USAFA Applications down 27.6%?

And do you have any idea of what the parents of south Texas are so upset about that they would not have their kids serve their country in the US military During a time of combat deployments or future combat deployments?

is this about the vax?

If not I would be curious specifically what they are so upset about. Especially if you think it actually impacts admissions.
I'm not sure applications are affected down here. Maybe, but it didn't seem like it during the nominations process. Some people could be upset about the vax, for sure. TX colleges aren't requiring it.
 
Many interesting points here. What surprised me was not just the drop in applicants, but the fact that 1375 of the 1775 qualified applicants were offered appointments. Only 400 qualified applicants were not offered appointments. That's startling to me. That means 77% of qualified applicants were offered appointments. In the 2025 class, only 43% of the qualified applicants were offered admission (1428 of 3279).

As for reasons for the decline, it's probably a combination of everything mentioned. Airlines are desperate for pilots, the job market is hot, and many kids don't want the vaccine. Obesity is a big issue as well.

Proud to be in the 22% of qualified candidates who did not get an appointment! I continue to defy the odds by all means possible. :cool:
 
Honestly , in my humble opinion , if a candidate truly wants to apply to a SA , they will find a way to train and pass the CFA .
This is a great point. DS knew how critical the CFA was for him not having a varsity sport so he trained relentlessly for the CFA and crushed it. If someone wants to get in to a SA, they need to put in the work. I'm totally fine with something like the SAT or CFA being a deterrent. Our country deserves only the best and dedicated. Oh man, what we had to go through to have DS take the ACT during the pandemic!!
 
This is a great point. DS knew how critical the CFA was for him not having a varsity sport so he trained relentlessly for the CFA and crushed it. If someone wants to get in to a SA, they need to put in the work. I'm totally fine with something like the SAT or CFA being a deterrent. Our country deserves only the best and dedicated. Oh man, what we had to go through to have DS take the ACT during the pandemic!!

We traveled to CT from NYC for my DD to take the SAT in her junior year . Fortunately, by her senior year , she was able to take it near us . And I remember reading many stories on this forum of candidates in California having to travel to different states and the stress they were going through having to book hotels so their kids could take the ACT. If there is a will, there is a way…
 
We live in a large city that had some of the most stringent COVID restrictions in the country . DD had her track and swim season eliminated , gyms were closed and her classes were online . I can see that being a factor in the CFA . We also went through periods of reopening briefly and then lockdowns again when many other cities didn’t. She did have to train for it , specifically the pull-ups . We ordered a pull up bar online and installed it in her bedroom and she was able to increase her pull-ups from two (barely) to 7. Her brother who is older and played varsity volleyball and basketball in high school , was unable to workout or participate in intramurals in college because of covid restrictions . He trained intensely for a physical for the Troopers, and passed , by one push-up and just under the 1.5 mile time required . DD was on this forum a lot when she was applying and there are some posts and threads that suggest that doing well on the CFA seemed like an important part of the application . Someone earlier on this thread referenced to qualified candidates deciding not to apply to a SA because they couldn’t pass the CFA . Honestly , in my humble opinion , if a candidate truly wants to apply to a SA , they will find a way to train and pass the CFA .
As I tell all my candidates, the CFA is an open book test. You know what is on it and you know the "average" score. If you really want to go to a SA, you will do what you need to do to pass it (and score above the average). For most, it's all about putting in the time and effort.
 
The numbers will undoubtedly improve next year, simply due to statistical probability and regression to the mean.

Regression to the mean is absolutely a thing, but really only applies if the "observations" (in this case the number of applicants in an individual year is a single observation) are randomly sampled from an identical distribution. In other words that there are no systematic changes from one year to the next. I think many could argue that systematic changes have occurred and consequently changed the underlying distribution. Take the relaxation of the standardized testing requirement at other universities as an example of a systematic change.

Think of it like this. Imagine a basketball player having a bell curve distribution of in-game performance. For any individual game, he "samples" from this bell curve for a realization of performance for that game. Say for a particular game the basketball player performed poorly relative to his usual "average" performance. He "sampled" from the lower tail of his bell curve performance distribution. Then on the next game, provided no systematic changes have occurred that would change his bell curve performance distribution, he has a substantial probability of "sampling" a performance that is better than his previous. This is regression to the mean.

But say instead that a systematic change did occur. The basketball team traded away all the player's teammates, replacing them with new and unfamiliar faces. The basketball player's entire bell curve performance distribution will change due to this, likely shifting down, because they are not used to working with the other members of the team. New games played, with new "samples" from bell curve performance distribution, can no longer regress to the original mean because the performance distribution itself has changed. You might say that over time the new members will become familiar and work better with each other. That is a systematic change as well. One that would improve the performance distribution. We would observe games where a player performs much better than expected, but he'll be less likely to regress because that individual performance was sampled from a distribution that has shifted in the positive direction.

