Multiple Academy Nominations ~ How??

My son as a dream to be a military aviator. He is not particularly partial to one branch over another and would like to apply for all the service academies and see where it leads.

I've been seeing posts about people that have applied for and received nominations to multiple academies. How is the best way to approach this? My MOC will only give one nomination to one academy. So do we apply to him for 1st choice and then senators/VP for additional academies?

Any help would be appreciated...

Are you sure your MOC will only give one nomination to one academy? For many MOC's as long as your stats are competitive enough and they have vacancies they will nominate you for more than one academy if you express interest. I would say strike up a dialogue with your MOC about this and also check to see if there have been any past forum posts from candidates in your district as many candidates desire to be nominated for more than one of the academies. I would says there is a low chance of being nominated by two nominating bodies (VP+MOC) (Senator+MOC) as the academies typically have very good dialogue with the Congressional offices as to who needs a nomination and who already has one. However there are exceptions to this and I'm sure it's possible to be nominated by two officials, just more difficult. If this truly is the case and your MOC will only nominate a candidate to one academy I would say continue to research the academies and try and narrow it down as best you can to one academy.

@ArmyVet we live in a competitive area as well and our MOC actually work with one another and they only give nomination to one academy. They do not nominate among each other. Ie if one gave nomination for USAFA others would not give nomination even to another academy. . Tell your son to apply to all of the academies that he is interested. Apply to all nomination sources including VP. If he is highly competitive and the academy really want him it will work out. Both my DD and DS got nominations to USNA and USAFA. My DD got nomination from MOC, and not sure where the second one came from. My DS got one from MOC and one from Superintendent.

Thank you for your replies! His top two are USNA and USAFA due to his aviation goals. USCGA third, but no nomination needed, and USMA 4th (breaking my Army heart). While he wants an academy, ultimately, he wants aviation and will take whatever road gets him to the end goal, whether is ROTC or OCS as backups. I was just curious how to go about the multiple noms....

ArmyVet -- it looks like your son has the added benefit of applying for the Presidential nomination. He can look at the requirements now and when the time is right he should apply. http://www.usna.edu/Admissions/Steps-for-Admission/Nomination-Sources/The-President-of-the-US.php

The VP nom is a long shot but everyone should apply, as well as to both senators and congressman in your district. He should look at the service academy websites for other potential nomination sources (JROTC/ROTC, child of disabled veterans/medal of honor awardee, etc.). http://www.usma.edu/admissions/SitePages/Apply_Nominations.aspx

ArmyVet -- If you don't mind me asking, what state and congressional district are you?? I'm Texas D25 and thought initially that my MOC would only nominate to one academy as well but this ended up not being the case.

mfrey said:

ArmyVet -- If you don't mind me asking, what state and congressional district are you?? I'm Texas D25 and thought initially that my MOC would only nominate to one academy as well but this ended up not being the case.

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We are TX D19 ~ I'm going to do some more checking and make some phone calls. The main office for our congressman is in our city. Anyone know if they allow potential applicants to do summer volunteer ~ would it help their chances?

I doubt interning for Rep. Neugebauer would help out very much because he will not be running for reelection this campaign season so you will be dealing with a whole other representative (if your DS/DD is H.S. Class of 2018 or later that is.) In addition to this, the nomination procedures will probably change as well so you may get a representative that will nominate to more than one academy.

mfrey said:

I doubt interning for Rep. Neugebauer would help out very much because he will not be running for reelection this campaign season so you will be dealing with a whole other representative (if your DS/DD is H.S. Class of 2018 or later that is.) In addition to this, the nomination procedures will probably change as well so you may get a representative that will nominate to more than one academy.

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I didn't specifically mean Rep. Neubarger, but just in general? So the nomination procedures are determined by the specific representative??? I didn't realize that...

