2.0 at USNA vs 2.5 NROTC

I'll jump in here. I think comparing USNA and ROTC is comparing apples to oranges. Looking at how both programs operate should show how things are sort of different. USNA is a standalone command with a direct report to the CNO. ROTC is under NETC (a two star command). USNA provides a relatively homogeneous experience to all. ROTC units can vary widely and the schools they are at can vary as well. The Academy has its own "isms" as well. For example, USNA has its own PRT and grading scale for the PRT. We have letter grades instead of categories. ROTC uses the fleet standards.

As a newly commissioned ENS, I've learned that everyone who earns a commission is highly qualified, regardless of their commissioning source. Also, college glory goes away. People don't care if you were the anchorman at USNA or the Batt CDR for your ROTC unit. Sure there is good-natured bashing, but nobody is looking at an Academy ENS from a ROTC point of view thinking they had an easier ride. That's a two (three if you count OCS/ODS) way street. Sure, one could always see a path of lesser resistance and wish they took it, but I'm a huge believer in the butterfly effect and that everything happens for a reason. Everyone has their path and one isn't necessarily better than the others.

P.S. Trying to figure out the Navy's logic is a fruitless endeavor. Play the game and you'll get rewarded!
 
How about learn from your battles so you can win the war?

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
— Buddha

If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.
— Sun Tzu

The reason why many fail in battle is because they wait until the hour of battle. The reason why others succeed is because they have gained their victory on their knees long before the battle came. Anticipate your battles; fight them on your knees before temptation comes, and you will always have victory.
— Torrey

It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.
— Norman Schwarzkopf
.
 
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A1Janitor said:
They should do a study on the parents of midshipmen. I suspect the parents today are much smarter than they were years ago, and are able to pass on more well rounded and smarter candidates.
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I've got to think about that one for a minute.
 
A1Janitor said:
They should do a study on the parents of midshipmen. I suspect the parents today are much smarter than they were years ago, and are able to pass on more well rounded and smarter candidates.
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How do you propose to measure "smarter" ? I will venture that both my Grandfather and my Father were at least as "smart" as any parent today. (Both were well educated engineers, and very successful in their respective industries). I don't for a second think its because parents are smarter or the students "better rounded." My observation, based upon almost 20 years as a BGO, many Admissions briefings, and observing the Brigade, is there is an increased emphasis on grades/SAT scores over other factors in the admissions process, as well as increased emphasis on academics while a Midshipman.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of very smart well rounded Midshipman , but like it or not, USNA is not the same as it was 35 years ago. Some of the change is good, but time and history will show if the kindler , gentler approach is the right way to train young Officers.
 
Old Navy BGO said:
How do you propose to measure "smarter" ? I will venture that both my Grandfather and my Father were at least as "smart" as any parent today. (Both were well educated engineers, and very successful in their respective industries). I don't for a second think its because parents are smarter or the students "better rounded." My observation, based upon almost 20 years as a BGO, many Admissions briefings, and observing the Brigade, is there is an increased emphasis on grades/SAT scores over other factors in the admissions process, as well as increased emphasis on academics while a Midshipman.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of very smart well rounded Midshipman , but like it or not, USNA is not the same as it was 35 years ago. Some of the change is good, but time and history will show if the kindler , gentler approach is the right way to train young Officers.
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I was joking!

My son is at USNA despite his father being an idiot.
 
Old Navy BGO said:
Is USNA harder to get good grades than State U ? Years ago, I would say most certainly. In my day, a 4.0 and Stars were pretty rare, and I would be willing to be that a large number of Classmates had GPA's in the 2.0-2.5 range. Certain professors took great pride in beating up the Midshipman (academically) and washing them out of their program (Is that the better professors that you are referring to ?)
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When I was a 1/C mid, my class was found to have the highest composite GPA in over 10 years and we were rewarded for it. That GPA was in the mid 2.6's.
 
A1Janitor said:
My son is at USNA despite his father being an idiot.
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:) And I went to NAPS first, despite my Grandfather and Father being the smartest men I have ever met. (BTW, I never admitted that when I was younger).

A6E Dad said:
they said the same thing when they stopped hanging midshipmen at sea during fleet training
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They stopped ? I must have missed something...... :) I am sure that Skippers have been lamenting the inability to impose corporal punishment upon JO's since that time.

Actually, wasn't a Midshipman hanging that was the impetus for establishing the Naval Academy ?
 
Old Navy BGO said:
Actually, wasn't a Midshipman hanging that was the impetus for establishing the Naval Academy ?
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the pic i posted is of the Somers with two mids hanging from the yardarm in 1842. the captain decided to hang them for alleged mutiny, even though they were due in New York only 13 days later.

one of mids was the son of the Secretary of War. he went to greet his son upon the ship's return, and it must have been an awkward conversation. "Hello Captain, I can't seem to locate my son. He's a midshipman on your ship". "Oh, yeah, sorry sir, we had to, uh, you know, kill him...."

So, yes, after this, they determined that there needed to be a better way to train officers :)
 
Dr. Strange Love said:
How about learn from your battles so you can win the war?

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
— Buddha

If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.
— Sun Tzu

The reason why many fail in battle is because they wait until the hour of battle. The reason why others succeed is because they have gained their victory on their knees long before the battle came. Anticipate your battles; fight them on your knees before temptation comes, and you will always have victory.
— Torrey

It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.
— Norman Schwarzkopf
.
Click to expand...

I’ll add one to your list....

