Virginia Nominations

DD received her email tonight from Senator Warner that she has been nominated to the USNA!
 
DS received his email today from Senator Warner that he was nominated to USMMA. Letter indicates there is just one vacancy and process is still competitive... Though first choices may make more opportunities. Any insight or thoughts on this? DS hasn't completed app process yet for USMMA as he was focused on first choice of USCGA. However, he will get a move on it now! Thoughts on vacancy and chances?
 
Congrats! I don't know anything about the process for USMMA so hopefully someone else will comment and answer your question.
 
Momof3gr&xys said:
DS received his email today from Senator Warner that he was nominated to USMMA. Letter indicates there is just one vacancy and process is still competitive... Though first choices may make more opportunities. Any insight or thoughts on this? DS hasn't completed app process yet for USMMA as he was focused on first choice of USCGA. However, he will get a move on it now! Thoughts on vacancy and chances?
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I thought the USCGA doesn't require a Congressional nomination.
 
It doesn't. USCGA is not DoD, it is Homeland....I think. Just know it is not DoD and no nomination is needed.

That being said before you start twisting yourself in a knot to attend USMMA, do some research.

Jasper, tanker, kp2001 are great resources.

I know some candidates that want to go Navy or AF think that they can go USMMA and commission those routes with their dream career goals are told it is not an easy path.
 
Reapplicant DS received USNA nominations from Senator Kaine and Congressman Wolf and will receive one from his NROTC Commanding Officer. With 2 nominations last year, he did not receive an appointment. While I think he is in a good place where he is, I admire his perseverance to earn an appointment. A bit of advice to all candidates, especially those in competitive districts -- make sure you have a solid Plan B, no matter how many people tell you that you are exactly the kind of candidate they are looking for. Best wishes.


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Is there a comprehensive list that gets posted anywhere for all of Virginia's nominations for the coming year?
 
I doubt it. MOCs may post their nominees. However for various reasons, some only post appointees from their state/district (which may include individuals who didn't get a nom from that particular MOC).
 
Been out of town for the holidays. DS received nomination to USMA from Congressman Connolly VA-11 on 19 Dec 2014. DS is very happy. Dad is very proud.
 
Pima said:
It doesn't. USCGA is not DoD, it is Homeland....I think. Just know it is not DoD and no nomination is needed.

That being said before you start twisting yourself in a knot to attend USMMA, do some research.

Jasper, tanker, kp2001 are great resources.

I know some candidates that want to go Navy or AF think that they can go USMMA and commission those routes with their dream career goals are told it is not an easy path.
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Pima, my Father is in Homeland and he stated that you are correct, USCG is under Homeland not DoD.
 
Quick question here that'd I'd appreciate some feedback on: I know I got Robert Wittman's nomination (VA D-01), but I've still not received notification from him about earning his nomination. However, my AF Academy portal says that a nomination from Wittman was receieved; I also got a letter from Kaine wishing me congratulations upon receiving a Confressional Nomination from a different Congressman (AKA Wittman).

Any thoughts? I assume I got the nomination (my Academy portal says it has been received), but I never got anything in the mail from Wittman.

Also, does receiving a nomination from a competitive state, like VA, boad well for an Appointment? Does that help my case in terms of competitiveness amongst applicants from other states?
 
AF-hopeful20 Did you get an email? My D never got anything in the mail about her nomination, but only heard by email. In any case, if your portal says you got a nomination then you did.

As for whether or not a nomination from Wittman bodes well: well, maybe. I know that it bodes well for Senatorial Nominees, but I am not sure about Congressional. My guess would be that it is a help, although not as much of a help as having one from the entire state.

Good luck!
 
TV4caster said:
AF-hopeful20 Did you get an email? My D never got anything in the mail about her nomination, but only heard by email. In any case, if your portal says you got a nomination then you did.

As for whether or not a nomination from Wittman bodes well: well, maybe. I know that it bodes well for Senatorial Nominees, but I am not sure about Congressional. My guess would be that it is a help, although not as much of a help as having one from the entire state.

Good luck!
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The type of nomination has no bearing on admissions i.e. a presidential is not any more valuable than a senator or congressman.
 
Sydney C. said:
The type of nomination has no bearing on admissions i.e. a presidential is not any more valuable than a senator or congressman.
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I don't know about Presidential nominations, but here is what I was trying to say. From what I am told, a Senatorial Nomination is more valuable than a Congressional Nomination if you consider higher chances of admission to be valuable. The reason is that the depth of candidates 2-10 is generally stronger than numbers 2-10 from a Congressional slate because they are culled from the Statewide pool of applicants. For example: a number of Senators see 5-7 people admitted from their 10 person list, while Congressmen are generally lucky to have a a couple taken from their list.