As an aside, here's a quote that is tangentially relevant:
I had the most satisfying Eureka experience of my career while attempting to teach flight instructors that praise is more effective than punishment for promoting skill-learning. When I had finished my enthusiastic speech, one of the most seasoned instructors in the audience raised his hand and made his own short speech, which began by conceding that positive reinforcement might be good for the birds, but went on to deny that it was optimal for flight cadets. He said, "On many occasions I have praised flight cadets for clean execution of some aerobatic maneuver, and in general when they try it again, they do worse. On the other hand, I have often screamed at cadets for bad execution, and in general they do better the next time. So please don't tell us that reinforcement works and punishment does not, because the opposite is the case." This was a joyous moment, in which I understood an important truth about the world: because we tend to reward others when they do well and punish them when they do badly, and because there is regression to the mean, it is part of the human condition that we are statistically punished for rewarding others and rewarded for punishing them. I immediately arranged a demonstration in which each participant tossed two coins at a target behind his back, without any feedback. We measured the distances from the target and could see that those who had done best the first time had mostly deteriorated on their second try, and vice versa. But I knew that this demonstration would not undo the effects of lifelong exposure to a perverse contingency.
- Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize winner in Economic Sciences
 
My son knew he wanted to apply to USAFA & Navy for years. In the middle of his junior year he received a letter from West Point that said based on scores, blah blah he should consider applying. We discussed & he decided to apply for Summer Seminars with all 3. He was accepted and able to attend West Point & Navy‘s because they were virtual but I think the virtual seminars turned a lot of people off. It worked great for him & West Point put together an impressive package of swag and a great virtual product. Then he was invited to a dinner to learn more about West Point. Needless to say those efforts pushed him to apply there as well. He‘s at USAFA and thrilled but from our experience West Point had amazing outreach, USAFA & Navy had zero. at the time I thought it might just be our area, we hear of kids going to USAFA and Navy all the time and not as much to West Point, but this makes me wonder.
I'm currently a High School Senior and I received an invitation to a West Point sponsored Lunch during my Junior year as a part of my JROTC program. I agree that West Point definitely had better outreach, I live one state over from the Air Force Academy on an Air Base and yet haven't heard a word from the Air Force Academy besides what I sought out myself. I'm still applying for the Air Force Academy and my local AFROTC over West Point but I would have liked to see more active attempts at Recruiting from USAFA.
 
Rising woke-ness and a general feeling that the current administration is not something worth fighting for. Take that to the bank. Leadership begets more leadership, and the general feeling is that there is no devotion to duty and honor coming out of this administration, and shills like Milley are not worthy to march behind.
 
I'm currently a High School Senior and I received an invitation to a West Point sponsored Lunch during my Junior year as a part of my JROTC program. I agree that West Point definitely had better outreach, I live one state over from the Air Force Academy on an Air Base and yet haven't heard a word from the Air Force Academy besides what I sought out myself. I'm still applying for the Air Force Academy and my local AFROTC over West Point but I would have liked to see more active attempts at Recruiting from USAFA.
Why do you need to be recruited, to be more interested in attending? Just curious. If you are interested in attending USAFA, why would you feel you want more recruitement? Especially being close geographically. You would already be familiar with them. Seems prudent to not waste tax dollars on this, imo.
 
Why do you need to be recruited, to be more interested in attending? Just curious. If you are interested in attending USAFA, why would you feel you want more recruitement? Especially being close geographically. You would already be familiar with them. Seems prudent to not waste tax dollars on this, imo.
I wasn't familiar with them. I was always interested in the Air Force, but it wasn't until I was researching it that I discovered USAFA. On the other hand I had always heard of West Point. And the recruitment/exposure wouldn't be for me, it would be for addressing the main issue proposed by this thread, less applications being sent into USAFA. More exposure would play a role in getting more applicants. And yes, getting people more interested in USAFA would be beneficial to those on the fence, if someone was stuck choosing between USMA, USNA, and USAFA, but were being actively approached by the Navy and the Army with dinners, visitations, and other propaganda, the Air Force falls a bit behind. And sure I'm pretty close geographically, but it was still West Point that reached out, and if I was someone with no clear plan or idea of what branch I wanted to serve already, then I would be sure to hit up the Academy that reached out first rather than the one that did not at all.
 
Rising woke-ness and a general feeling that the current administration is not something worth fighting for. Take that to the bank. Leadership begets more leadership, and the general feeling is that there is no devotion to duty and honor coming out of this administration, and shills like Milley are not worthy to march behind.
But fundamentally the U.S. military doesn't fight for the administration, we defend the constitution
 
And out of the 1173 that started at USNA, 70 already left.
How does that compare to other years? USCGA had an unusually low number of drops last year (7 of 285 during swab summer) but it was much higher, back near a more normal 13 this summer (plus 13 more prepsters, which seems really high but I have no baseline for that.)
 
My sons AFROTC detachment had its lowest number of incoming freshman in 15 years.
 
How does that compare to other years? USCGA had an unusually low number of drops last year (7 of 285 during swab summer) but it was much higher, back near a more normal 13 this summer (plus 13 more prepsters, which seems really high but I have no baseline for that.)
Where are those numbers posted?
 
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