CFA Retakes

It is possible to retake the CFA with the permission of the regional admissions commander. We asked our FFR and he submitted the request. When it was approved, the portal changed and allowed CFA scores to be entered.

I don't see why you wouldnt be able to.

Yes, but you need permission from the RC, and your RC may not being willing to do so. If you take the CFA and you aren't happy with your scores/you are sure if you passed, it may be in your best interest to not submit that CFA and retake the CFA. That way you don't risk the RC refusing to allow you to retake the CFA and if you do worse on the retake you can simply submit the one you took first. I didn't do as well as I would have liked on my first CFA so I didn't send it to USMA. I then retook it and did a bit better and submitted the retake's scores.

frenzymando said:

Yes, but you need permission from the RC, and your RC may not being willing to do so. If you take the CFA and you aren't happy with your scores/you are sure if you passed, it may be in your best interest to not submit that CFA and retake the CFA. That way you don't risk the RC refusing to allow you to retake the CFA and if you do worse on the retake you can simply submit the one you took first. I didn't do as well as I would have liked on my first CFA so I didn't send it to USMA. I then retook it and did a bit better and submitted the retake's scores.

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I believe I had a discussion with frenzymando before that his posting might lead other candidates to believe that candidates submit their CFA score. The only thing candidate does is input the email of CFA administrator in the candidate portl, then the CFA administrator SUBMITS the CFA score.

When I administer a CFA, I just submit the score regardless how the candidate think he or he did. If I don’t get an email for West Point to administer CFA, I won’t administer the CFA. I do offer to administer practice CFA, but the practice CFA doesn’t turn into an official CFA if the candidate does good.

MemberLG said:

When I administer a CFA, I just submit the score regardless how the candidate think he or he did.

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If the candidate didn't think he/she did well, why submit it? Have them take it again and see if they do better the next time.

buff81 said:

If the candidate didn't think he/she did well, why submit it? Have them take it again and see if they do better the next time.

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I don't need the candidate to waste my time. Why ask for a CFA when you are not ready. I see it like a SAT, where your only option is cancel the score before you get the official result not after you get the result. Lastly, who is in charge? There are reasons why the admissions office don't divulge passing CFA scores and this might be one of those reasons.

Helping a candidate is not a waste of time.
Many candidates don't know exactly how they will score until they actually do it. Once the test is done, you know how they did. If they didn't perform at least to average, why turn them in. If you do turn in scores that are not to average, you will probably have to retest a competitive candidate anyway. If it is too time consuming on your schedule, then just have the candidate have their PE teacher (or one of the other qualified administrators) do it.
I don't see this as a 'who is in charge' issue. I see this as 'How can I best help my candidate.'

buff81 said:

Helping a candidate is not a waste of time.
Many candidates don't know exactly how they will score until they actually do it. Once the test is done, you know how they did. If they didn't perform at least to average, why turn them in. If you do turn in scores that are not to average, you will probably have to retest a competitive candidate anyway. If it is too time consuming on your schedule, then just have the candidate have their PE teacher (or one of the other qualified administrators) do it.
I don't see this as a 'who is in charge' issue. I see this as 'How can I best help my candidate.'

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I don’t think I am helping candidates by holding their hands or not holding them accountable. I offer to administer practice CFA. But when a candidate asks me to administer a CFA, I expect them to be ready and I am doing it for record.

I don’t have any sympathy for candidates that don’t have a clue how they will perform before taking the test. Hope is not an option that somehow a candidate that can’t even do one pull up will somehow magically do five pull ups when he takes the CFA. Competitive candidates supposed to be smart, they should be able to find what the average CFA scores are and know what they need to do be ready. If they are If not, they don’t deserve to consider as a competitive candidate. Not being able to pass the CFA is a possible indicator of maturity. Had a candidate that failed the CFA, but because he wasn’t athletic, ran the mile under 6:00, just failed an event because he didn’t practice the event.


Perhaps I am old and outdated, but as far as I know many things life we don’t get to pick when to turn it in, especially in the Army.

I don’t care what other folks do. I was concerned that other folks might be mislead to think that CFA administers don’t have to submit CFA if candidates ask them not to.

There is a reason why a SA Admissions office don’t like SA Forum – information without any quality control. frenzymando seems to be a good kid, but I don’t agree with some of advices he is giving out. The worst case scenario is a forum member takes his advice, unfortunately for him or her, I am asked to be the CFA administrator, the kid doesn’t do good, asks me to not submit the CFA, I submit the CFA anyway. I am pretty sure the Admissions Office will got with me.

P.S. you be surprised how some candidates can't find someone to administer the CFA for them. I am their last result.

Here is the plan we took with my DS. It seems to be working although he has not done the real test with the P.E. teacher yet.
First we did each event individually (except the mile because he was running a lot in football and was not worried about that one)
This gave a base line and that's when he started focusing on pull ups and pushups.
Then after a couple of months we started doing mock CFAs to get the feel for the timing and the fatigue of doing them back to back.
The sit ups, then rest 3 minutes, then pushups, followed by an 8 minute rest, then a timed mile, is definitely something you should practice a few times before you do it for real. We have done 2 mock CFAs so far and plan one more, then the real one. He has gone from 3 pull ups to 7. This was the one I was most worried about. Push ups have increased by 10 and situps have also increased by more than 10. The others were pretty good from the beginning and remain pretty good.
The moral of the story?
Do not do this test without practice.

Great advice, Brawny. I spent many hours in the gym w/ my DS with a basketball and a tape measure. For skinny folks who are not very tall, that one can be a killer...but with practice, they will get better.