus radio station, write for the school newspaper, join a community service organization such a Habitat for Humanity and go on a service trip over break. Continue with your scouting and volunteer at a local scout troop. Join an organization related to your major. The opportunities are endless. Get out of your dorm and get moving!

Hoped to be a marine officer out of USNA. Got rejection letter last friday (while on CVW). Still dealing with the blow to the stomach that letter was, but I have decisions to make in the mean time.
I have a 4 yr Army ROTC offer to a great school that I really like, and will have a chance to play football as well while there. An elite Army unit would be my goal if that was the school I graduated from.
Question is: If I were to take it and still applied to USNA again next year, would taking the Army ROTC offer cause me any problems?

App Son

ps My family and I have really been helped by this forum through the process. Thanks to all of you. May God keep you safe.

Conversely, I think it would show a commitment to a military career and would be seen as a positive.

From AROTC, however, you would not be eligible for a ROTC nomination as you would if you were applying to WP, or for USNA if you were enrolled in a NROTC unit. You would still be required to receive a nomination from your normal sources. I am not sure how the USNA application would work. Probably a voluntary letter of recommendation from your unit commander.

Take calculus, chemistry or physics, if you have validated chemistry, and English composition. A minimum of 15 semester hours is suggested so a history course would probably fill out the schedule most effectively.

I would check up with your prospective ROTC unit on that question. I just came from Army ROTC (wasn't contracted, which means I wasn't drawing pay)...I had this discussion with some other folks...I'm pretty sure once you're drawing pay (scholarship), that you will either have to pay it back if appointed to USNA or something along those lines.

Thats interesting Krypter, something I havn't heard before. Do you know if its the same for intra-service transfers, NROTC to USNA as well?

usna69 -

thanks for the response. i hope you're right, because i plan on doing it.

Krypter said:

I would check up with your prospective ROTC unit on that question. I just came from Army ROTC (wasn't contracted, which means I wasn't drawing pay)...I had this discussion with some other folks...I'm pretty sure once you're drawing pay (scholarship), that you will either have to pay it back if appointed to USNA or something along those lines.

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Nope you don't have to pay anything back - Appointments to Service Academies supercede all other military contracts. Once you accept your appointment your current contract is voided.

i got an email today saying i was wait listed for NAPS, does anyone know what kind of odds there are when someone gets waitlisted?