Hello!! I have been lurking a bit on this site for the past few months and thought it was time to join! My son is a sophomore in high school and has had dreams of USNA since he was about 8 or 9. I am really proud of all of the work he has done so far, but the more I learn about the process, the more frightened I get. I know that all we can do is do our best & pray for good results! He is a 3.9 gpa student, Varsity letter winner in 3 sports, Student Council, VP of his class, community service, youth church group, and Sunday School teacher. He will be attending HOBY this summer and probably Boys State next summer, and will be applying for Summer Session as well. He just took his first ACT Saturday. Fingers crossed. Should he take the SAT as well? We live in a small, rural community and my concern is that he will not have the same opportunites for advanced classes as some in bigger schools have. He does have some AP classes that he can take next year, hopefully that will do the trick. He is in Algebra II this year and will take Calculus next year. I know that geography plays a role in how many are picked, does that mean that less population/state gives you a better chance or not necessarily? I hope to learn much more about this process in the coming months. One question, I know I saw a link on here in the past for an abbreviations post that listed them all -- could anyone guide me to that post again? I have tried searching, but in vain. TIA!!!