Loa-next steps

I received an academic LOA from USNA.I am not a recruited athlete.I have all my MOC/VP nomination application papers in.What are the next steps?Do I wait for an interview?Are my chances better with the LOA?Do I call my BNG or the admissions councilor at the MOC office for advice?I read I only need one nomination from any source for appointment.Could I not get an appointment?Thanks for your help!

I also have a question that I will tag with this post concerning an LOA. If you have an LOA, do you have to be the primary nomination to fulfill the nomination requirement of the LOA or no?

Corinth said:

I also have a question that I will tag with this post concerning an LOA. If you have an LOA, do you have to be the primary nomination to fulfill the nomination requirement of the LOA or no?

Click to expand...

No. You just need a nomination. You can be anywhere on a ranked slate or any other type of slate.

If your DS/DD is ranked on a slate, what does that mean? I thought each MOC can only have 5 at an academy at over a 4 year period. How a slate of 10 work?

faststreet said:

If your DS/DD is ranked on a slate, what does that mean? I thought each MOC can only have 5 at an academy at over a 4 year period. How a slate of 10 work?

Click to expand...

Each MOC can nominate up to 10 people for 1 of those 5 slots. There are various ways to do it, but one of them is a "ranked" slate, where the MOC indicates his order of preference as to who gets the appointment. Since at the time nominations are due, applications are not yet completed, DoDMERB exams or waiver may not be complete etc. The highest ranked person on that particular slate who is also fully qualified would get the appointment. There are sticky threads regarding the nomination process at the head of the services academy subforums.

You just need a nomination. You can be anywhere on a ranked slate or any other type of slate.

Click to expand...

Kinnem, say Candidate A gets the principal nom from a MOC. He then receives a SA appointment and is "slotted" to that MOC. Candidate B has an LOA and receives an alternate nom from the same MOC. If he receives an appointment, is he "slotted" to the MOC? If so, wouldn't that mean the MOC would exceed the 5 slots given for each SA?

An extreme example: A MOC gets applications from 10 candidates who each have an LOA. Each candidate is put on the MOC's slate and therefore receives an appointment. This would mean that the MOC has 10 students in the same service academy class which is surely impossible.

I'm sorry if my question is ignorant and tedious. I'm just trying to better understand how nominations work with LOAs.

The MOC would only be charged the principal or if they do competitive it would be the candidate with the highest WCS. The remainders can than come in from other sources, such as the Supe. A Supe cannot nominate, but can be charged.

LOAs may appear common on this site, but they are rare. As an example, for the AFA only about 10% receive an LOA way below the number of charges available from the national pool.

+1 to Pima. A MOC can have oodles of kids from his district in the academy. It's only 5 that can be charged to him. The rest are charged elsewhere, National Pool being another good spot besides what Pima mentioned.

+1 kinnem,

The thing to remember are there are more than just an MOC and the VP noms. There are also Presidential and ROTC noms too. In a state where they do not talk it is possible that the MOCs can have close to a duplicate slate for the Sens.

Candidate Jones can be on 5 slates, plus the VP, but when they get their appointment the SA may decide to charge them to the VP.
Candidate Smith can be the same as Jones, but the SA charges them to ROTC
Candidate Cee the same as above, but they charge them to Presidential
Candidate Delta, they charge to their Congressman, but was on both Sens list.
Candidate Echo is charged to Sen A.
Candidate Fox is charged to Sen. B

The remaining for can come off the list because candidate Jones decided to go to a different SA, thus that slot is now open, thus only 3 are left on the list.

Assume 1 is an LOA, they bring them in via Supe. Now 2 are left.

The other 2 are deemed competitive and come off the national pool.

Thus, leaving 0 without an appointment, yet only 1 will be charged to the MOCs for each of their slates.

I believe I read last yr or the yr before. One of the Sens from VA. had 9 of their 10 noms get an appointment. This is a state that they talk, which means chances of getting more than one nom is uncommon.

It takes a long time to understand the system, mainly because appointments need to be seen like a giant jigsaw puzzle without ever looking at the picture on the box.. It is easy to place the corners and the sides . Think LOA or principal noms., but when you start looking at those with multiple noms, and those with only one nom., you have to find how to match up those pieces perfectly.

Thank you, this is very informative.

My last question: does a candidate have to be on an MOC's slate in order to receive the Supe's nom? If a candidate has an LOA but fails to be slated by an MOC, is there any chance he will nominated by the Supe?

"The Supe's Nom's..."

For the longest time these were a closely guarded secret. Not sure how/why since if you read USC Title 10, they're mentioned there.

At USAFA, I can't speak for the other SA's, these are quietly referred to as "silver bullets." The Supe will use them...but sparingly. I don't know precisely how the process works or who makes the recommendations (I have a pretty good idea but I won't name them here, isn't really important to anyone) but I would imagine USAFA/RR?? gives the list to the Supe and they're done.

If USAFA gave a candidate an LOA and that candidate failed to receive a nomination...then I think it would be up to USAFA/RR to determine whether or not they're going to ask the Supe for a SB...but IMPO, they probably would.

FYI...again, from my perspective only, in 19 years as an ALO, I have NEVER seen a candidate for USAFA with an LOA fail to receive a nomination.

Steve
USAFA ALO
USAFA '83