Presidential Nominations

AFA_Hopeful

5-Year Member
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I have always been curious as to how people get Presidential nominations. Did you all have personal connections with him? How did you start? Who did you go through? Thanks for all of the help! Good luck to all applicants, candidates, and Summer Seminar applicants!:smile:
 
Presidential nominations are for:

the children of career military personnel are eligible for presidential nominations. The term “career military personnel” is defined as members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines or Coast Guard who:

--Are on active duty and have been for at least eight years.
--Who died while on active duty.
--Are retired with pay or were granted retired or retainer pay.
--Military reservists with at least eight years of uninterrupted service.
--Are reservists who would have been entitled to retirement pay if they had not died before reaching the age of 60.

Also eligible are children of military personnel who were “100 percent injured” or whose parent is "a member of the armed services or a civilian employee in active government service who is officially carried or determined to be absent in a status of missing; missing in action; interred in a foreign country; captured, beleaguered or besieged by a hostile force; or detained in a foreign country against his or her will,”


If eligible you write a letter requesting a Presidential nomination and submit proof of your eligibility.

Only 100 Presidential Nominations per class may be appointed.
 
Presidential nominations are for:

the children of career military personnel are eligible for presidential nominations. The term “career military personnel” is defined as members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines or Coast Guard who:

--Are on active duty and have been for at least eight years.
--Who died while on active duty.
--Are retired with pay or were granted retired or retainer pay.
--Military reservists with at least eight years of uninterrupted service.
--Are reservists who would have been entitled to retirement pay if they had not died before reaching the age of 60.

Also eligible are children of military personnel who were “100 percent injured” or whose parent is "a member of the armed services or a civilian employee in active government service who is officially carried or determined to be absent in a status of missing; missing in action; interred in a foreign country; captured, beleaguered or besieged by a hostile force; or detained in a foreign country against his or her will,”


If eligible you write a letter requesting a Presidential nomination and submit proof of your eligibility.

Only 100 Presidential Nominations per class may be appointed.

Just to expand, I think although the number of appointments is limited to 100, the number of Presidential Nominations is unlimited.
 
I've been asked many times about the 100 presidential appointments vs nominations. Think of it just like your representative or senator. They can have a slate of 10 names, but only 1 name on that list of 10 can receive an appointment; USING that nomination. (If a senator or representative has more than 1 available slot, S/He will have more than one slate of names). Well, the presidential "Slate" is the same thing; except the number on the slate isn't limited to 10, it's infinite. And the number of appointments from that slate isn't limited to 1, but rather "UP TO" 100. I say "UP TO" because the academy chooses, and they don't have to give out 100 appointments. They are free to choose less than that.

The others provided very good answers; I just wanted to put it into perspective that most people understand. (Their representative/senator's slate of 10 nominees).
 
No, it is for the children only. Look at why the Presidential exists differently.

Military children move around a lot. For my kids, they attended no less than 8 public schools. Only our youngest went to 1 HS, and that was because his Dad retired. It is hard to have a competitive EC if you go to 2 HS in 2 different states, chances are you won't have the same amount of leadership as you would have if you were at that 1 school the entire 4 yrs.

Some are also oversees, and although they are residents somewhere, it is hard to do an interview in Idaho when Dad is stationed in Germany. Usually it would be phone, but not with the entire committee like the kid in Idaho.

It is a perk for the child to say thanks for you following Dad/Mom around the world, giving up friends, and moving when the military said go, even if that meant missing Prom, the big game which you were going to start in, or not getting your DL because you moved to another state and had to start all over again for that states standards.

None of that occurs to the grandchild.
 
Some are also oversees, and although they are residents somewhere, it is hard to do an interview in Idaho when Dad is stationed in Germany. Usually it would be phone, but not with the entire committee like the kid in Idaho.

It is a perk for the child to say thanks for you following Dad/Mom around the world, giving up friends, and moving when the military said go, even if that meant missing Prom, the big game which you were going to start in, or not getting your DL because you moved to another state and had to start all over again for that states standards.

Story of my life :rolleyes:
 
Presidential Nomination-Appointment

I've only noticed one Presidential nomination on the Class of 2017 appointment thread. Looked like that one was an athlete.

Any idea when the "normal" time frame for those with Presidential nomination to receive appointments is?
 
Time frame for different nomination appointments

I second skymom. What nomination sources are the first appointments, aswell as the last? For instance, are presidentials offered 1st?

I'm from MD and have 2 sens, 1 congress, and 1 presidential nomination. Which of these 3 (if I were to get their appointment) would I hear from first?
 
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I'm going to be applying for a Presidential nomination because my father is a retired Major.

