Plan B schools

SailorMum said:
Keeping the Plan B sounds wise, thanks for above discussions. It is not too late, as my son hasn't made moves to decline anything yet. I will talk over with DS this evening. Like many of your young people, he still has to get through Basketball + Wrestling seasons and then Track. After Football + Cross Country were complete without injury, we let our guard down a little bit. But these are good reminders that things can still happen in these other sports. And, my son does ski. We will, however, deny him the funds to sky-dive and bungee jump.
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Basketball and wrestling? How does that work? :) Same season.
 
Dadx4 said:
SailorMum said:
Keeping the Plan B sounds wise, thanks for above discussions. It is not too late, as my son hasn't made moves to decline anything yet. I will talk over with DS this evening. Like many of your young people, he still has to get through Basketball + Wrestling seasons and then Track. After Football + Cross Country were complete without injury, we let our guard down a little bit. But these are good reminders that things can still happen in these other sports. And, my son does ski. We will, however, deny him the funds to sky-dive and bungee jump.
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Basketball and wrestling? How does that work? :) Same season.
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My son goes to a fairly small school in Western Colorado. The crazy kid is a sports fiend, and has dual-sported football and cross country since his sophomore year. Worked pretty well for him, running before school and going to football practice in the afternoons; football games Friday nights and XC meets on Fri or Sat mornings. Likewise, he prioritizes Basketball but goes to morning wrestling practices and whatever duals and tournaments he can. He is obviously allowed to multi-sport at our school, which we understand that not all schools allow. Thankfully, we believe at this point he will only run Track and not try to join the Baseball team. They WERE state champions last year, though, so he might be tempted. <Please pass the Bubble Wrap!>
 
My strategy suggestion:

If not sure which SA, apply to all. If got into at least 1, apply to 2 safety ROTCs in different service. And all others reach schools with ROTC Programs. To which ROTC Program School is a function of the school rigor and your data to compete including your qualitative attributes.

Based on research done by Harvard PhD in 2015, most top 20 schools accept 0-20 Cadets into their entire class and this varies by schools greatly. Harvard has not accepted for 2 years. Most enrolled in program are enrolled into 2-3 year scholarships. So you do have to compete with competitive data and this includes your accomplishments and not just scores and grades.

Good hunting!
 
SailorMum said:
Dadx4 said:
SailorMum said:
Keeping the Plan B sounds wise, thanks for above discussions. It is not too late, as my son hasn't made moves to decline anything yet. I will talk over with DS this evening. Like many of your young people, he still has to get through Basketball + Wrestling seasons and then Track. After Football + Cross Country were complete without injury, we let our guard down a little bit. But these are good reminders that things can still happen in these other sports. And, my son does ski. We will, however, deny him the funds to sky-dive and bungee jump.
Click to expand...
Basketball and wrestling? How does that work? :) Same season.
Click to expand...
My son goes to a fairly small school in Western Colorado. The crazy kid is a sports fiend, and has dual-sported football and cross country since his sophomore year. Worked pretty well for him, running before school and going to football practice in the afternoons; football games Friday nights and XC meets on Fri or Sat mornings. Likewise, he prioritizes Basketball but goes to morning wrestling practices and whatever duals and tournaments he can. He is obviously allowed to multi-sport at our school, which we understand that not all schools allow. Thankfully, we believe at this point he will only run Track and not try to join the Baseball team. They WERE state champions last year, though, so he might be tempted. <Please pass the Bubble Wrap!>
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Your DS must be a beast going fall/winter and participating in dual sports!! And all the while achieving the academic results necessary for SA appointment is an incredible accomplishment! He has already put himself through the gauntlet and will probably do great at the Academy
 
Sydney C. said:
Far be it for me to disagree with a BGO on any academy matters but in this instance, au contraire mon frère.
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This advice is really not within the wheelhouse of our BGO duties...I am sure that it is largely a personal opinion. I do not disagree with the advice with respect to giving notice to the other Service Academies , or even NROTC , as if a candidate did something to disqualify for USNA, he/she would probably be disqualified for another SA or NROTC.

