It seems a disservice to any service academy grad to dismiss their failure in their chosen path as being lazy.After all the effort to get in, plebe summer, plebe year, dark ages, ect.
The mids I have met do not seem lazy to me, they put everything into whatever they do.
I have been waiting until I had a few extra minutes to answer this. No, Midshipmen, as a rule are not lazy. However, they are very adept at not performing extra unnecessary work.
USNA is extremely goal oriented, probably much more so than a civilian college. It starts even before arrival. How many questions on this forum are asked by candidates seeking minimum performance standards, be it CFA, SATs, or physical conditioning required to survive Plebe summer. It continues throughout the Academy. So when they get to Pensacola they are well adapted to doing only whatever is necessary in order to achieve the desired goal. Thusly, Aviation community assignments are largely self-selecting.
Of course, everyone arrives in Pensacola wanting to fly jets. Along the line, on the way to the selection gate, many change their mind. They may not literally have the “stomach” for flying upside down, preferring the straight and level. They may realize, along about the same time as their instructors that they just do not have the motor skills to fly 400 kts. Each community has its own personality. In the training command, constantly exposed to instructors in each of these communities, they may realize that they are a better fit for maritime or helos. A myriad of reasons to change their decision as to what they want to fly and which community of which they want to be a part. Once this decision is reached, the four or five above averages for each flight and the extra hours of preparation necessary to achieve these grades no longer becomes paramount.
Instructors also play a part. The grading system is not totally objective. A student with average to above average social skills and commensurate aviating skills can receive the assistance of instructors. Marginal above average marks will go to those who need it while those who don’t will receive the average marks necessary in order that the instructor not be deemed a “Santa Clause”. Early in the year, those who are in the pipeline before the pools get out of hand, may suddenly find that their aircraft has developed some sort of malfunction, and their hop is graded as a warmup with a complete new reflight the following day.
Of course, the needs of the Navy still apply and occassionally those who thought they were comfortably settled in for a "gentlemanly" 3.0 will have a rude awakening.
Additionally, of course, what they come home to tell family and friends a helo pilot after going off to Pensacola to be the next Tom Cruise might be a completely different story.