How many people apply, and then how many actually become a "Candidate"

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bjschick

5-Year Member
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Dec 8, 2010
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I know tons apply, but less than half become a "Candidate." What are the number of applicants, candidates, and appointments?
 
Last year I think 10% of the people that applied received an appointment.
 
When I was at the Academy in late OCT, my admissions councilor said that they were expecting over 12,000 applicants this year... But that was very early.
 
When we went to the northern Illinois Nominee banquet the gentleman quoted a number of about 12,000 and change,, applied

9,000 and some were male
3,000 and some were female.
 
When you say 12,000 apply, does that mean 12,000 people who just did the online part? What Is the amount of people that are medical qualified and have a congressional nomination. What is that number?
 
The actual pool of fully qualified candidates is what is important

Pima, Flieger83, please feel free to comment. I defer all definitive comments to you two.

Bjschick and everyone else who is courious, this is what the class of 2014 profile seem to indicate:

Applicants (everyone who applies to the academy)
11,627

Candidate Pool (Those who meet basic requirements and are considered candidates in their online applications)
7543

Qualified Candidates (Those who meet basic requirements AND have a nomination)
2445

Offers of Admission (Those qualified candidates who are offered appointments)
1566

New U.S. Cadets (1269 accepted appointments plus 25 turnbacks and international students )
1294

So what does this really mean? Of all the applicants, only about 75% (7543)are considered candidates via meeting basic academic, DODMERB, etc criteria. Of these only 33% (2445) have nominations and are thus fully qualified candidates. Of these fully qualified applicants only about 64% are offered appointments (1566). So at the end of the cycle out of 11,627 applicants you are left with a class of about 1294 cadets (subtracting 25 international student and turnbacks) with an acceptance rate of about 11%.

Now what does this mean about this year? Two big data points 1. there are about 12,000 applicants 2. the class will be smaller with a planned size of 1120 cadets. All things being equal, I do not think the number of qualified applicants will change much. There are simply a finite number of nominations available regardless of the size of the applicant pool. If that is the case and if ratios hold from prior years then you might consider this to be your chances of gaining an appointment.

Class size for 2015: 1120
Subtract turnbacks and international students (i.e. 30) : 1090

If all things are equal with respect to the fully qualified candidate pool then to get to a class size of 1120, about 1345 appointments are going to be offered from the qualified candidate pool.

So what does that mean for you Bjschick and my DS? First, because the applicant pool is so large, your competition is going to be tougher. But if you are a member of the qualified candidates pool, which should grow by 3.2% this year (based upon the number of applicants increasing from 11,627 to 12,000). Then there should be 2524 qualified candidates this year of which only 1345 appointments will be offered. So about 53% of the qualified applicants will be offered an appointment (a reduction from the prior year of 64%). You should also note that the acceptance rate for the class of 2015 will drop from 11% to 9.3%. Key is that once you get to the final qualified candidate pool your chances are slightly better than 50-50. Hope this makes you feel better, or at least it gives you a better idea where you stand.

P.S. March is just around the corner!
 
Last edited:
falconfamily said:
Pima, Flieger83, please feel free to comment. I defer all definitive comments to you two.

Bjschick and everyone else who is courious, this is what the class of 2014 profile seem to indicate:

Applicants (everyone who applies to the academy)
11,627

Candidate Pool (Those who meet basic requirements and are considered candidates in their online applications)
7543

Qualified Candidates (Those who meet basic requirements AND have a nomination)
2445

Offers of Admission (Those qualified candidates who are offered appointments)
1566

New U.S. Cadets (1269 accepted appointments plus 25 turnbacks and international students )
1294

So what does this really mean? Of all the applicants, only about 75% (7543)are considered candidates via meeting basic academic, DODMERB, etc criteria. Of these only 33% (2445) have nominations and are thus fully qualified candidates. Of these fully qualified applicants only about 64% are offered appointments (1566). So at the end of the cycle out of 11,627 applicants you are left with a class of about 1294 cadets (subtracting 25 international student and turnbacks) with an acceptance rate of about 11%.

Now what does this mean about this year? Two big data points 1. there are about 12,000 applicants 2. the class will be smaller with a planned size of 1120 cadets. All things being equal, I do not think the number of qualified applicants will change much. There are simply a finite number of nominations available regardless of the size of the applicant pool. If that is the case and if ratios hold from prior years then you might consider this to be your chances of gaining an appointment.

Class size for 2015: 1120
Subtract turnbacks and international students (i.e. 30) : 1090

If all things are equal with respect to the fully qualified candidate pool then to get to a class size of 1120, about 1345 appointments are going to be offered from the qualified candidate pool.

So what does that mean for you Bjschick and my DS? First, because the applicant pool is so large, your competition is going to be tougher. But if you are a member of the qualified candidates pool, which should grow by 3.2% this year (based upon the number of applicants increasing from 11,627 to 12,000). Then there should be 2524 qualified candidates this year of which only 1345 appointments will be offered. So about 53% of the qualified applicants will be offered an appointment (a reduction from the prior year of 64%). You should also note that the acceptance rate for the class of 2015 will drop from 11% to 9.3%. Key is that once you get to the final qualified candidate pool your chances are slightly better than 50-50. Hope this makes you feel better, or at least it gives you a better idea where you stand.

P.S. March is just around the corner!
Click to expand...

Looks like I'm 50/50 then. good stuff
 
You need to understand how apptmts work. They do not take the top 1200-1300. They take from the slates that is why you get the WCS. WCS wins the apptmt on the slate. From there they do have the NWL, but again it is a top WCS that wins.

I would never tell a candidate with 3, 4 or 5 noms, start packing your bags over the candidate with only 1 nom.

WCS baby...WCS!
 
Thanks Pima. That is the other piece of the puzzle. The people in the qualified candidate pool with nominations and how they rate against one another with respect to their WCS. This is like three dimentional chess.
 
falconfamily said:
Subtract turnbacks and international students (i.e. 30) : 1090
Click to expand...
I think if you are going to subtract turn-backs and international students then you might want to also remove the 250-300 appointments coming from the USAFA Prep school.
 
Hi Aglages,

I was assuming that the prep school is represented in the qualified candidate pool. Does anyone know if that is correct or not?
 
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