I have seen good a candidate miss an opportunity for appointment to USNA because another candidate withheld his decision to attend USNA or USAFA until the very last moment. (That candidate was admitted to USNA on his reapplication the following year). With regard to Service Academies and ROTC, my advice would be to make your decision promptly and then notify the Service Academy so that position can go to another qualified candidate. For other Plan B schools.... someone pointed out the other threads here about the ethics of accepting a backup -- I don't recall if I ever weighed in , and for the most part don't really care, but I didn't care for the theory about keeping a backup in case the new Midshipman changed their mind after I Day. That's no mindset for attending and getting through Plebe Summer.
 
We are took plan B,C,...very seriously. Daughter applied to 7 plus the usna. Basically she applied to every nrotc engineering school within a comfortable distance (less than 10 miles) to a large city the northeast and one in Texas, and my alma mater, and a strong engineering state school.

Accepted to:
My alma mater
Nrotc ‘safety’. Engineering/Honors program, very strong nrotc program
SHOCKER reach school with nrotc program, this may be game changer (we think her mentioning nrotc in essays and interview helped)

Not heard from yet
State (ny) ‘strong engineering’, no nrotc
Out of state tech school with nrotc
Out of state (Texas) private with nrotc (very high on list, the ‘realistic’ reach)

She is still waiting to hear if she has a nomination and/or a nrotc schlorship. The comforting thought is that she is has admission to two great nrotc schools, fingers crossed and prayers daily that either a nomination and a scholarship come through. She is planning to go to accepted students weekend at shocker acceptance school.

She is a high stays kid who is aiming for super reaches. We worked very hard on finding plans b, c,...
 
NovaGrad said:
SailorMum said:
Dadx4 said:
SailorMum said:
Keeping the Plan B sounds wise, thanks for above discussions. It is not too late, as my son hasn't made moves to decline anything yet. I will talk over with DS this evening. Like many of your young people, he still has to get through Basketball + Wrestling seasons and then Track. After Football + Cross Country were complete without injury, we let our guard down a little bit. But these are good reminders that things can still happen in these other sports. And, my son does ski. We will, however, deny him the funds to sky-dive and bungee jump.
Click to expand...
Basketball and wrestling? How does that work? :) Same season.
Click to expand...
My son goes to a fairly small school in Western Colorado. The crazy kid is a sports fiend, and has dual-sported football and cross country since his sophomore year. Worked pretty well for him, running before school and going to football practice in the afternoons; football games Friday nights and XC meets on Fri or Sat mornings. Likewise, he prioritizes Basketball but goes to morning wrestling practices and whatever duals and tournaments he can. He is obviously allowed to multi-sport at our school, which we understand that not all schools allow. Thankfully, we believe at this point he will only run Track and not try to join the Baseball team. They WERE state champions last year, though, so he might be tempted. <Please pass the Bubble Wrap!>
Click to expand...

Your DS must be a beast going fall/winter and participating in dual sports!! And all the while achieving the academic results necessary for SA appointment is an incredible accomplishment! He has already put himself through the gauntlet and will probably do great at the Academy
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Thank you- We have said quite a few times this year that juggling all of the above is indeed good practice for what lies ahead, when he will always have more to do than there is time for! It's also why he slept half of Christmas break; he was pretty exhausted. He has to drive to a neighboring school for AP Physics, which he thought he would need at USNA but our school didn't offer. He and three other boys drove about 1600 miles during the fall semester for the class, and had to do the make-up work for missing some of second hour. But we're thankful for our school - they sure try hard to get these kids what they need, one way or another, and because of it two kids out of class size of 40 will attend SA's.
 