How does the process work? The letter you send in is very basic - seems like the majority is simple information. Are these nominations automatically granted to anyone eligible?

If so, should I still apply for nominations from my Senator, congressman, and the Vice President?

From old threads I've read, it seems like this is how it goes, but I'm not sure.
 
I'm going to be applying for a Presidential nomination because my father is a retired Major.

How does the process work? The letter you send in is very basic - seems like the majority is simple information. Are these nominations automatically granted to anyone eligible?

If so, should I still apply for nominations from my Senator, congressman, and the Vice President?

From old threads I've read, it seems like this is how it goes, but I'm not sure.

Yes, you simply need to prove eligibility and you have the Presidential nomination. Yes, you should apply to all nominating sources that you are eligible for. Each nomination puts you in a different pool/slate. You are racked and stacked against the people on that pool/slate and the person or people at the top of the slate win the nomination (this is an oversimplification but it works for starters). So, each nom you have gives you another chance to win the competition on that slate to get appointed.
 
Some here think that this forum is somehow representative of all applicants. Of the 12,000+ who initially apply; and the 6,000+/- who are considered eligible; and the 2500-3000 that are considered competitive and have a nomination; how many do you think actually visit this forum? Including just their parent? 30???? That's like 1%.

Just because you've only seen 1 appointment thread from someone with a presidential, doesn't mean anything. You can't make any type of opinion based on that.

As for answering your question, it's not a matter of "Which nomination Sources" are notified first. There's no such thing. This week, they could offer an appointment to a recruited athlete with a MOC nomination who'd they'd like to get, because this week was national signing day. It's when ALL the recruited athletes, from all the schools, from all the sports, usually commit in writing to the school of their choice that's been recruiting them. The academies don't actually give scholarships, but many 17 year old kids don't understand that, so the academy will offer the appointment early for an athlete so they can be part of the pomp and circumstance of "Signing Day".

But in the same week, they can offer a candidate an appointment with a presidential, because the individual is part of the "NO BRAINER CLUB"; meaning s/he is in the top 10 (Not 10%, actual TOP 10) of candidates. Basically, there is no way this individual ISN'T going to receive an appointment. But this person is obviously the type who's also being courted by 5-10 other big schools in the country. Remember; the average CADET who actually got the appointment and made it to the academy, is the type of applicant that can most times get accepted into just about ANY COLLEGE or UNIVERSITY they want in the country. Remember what the AVERAGE GPA and ACT/SAT scores are. 3.86, 30act, etc... That's the AVERAGE. So the academy will sometimes offer early to someone they know is going to get an appointment, but they don't want the person to accept USC, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Duke, Purdue, etc....

There's also the individual who is qualified and received a PRINCIPAL NOMINATION. It doesn't matter what the academy wants; they MUST GIVE a PRINCIPAL Nominee the appointment. They have no choice. They will sometimes give it to them early, like January or February, because they are going to give it to them anyway; but this way if they turn it down, they can start looking at others on the slate.

REMEMBER: Not EVERYONE who applies to the academy has it as their FIRST CHOICE!!! I would say that more than 25% don't want the academy as their first choice. In NORMAL YEARS, the academy would OFFER 1700 APPOINTMENTS; because they were guaranteed than around 400-500 were going to TURN IT DOWN!!! That would leave around 1200-1300 for the class. This was normal and happened every year.

Sorry if I'm not answering the question, but it CAN'T be answered. And no matter how hard anyone tries to rationalize it, it can't be done. There's way too many variables. I mentioned a couple. Super athlete being recruited by many other schools. Super brainiac being recruited by many other schools. Applicants they're going to take anyway and have no choice on. etc... None of the nomination categories is looked at first. Well; except MOC nominations. Those MUST be filled first; which is about half of the appointments. Then they look at filling the other half of the class with presidential, numerous military oriented, national pool, etc....
 
I've only noticed one Presidential nomination on the Class of 2017 appointment thread. Looked like that one was an athlete.

Any idea when the "normal" time frame for those with Presidential nomination to receive appointments is?
Christcorp makes a good point regarding how this forum is, by no means, representative of the class' demographics, it's also attributable to the basic reasoning that there are many more appointments available through congressional nomination than those through presidential. Each Congressman can have up to 10 nominations and 5 total cadets for the district - by sheer weight of numbers, the odds that you'll see a person on a congressional nomination are significantly greater.

Let's draw off of Christcorp's numbers - maybe 30 appointees are active on these forums. Assuming a class size of 1,100 with all Presidential Nomination slots used, that's only 9.1% of the population. Without accounting for other variables, the average number of appointees with a presidential nomination we see should be around three.

I almost want to dive into the archives to see how the appointments among forum users is spread... no! I will resist the urge to match this to a normal distribution!
 
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