Hurt during Beast

If you look at the "National Waiting List" thread from April, one of the current admissions officers - disclaiming the party line and saying he was speaking unofficially - said that the Admissions Committee had overextended and was "doing everything they can to be down to 1300 on R Day" [R Day was 1386.] He warned that the unusually high rate of acceptances meant that senioritis, speeding tickets, etc would be cause for revocation of appointments. I did wonder if they say that every year,and how strictly it was enforced.

But I can't believe that the Academy would be looking to weed out willing and able NCs in which it has already made an investment; perhaps a few more turnbacks, to try to even out 2014 and 2015? where a judgment call can be made? Just guessing.

At least the Old Grads won't say the Corps has...
 
So, please clarify because now I am interested....if my son had broken his ankle 17 days into it at USMA, would he have been sent home?
 
lovethenavy said:
So, please clarify because now I am interested....if my son had broken his ankle 17 days into it at USMA, would he have been sent home?
Click to expand...

I severely sprained my ankle on the O-Course about the same time -- maybe a week later -- and was retained. While I didn't need surgery, I had a 3rd degree sprain that was tough to heal. I did what I could in terms of PT/marching but it wasn't ideal.

"My day" was many years ago. However, the general view was that, if you were sick or injured during plebe summer, you were retained provided you could do something and wanted to stay. That said, we didn't have Sea Trials and didn't have the 12-mile march of Beast. Things may be different today at USNA . . . or at USMA.

I must admit that I would be surprised if someone who was injured and wanted to continue at USMA would be forced to reapply (vs. be offered an appointment in the next class). This suggests there is more to the story.

I would think that there would be individual determinations. If you suffer an injury on Day 2 that makes it impossible for you to participate in 90% of the summer activities, I would expect any SA to require you to rejoin next year. As the summer progresses, the SA must weigh what you've accomplished to date, the nature of your injury, when you'll be back at 100%, what you'll miss, how important that is, etc. in deciding what to do.

The one downside of an injury is that some of your classmates may believe you didn't do the "full program." You just have to deal with that.
 
lovethenavy said:
So, please clarify because now I am interested....if my son had broken his ankle 17 days into it at USMA, would he have been sent home?
Click to expand...

Just to totally derail this thread, while I don't know for sure about USMA, I will tell you that if he were at USAFA, he almost definitely would have been sent home. He would have had a guaranteed slot in 2015 (assuming that he was subsequently cleared medically), but any major injury that results in missing more than 8 days of training at AF ends up as a turnback. My son had one in his flight with a knee injury early on who was given the option of suffering through BCT and having surgery when it ended or coming back with 2015. She tried for a couple days but was unable to do what was necessarily physically and left a few days later (and plans to return). He knew another basic who broke a leg and was also sent home. The Webguy forums have several other anecdotal stories of similar things. My son tore his meniscus about half way through second Beast and managed to only miss a couple days and still complete all the necessary courses and get through it, but if it had happened much earlier or been more severe, he would probably have had the same issue. As it was, we were on pins and needles for those last few weeks! From what I saw/read, seemed like anything major during first Beast/detail pretty much ended up in being "recycled" to 2015, but if you made it to second Beast, they did as much as they could to get you through.
 
lovethenavy said:
So, please clarify because now I am interested....if my son had broken his ankle 17 days into it at USMA, would he have been sent home?
Click to expand...

We can only speculate. If I was the speculating kind I would say yes.
Beast at West Point is different than Plebe summer which is different from Beast at AFA.
The training and goals are all different. Beast at West Point is extremely physically demanding. Much of it is training in the field - if you have a broken ankle you would miss all of it. At West Point there are certain requirements that MUST be completed for graduation - which is not so at USNA from what I understand. This includes the ruck marches, field training etc. If you can't accomplish any of that then there really is no point in hanging around all summer. While many injured cadets miss a portion of training and make it up later on, it would be fruitless to make up all of Beast.

Again - the OP has come back and confirmed that he received a Medical Discharge and this was HIS choice. He could have taken a Medical Leave but for whatever reasons chose not to. He was NOT forced out of the Army due to his injury. West Point did not "cull" him. He was not a "victim" of a large class.
 
As far as West Point being 'overbooked' - I am not buying it either. In the fall of 2002 USMA received over 10,000 applications from males. In two years that dropped 20% and around 2006-2007 they were wondering if they would be able to fill the class.
Congress voted to expand the Corps beginning in 2003 and while AF and Navy expanded, West Point never reached the maximum allowable strength.
Also, until this year West Point had not graduated 1000 Cadets. This has been a long standing goal as well.
 
According to an email that just got sent to all FW candidates by Major Golden, "This is quickly shaping up to be a highly competitive class - more applicants for fewer slots than last year, with file completion earlier than ever." Whether the class of 2014 was or was not overfilled doesn't really matter, but the class of 2015 will not be as large.
 
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