Ex.BT.USN said:
SailorMum,

The one example given by Sydney C. is something to think about. It is exactly what Nova and I were getting at. Try to get the other options back; it shouldn’t be too late.
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He had not declined anything yet! After reading through your posts, I advised him to wait. He still has Army and Air Force ROTC scholarships in his back pocket and is still in the running for one of Colorado's best full-ride scholarships. He DID let the Army ROTC Lt. Col. contact know that he received nomination and offer of appointment to USNA; the gentleman has been so helpful to my son, my DS thought he owed him that. DS did ask to be able to keep his ROTC scholarship active/pending at this time. He was honest but has not withdrawn apps or declined anything at this time. Good advice!
 
Some Plan B schools are very understanding when they lose a candidate to a service academy. Call their admissions folks to ask how they would treat your child.

As for bubble wrap, here was my fear. You know how, as a sports parent, you always want your kid to play? My son was a very good high school and club soccer player. He played for championship teams and was known as one of the toughest, most physical defenders in the state — a lot of contact. No injuries in over 1000 games. So, imagine my fear when he played in an all-star game 5 days before I-day. Still, it’s an All-Star game, they spread the playing time, right? No. The coach wanted to win, so his two anchor defenders played all but about 3 or so minutes. I found myself wanting him to pull my kid.

He’s class of 2017 now! He didn’t get hurt, and it worked out. We didn’t bubble wrap our 2020 son either. I sort of think that, if you bubble wrap, you are tempting Murphy’s Law. Live normally. It’s better to focus on graduating and not getting into trouble.
 
DS applied to 12 civilian school based on which were the top nuclear engineering schools in the US. If they offers EA he did that otherwise he applies RD and also applied for an NROTC scholarship. So far he has gotten accepted to all the EA schools except he was deferred by MIT. But the only one he seems to care about is USNA. If he doesn’t get an appointment it’s going to be sad but we are preparing for that reality.
 
I applied to 1 SA (USNA), 1 SMC, and 4 civilian schools (EA and RD). All of my plans B-Z have NROTC units so I can take whatever path possible to commission and reapply to USNA!
 
I applied to five other schools under my NROTC application (and wow, it was pricey):
UC Berkeley (waiting)
University of Michigan- School of Engineering (accepted)
Georgia Institute of Tech (waiting)
Oregon State (accepted)
North Carolina State (waiting)
 
After the stress of finals were over I asked my DD if there was anywhere else she wanted to apply. She applied to a grand total of 3 schools, one DIII where she could compete in her sport and they offer a large merit based scholarship, MIT (deferred), and USNA where she has her appointment. Three very different choices but she said she is good to go! As the fourth child, I like this low stress way!!
 
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My DS applied to 12 colleges (combo of Ivy's, semi-reach, and safe schools) plus USNA and USAFA. He has received appointment to USAFA and is waiting to hear back from everyone else. There is only 1 school that he wants to attend more than AFA and if he doesn't get accepted there he will accept his appointment but he will not know until March.
 
DS applied to 9 schools total.
-2 SA's = 1 appointment and 1 still waiting. Will accept appointment.
-1 SMC = still waiting
- 6 civilian schools = 2 acceptances and 4 still waiting. Deposit paid at one school as Plan B before appointment received.

We are waiting to see where everything shakes out to determine whether he will pay a deposit at another school as his chosen back-up.
 
Our son's boarding school required all students to apply to ten colleges. Most were of this combination: 3 reaches, 3 matches, 3 likelies, and the student's state flagship. If the family needed financial aid, there were additional considerations.
 
Im applying to just 3 schools.

Navy-Nothing yet
UNC-Nothing yet
UT Austin- Admitted!

Regardless of where I go ill probably end up in NROTC. Depending on various commitments to sports, I might go with OCS instead
 
I applied to somewhere around 25~ schools excluding the SA's, and I was told that wasn't normal, haha.

I applied to the SA's, two of the SMC's, two maritime academies, and other regular schools with some type of ROTC. Only got accepted to one, rejected from one, and deferred from one
 
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