Yes, each representative has a board that assembles each fall and looks at each of the candidates that submit an application for congressional nomination. Although the procedures are nearly exact between each representative, there are no laws or guidelines that the representative must adhere to, aside from the limit on nominations per each available slot, and each representative can only have 5 cadets enrolled in each of the academies at any given time. This is why many people believe a candidates best shot for nomination lies with their district representative, then the state senators, then the vice president (for a typical scenario in which one is only eligible for these three. There are other nominating bodies but many candidates don't qualify for them such as: presidential, JROTC, Child of MoH Recipient, etc.) The reason for this being that each of these nominating bodies is only allowed to nominate 10 candidates for each available slot (out of 5). So when in contention for your district representative's nomination you are only going against other candidates from your district but when in contention for the state senator's (Cornyn & Cruz) nomination you are against kids from all over Texas and when in contention for a vice presidential nomination you are against kids from all over the United States.

So it is possible that when Rep. Neubarger goes out of office you could get a representative that runs their nomination procedures completely different.

^The nomination process is initially handled by your MOC's in-office coordinator, who will gather the applications and forward them to the members of the nomination committee (not the MOC). The committee may be small (2-3) or larger (4-5+), but the committee will review the applications and do the interviewing. Your son may meet the MOC at the interview (if he receives an interview -- some MOC receive so many applications that not all applicants are invited to interview). But your MOC will not be directly interviewing applicants. Often times the MOC holds a reception after the interviews for all who applied or only those receiving nominations.

Your son should be the one to call each coordinator and ask questions. Likewise, the MOC's websites should have a lot of info, including FAQ for the process and requirements, including deadline dates. If your son is a sophomore, he would not start the interview process for another year -- ~January of his junior year.

ArmyVet your son should certainly pursue all possible paths to a nomination. I believe the above posts, identify all the sources. MOC and Senator policies do vary and yes many only will allow one nomination. Additionally, some MOC and Senators coordinate so that you are effectively limited to one nomination from your state.

As ca2midwestmom has suggested your son should reach out to whomever coordinates the nomination processes for your Senators and Representative. Hopefully, they would share with him the details as to their current nominating practices. That is both any limitations and coordination which goes on as well as their typical characteristics of the slate they pass to the SA. That is: principal nomination, ranked slate, or unranked slate. Although, as mfrey points out you may have to wait until after an election for the relevant representative.

In addition to focusing on the sources of nominations your son should certainly be working on whatever he can do to increase his chances of receiving a nomination. I may be going a bit off topic with the following. That is investigating those things which can increase ones chance of receiving a nomination. For example, in some states Boys/Girls State may help significantly and could be an effort he would need to make during Junior year. You might want to investigate that now for your state to plan for the coming year and his seeking in state nominations. Here's a thread relating to that subject:

http://www.serviceacademyforums.com/index.php?threads/boys-state.47891/#post-474964

That post included a link to a RAND white paper/study.

http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR700/RR723/RAND_RR723.pdf

The Rand report, particularly pages 8 through 10 provide insights, at least at one point in time and for a specific SA as to how they factor different aspects of a candidate's profile into a WCS. However, I suspect the SAs are more likely to be similar than dissimilar in their practices. So this probably provides insights which are relevant to all SA.

In the case of my own DS, as a sophomore he was initially concerned when he viewed SA incoming class statistics and feared that one had to have many more sports and extracurriculars than those in which he was participating. However, if you look at the pie chart on page 9 of the RAND report, you see that at least with West Point at that point in time athletics did not supersede extracurricular activities, faculty appraisals, or the CFA in importance. Additionally, the weights of different activities may provide some insights as to how to prioritize potential choices.

Lastly, while not typically part of the nomination process you should encourage him to train for the CFA early, Junior year, and run the whole sequence periodically. It is the one part of the WCS which is almost completely under the control of the candidate and pretty straight forward given appropriate training time for a candidate to do well on.

Good luck to your son.

The simple answer is have him apply for all NOM's for which he is eligible (you will find the same advice on the SA admissions websites).

You have no control over how a specific MOC chooses to run their process or what criteria they consider. While you may be curious to know whether your MOC uses principal nomination, ranked slate, etc. it really has no bearing on how a specific candidate conducts themselves during the application/interview process. Activities such as: donating, volunteer work, 'getting to know' your MOC, etc. is NOT necessary for how the NOM process works.

I wouldn't try to 'game' the admissions process as each SA might have different formulas for their WCS which is entirely separate from the NOM process. Studies from 10+ years ago may/may not be the same formula used today. Your question was in regard to NOM's not the general admissions process, however both of these topics have a LOT of prior threads.