TWE with No Portal Update?

Here's one explanation of the purpose of the basketball throw:

CFA Basketball Throw Event -- tips for improving your distance

I am posting this thread with the aim of helping future service academy candidates who might be having trouble with the basketball throw event on the Candidate Fitness Assessment. As you prepare for the CFA, be sure to follow the CFA instructions TO THE LETTER because you don’t want your...
www.serviceacademyforums.com

I don't know. When you're lobbing that hand grenade from that foxhole, this skill might just come in handy.

ETA: I see that this thread eventually became the "Oh No - The Basketball Throw" stickie on the USMA forum.
 
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Hopeful Plebe Mom said:
This.

Can someone please share why this is part of a fitness examination? I honestly cannot come up with a single idea of what this measures 🤨
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Right?! I'm with you on that. Because it seems like such an insignificant reason to be taken out of the game, it is actually giving my son peace about the whole situation.
 
Hopeful Plebe Mom said:
Can someone please share why this is part of a fitness examination? I honestly cannot come up with a single idea of what this measures 🤨
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DW asked this very question of our DS at the dinner table just the other night. He said that he actually thinks it's a good measure of several things.
From what I recall, he said that he thought it definitely gauged core strength, balance (not tipping over from knees), overall athletic coordination (releasing the ball at the right time/angle for max distance), but more than that he said it was the ability to learn (and master) something physical and completely foreign by diligently working on it. I would bet that he threw that basketball 500 times for practice before the actual day of the CFA.
 
Ah, I just found it on USNA website:

Kneeling Basketball Throw
This measures ability to generate shoulder girdle power and total coordination/ balance in a stationary position.

👍

Well I just thank God Navy and Coast Guard don't think that insufficient demonstrated shoulder girdle power is a reason to not consider an accomplished candidate. Please no haters....I've got to let the mama bear out a little.
 
tycarpen said:
Ah, I just found it on USNA website:

Kneeling Basketball Throw
This measures ability to generate shoulder girdle power and total coordination/ balance in a stationary position.

👍

Well I just thank God Navy and Coast Guard don't think that insufficient demonstrated shoulder girdle power is a reason to not consider an accomplished candidate. Please no haters....I've got to let the mama bear out a little.
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DS applied to other SA's? It's not over yet!
 
dddad said:
Agree with this entirely.




If the notion is that there are many candidates in these categories that are not “top notch,” this statement is not supportable and pretty out of line. Hope I’m misunderstanding what was stated.
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There are absolutely top notch and good candidates from each of these categories. However, the reality is that the academy doesn't just make up the class with the 1200+ candidates who have the highest WCSs. The academy is given the latitude to pull in candidates who have lower WCSs in order to ensure the class is filled with the demographics that they are seeking to represent the broader Army. Every single candidate who is qualified is a good candidate, but there just aren't enough slots for all of them. The academy is having to make selective decisions, based upon their composition goals. Do you disagree with this?
 
USMAROTCFamily said:
Do you disagree with this?
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I largely agree. It is both a local and national competition and the Army’s needs are paramount. Every year, highly qualified candidates are denied appointments. It is not the highest ~1350 WCSs that receive appointments. I’m sure the evaluations of candidates include a certain number of mistakes across all candidates. The errors by admissions that were acknowledged this week leave candidates and the rest of us with some legitimate concerns. Generally, the processes are good or excellent.
 
superbison007 said:
Is the passing score relative to your height and weight? I threw a 53 and passed, seems unusual.
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No. I have never heard from a credible source that a candidate’s size matters. Perhaps your overall score was higher? Perhaps on pull-ups and push-ups some of a candidate’s repetitions are discarded upon video review. Perhaps more latitude or trust for SLE scores (but this is pure speculation).
 
Just a thought.

A neighbor in our town works for the Admissions Office at an extremely competitive (top 10 in Technology the country) university here in our city. They get many (if not most) of their applicants applying with perfect SAT's, perfect GPA's in HS, huge community involvement, blah, blah blah. Suffice to say, numerically superior to most SA applicants. We had a brief discussion several months ago on what her university looked at to differentiate all of these "near perfect" applicants from the other. She said, that in many cases it came down to the essays. She said a lot of kids at their applicant level came off as self-serving and braggadocio in their essays, or in some cases, did not fully address the prompt in their response. I know that my DS really struggled to answer one of the "crazy" prompts he had to one of his civilian "Plan B" colleges. He still hasn't heard back from THAT place!
Now, I obviously do not know how much "weight" USMA puts on the 3 Candidate Statements, but perhaps they DO take a hard look at what the CC's do submit and it allows them to form a judgement on who would "fit-in" better at West Point (all other things being equal). I'm mean, it is also a Top 10 college at the end of the day.

Truth is, I'm hoping that their admissions decisions don't really come down to a few feet on throwing a basketball. I wan't my son serving next to the BEST, not the best throwing a basketball (necessarily).
 
Basketball Throw--a mystery for the ages--when #1 was at SLE in 2011, the kid in line before him hit the back of the gym with the basketball. Apparently he was a big time shot put athlete. You know...It is a rite of passage. Good that there are videos to help people understand how to improve.
Also, I think USMA does really consider the essays. If one of the biggest predictors of graduation is 'grit'--then the essays are a great place to demonstrate that sort of resilience, perhaps especially for candidates who may not be 1600/4.0 applicants.
 
Given the rigor of the application process and composition of what makes up a WCS I can't imagine an appointment decision boils down to one of six CFA events? For those deserving candidates that ultimately come up short of appointment I suspect some may truly never know all of the specific factor(s) or influences which played into the final outcome.
 
CatC said:
Given the rigor of the application process and composition of what makes up a WCS I can't imagine an appointment decision boils down to one of six CFA events? For those deserving candidates that ultimately come up short of appointment I suspect some may truly never know all of the specific factor(s) or influences which played into the final outcome.
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What took him out of the running was not meeting the threshold score in one event - which caused him to fail the CFA.
 
DrMom said:
Basketball Throw--a mystery for the ages--when #1 was at SLE in 2011, the kid in line before him hit the back of the gym with the basketball. Apparently he was a big time shot put athlete. You know...It is a rite of passage. Good that there are videos to help people understand how to improve.
Also, I think USMA does really consider the essays. If one of the biggest predictors of graduation is 'grit'--then the essays are a great place to demonstrate that sort of resilience, perhaps especially for candidates who may not be 1600/4.0 applicants.
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nypost.com

‘Grit’ more important to success than brains and brawn, West Point study finds

All you need is some true grit. A new study of more than 11,000 West Point cadets over 10 years found that “grit” was the most important trait for success — beating out brains and brawn…
nypost.com nypost.com
 
Right, I did not realize a deficient/failing score in one area would result in failure of the entire CFA. Only question I would then ask is how long before the deadline did your DS complete the CFA and did anyone (ie. the RC or admissions) reach out to notify your DS of this score/result? I thought I'd seen instances where candidates were notified by admissions and were allowed to retake the CFA?
 
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