How difficult is it to get into the merchant marine academy? What are some of the requirements
So everyone has given you great information, especially given you haven't indicated whether you are interested for yourself or someone else. Based on your handle and other public information I'm going to guess you are interested for yourself and as you indicate you are from Cumberland Rhode Island.
First the direct answer to your question the gaining admissions to the USMMA is about the same difficulty as gaining admission to any other Federal Service Academy. All of the Academies are either Very or Highly Selective, additionally geographically gaining a nomination is either more or less competitive depending of your state's demographics. I am not fully versed about Rhode Island but I'd expect that as far as nominations go for RI, getting a nomination to the USNA is probably the most difficult and both the USMA and USMMA would be up there in the difficulty index. That said a USMMA Admissions Field Representative for you area would have a lot better and more current information. You can find one at the USMMA Admissions Website via
http://www.usmma.edu/admissions/reps/statereps.asp?stname=RI; there are three for Rhode Island and if they can't help then just call the Admissions Office at the USMMA. The Academic Year for them starts on July 27th and there should be someone answering the phone there now as well.
As indicated there are three things you need to gain admissions:
1)
A nomination from a member of Congress; either of your two US Senators (Senator Jack Reed; Senator Sheldon Whitehouse ) or from your Congressman at Large ( ). The easiest way to obtain information about their processes, and time-lines is directly from their websites. Senator Reed's Website has a top level link for "Services for Rhode Islanders" and then under that has a page link for "Academy Nominations" - According to his website, the deadline for him to receive all completed application materials required for him to nominate you for entry to the Class of 2015 (entering in July 2011) is October 31, 2010. Senator Whitehouse has a similar top level tab "Services for Rhode Islanders" under which there is a link "U.S. Service Academy Nominations" to start the process at, his US Service Academy Nominations page has an excellent overview of the process for all Academies and appears worth a thorough read. His deadline for receipt of all application materials for a nomination to the entering Class of 2015 is October 29, 2010. From what I can quickly gather, Cumberland is in the 1st Congressional District of RI, so your Congressman is Patrick Kennedy. Congressman Kennedy's website is a little different than most where the link for Service Academy Nominations is under "Students and Kids" on his website, vice the usual location "Constituent Services". In any case under "Students and Kids" yo can get directly to the link for Service Academies and start the application process for a nomination from him. His application deadline is also October 31, 2010 for admissions in July 2011/Class of 2015.
2)
A completed admissions application package to the Academy itself - you can start this on-line at
www.usmma.edu.
and 3) You must be medically qualified having completed the physical fitness assessment and
a completed full physical from DODMERBB.
All three of these things are independent tracks all of which then supply the Academy Admissions Staff information they use in selecting who they admit under a process that is governed by federal law as described in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFRs). So there really are two aspects to answer your question in short - from a competitive perspective, especially given you will be looking to enter the USMMA from a relatively nearby, Maritime State, it's likely to be similar to attempting to gain admission to a Very Selective college. From what all it takes to get through the process, there's a lot of stuff to go through in that you have 3 separate sets of application paperwork to complete and they are all separate and distinct, though no more involved then some of the Financial Aid packages, etc. you will be/are completing for the application process at other colleges and Universities.
The most important thing is that if you are looking to enter USMMA or really any other Federal Service Academy in the Summer of 2011, you need to get started immediately in processing applications, etc. as the usual time-line given prospective entering Freshman started last March.
Hope this helps.