I am sure there are exceptions to the rule but, in general, the Statewide candidate lists have more admittees than those from a Congressman.
 
There is a difference in being more competitive and more valuable. For some states (e.g, CA), there are obviously more people applying to a Senator than to any individual Rep. That said, Senators typically want to "balance" their slate across the state. So, even if hypothetically, the 10 "most qualified" candidates were all from the LA area, you can be sure that there will be nominees from other parts of the state, even if they are not as qualified.

Also, for some states where there is only one Rep (e.g., AK, WY), there is really no difference in competition. And, in some states, there may be fewer qualified candidates in the entire state than there are nomination slots meaning that certain districts in the country are actually MUCH more competitive than some entire states.

For the above reasons, Admissions doesn't care whether you have a Sen or Rep nomination in terms of how competitive you are. IOW, a Rep nominee from northern VA or parts of MD may be much more competitive than a Sen nominee from certain states.

As for how many on each slate are taken -- again, I know for a fact that some Rep slates have 8-10 of their nominees ultimately receive appointments and some Sen slates see only one. Even within a "competitive state," when the Senator "balances" his/her slate by taking candidates from different regions of the state, one of those candidates may well be "less qualified" than the #2 or even #10 candidate from a hyper-competitive district within that state. It is totally dependent on the quality of the applicant pool in each district and state -- across the board generalizations don't really hold.
 
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I agree USNA.

VA is a pime example of Senators spreading the wealth. No offense any poster living in Emporia or Roanoke, but Fairfax county HSs rank top in the state, and many are in the top 100 in the nation. That being said, Senators represent their constituents in every county. They spread the wealth from Norfolk to Windy Gap to Arlington. There would be some splaining to do if Sen. Kaine released his slate and all of them were from the same one or two counties year after year.
~ Parents would not be happy with the idea that just because they live in a small town like Emporia their kids chances would decrease regarding receiving a nomination.
~ Same would be true for Congressman Connolly if 8 of his 10 were always Herndon and the other 2 were split between woodrbidge and Quantico.

I know in PW county the school board decided to change their grading scale the year my DD graduated HS. It use to be a 7 point scale, it is now 10 points because it became apparent that the kids were taking a hit for IS college admissions. A 93 for them was a 3.6. An 84 was a 2.8. Whereas in other parts of the state was higher using a 10 point scale. They also changed at my kids school to an exact decimal. A 93 now was 3.72 (4.0 x 93). I believe Fairfax also now uses a 10 point scale.
~ This occurred because the parents screamed at the school board.
 
Not to belabor the point, but two other things to consider:

It is is GENERALLY true in supercompetitive states that the top couple of folks on the Senator's slates are probably more qualified than #9 and #10 on most of the Rep's slates in that state. However, I have seen kids get noms from Senators whom I didn't think were very special at all (but obviously, the Senator's staff did). And the converse is also true -- kids who get Rep noms who are IMHO more outstanding than those who got a Sen. nom. A lot of it is in the eyes of the beholder, how well someone "gels" with a nominating committee, how well someone looks on paper (for those who don't do interviews), etc. Also, if MOCs coordinate on noms (only giving one nom to one SA to any single candidate), that can influence the slates.

Finally, even Rep's strive for balance, although usually among schools vs. geography. There may be a magnet school or excellent private school or the best h.s. in the area in the Rep's district such that the Rep could give most or all of his/her noms to students from such schools. But if the Rep is smart, he/she is going to make sure that the noms are distributed among a number of schools throughout the district. So, even there, some "better qualified" candidates may lose out in the interest of distribution.

It's not a perfect process. That said, over the years, I cannot recall a single candidate who didn't receive a nom from any source that I felt was signficantly more outstanding than those who received noms in the state/district for that year. So, I do think the process is generally fair.
 
I should have added that I was talking about comparing Senatorial Nominations to Congressional Nominations within the same state.

Edit- I agree with nearly everything you said in post #37. What I was talking about was overall averages, but maybe I am wrong.

I still contend that if you take the average number of people taken off Senator's lists that it will be higher than the average number of people taken off Congressmen's lists. Maybe that is only true for very competitive states??? For example, CA and VA generally have 5-7 people taken from the Senators lists. There is no way that 5-7 people are taken off the average CA Congressman' list. Do you think examples like these are an aberration or is my theory applicable to the lists from an "average" state?
 
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