“Until The Battle Is Won”
WP 2021
 
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DKTKT said:
Mmmmm... I was a college professor for decades, and if I ever gave a student with an 89.9 lower than some flavor of an A, I am pretty sure that I would have been drawn and quartered. (I don't know how course evals and the like are used at USNA, but at the schools I taught at, the students are the consumer of the product and you had to make them happy. Jeez, I actually got one of my Dept. in trouble by catching too many cheaters. Seriously. The Provost said that the Dept must be doing something wrong if so many students were cheating.) DS actually got the 89.9/B final grade in a course, so I know that happens. But I never saw the same in my time teaching at civilian schools.
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Boy this brings back bad memories from 40 years ago. SC112 and Prof. Sheetz(?). Was also the recipient of the 89.9 B. He at least gave me the courtesy to review my final to make sure he hadn't made a mistake marking it. And his congratulations for having the highest grade in the 100+ person lecture section. Somehow that was cold comfort.
 
in most colleges, a 77 avg is a 2.5
at USNA a 77 avg is a 2.0

so maybe the minimums are not that different
 
8th Wing Refugee said:
Boy this brings back bad memories from 40 years ago. SC112 and Prof. Sheetz(?). Was also the recipient of the 89.9 B. He at least gave me the courtesy to review my final to make sure he hadn't made a mistake marking it. And his congratulations for having the highest grade in the 100+ person lecture section. Somehow that was cold comfort.
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Even then, very few folks outside of USNA that I knew really "got" that A's were not only hard to get, they were at times non-existent. As has already been mentioned here, my grades in Grad School were a full point higher than my USNA grades and that was while working full time plus overtime as well as having command of a Reserve Unit (and also being a husband and parent).
 
OldRetSWO said:
Even then, very few folks outside of USNA that I knew really "got" that A's were not only hard to get, they were at times non-existent. As has already been mentioned here, my grades in Grad School were a full point higher than my USNA grades and that was while working full time plus overtime as well as having command of a Reserve Unit (and also being a husband and parent).
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I tried that on my Mother after she asked why I couldn't make the Dean's List (3.4 in my day) like the kid who lived across the street who was at Colgate. No sale.
 
OldRetSWO said:
Even then, very few folks outside of USNA that I knew really "got" that A's were not only hard to get, they were at times non-existent. As has already been mentioned here, my grades in Grad School were a full point higher than my USNA grades and that was while working full time plus overtime as well as having command of a Reserve Unit (and also being a husband and parent).
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A relative of mine got a masters locally. Straight As - not at all like the bachelor degree.

Professors realize they go on for degrees with families and jobs - and grading is different.

Not the rule ... but a data point around me.
 
OldRetSWO said:
Even then, very few folks outside of USNA that I knew really "got" that A's were not only hard to get, they were at times non-existent. As has already been mentioned here, my grades in Grad School were a full point higher than my USNA grades and that was while working full time plus overtime as well as having command of a Reserve Unit (and also being a husband and parent).
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That seems to be what I have seen as well. My grad school seemed to treat B's as C's and were reluctant to give anyone a grade below B. To graduate, I think I could have had 1 class below B and the average had to be >=3. I ended up over 1 point higher than my State STEM U undergrad.
 
I quit as a professor of engineering several years back and went back to the private sector, in part because of the "student as the consumer" ethos (I taught at a private university). They were "the paying customers" (actually their parents) and demanded an A or B. I gave out C's and on rare occasions, D's. I bent over backward to help struggling students bring their game up. I mostly taught seniors. Very disappointing. I was "asked" by the Department Head to not give any C's or D's. There were some really bright students (I hired two of them) but some that you wondered what the heck they were doing spending their parents' money like that. My last year, I got torched by several students on the end of semester faculty review because of my grading. I was willing to give all A's if it was A work. I taught one senior-level course (it was a challenging, quantitative modeling elective) in which I spent the first two weeks teaching dimensional analysis and unit conversion (something you should have down cold your first semester in college).

When I interview candidates (most have advanced degrees), if I see more than one B on a transcript for graduate classes, I get worried, because grades should be meaningless in grad school and if a professor gives an MS or PhD student in engineering a C, that is a huge red flag for me. In some cases, I will call up the professor to discuss before making a hiring decision and invariably I get a carefully worded "watch out". So grades do matter in grad school - just not the way you might think. I will always forgive Cs (and even Ds) the first two years of undergrad as long as I see As and Bs junior and senior year.
 
Our 2/c year, second semester, we were dying in Wires (Electrical Engineering for non-engineering majors). Going into final exams, the class average was a mid-range D, with lots and lots of folks with Fs. Keep in mind that everyone took the exact same exams every 4 weeks. They were looking at literally hundreds of mids in summer school. The solution was to give a straight-forward final exam, which counted around 25-33% of the total grade. If you studied, you got an A or B. Solved the problem of summer school but, as you can imagine, most of the class had Cs or less in this 4-hour core course. Kind of hard to get a 3.4 with that as a start.

Our company was known as being strong academically. Even so, we typically had dozens on the Ac Unsat list every 4 weeks. It was brutal.

A lot of good people who worked really hard got booted for academics and a lot more flirted with a 2.0. They weren't dumb and they weren't slackers. It was just a different system. Looking back, I'm not sure it was the best way to approach things.

Some of the vestiges of the 2.0 may date from those days. If they'd had a 2.5 minimum for USNA to commission, at least 1/3 of the class (and possibly more) wouldn't have graduated.
 
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