LOA and Appointment trends

pnwwildcat said:
I listened to the great advise of my BGO, which was to AIM for the APPOINTMENT, and NOT for the LOA.
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Substantively, what's the difference?

Shooting for an LOA is all about making your application the best it can possibly be.

Shooting for an appointment is all about making your application the best it can possibly be.

It's a difference that makes no difference.

It's like a baseball player saying, "I want to be the best hitter, fielder and baserunner I can possibly be" and then somebody criticizes him for not focusing on what is really important ... WINNING! But, how do you win? You win by each individual player being the best hitter, fielder and baserunner they can possibly be.

By the way - CONGRATULATIONS!
 
Overwhelmed said:
DS didn't attend NASS or receive a LOA. But USNA gave him something better than both of those, a medical waiver!
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Here’s a really foggy example. Our 20 Mid had every ticket. One B ever. Huge SAT. Student body President. Team captain. 5-time all conf and much more. I seemed to think he was the perfect LOA candidate, mainly because I didn’t know any better. It never came. Then, DQ’ed because color deficient.

Got appointed in January with the waiver coming out of the blue. Those waivers usually don’t happen til after April 15, and they are rare.

So, his record was great, but I’m not sure that did it. His principal called me to congratulate us and told me he had, on a whim, forwarded a letter he had received about our son from the daughter of a WW2 veteran he had escorted on an honor flight. We had seen the letter and it made us cry, but we didn’t know he sent it to USNA. That letter was that special. I’ll always believe that put him over the top, even though our Congressman said he was the top of his slate.

Who knows? I could be wrong, but here’s the point. It’s impossible to know. The advice to focus on getting in and not the LOA is very good. In our case, the LOA would have been a sugar high, as color deficiency often cancels that LOA since the waivers are rare.

Don’t over analyze the criteria and the application. It will frustrate you, and you’ll never figure anything out. I have my ideas, but I really can’t tell you what got my sons in other than their applications in general.
 
Something I haven't seen in discussions about LOAs is that they may have the unintended consequence of discouraging other applicants. DS's BGO told us that last year there was one good candidate that finished her application but didn't pursue nominations when, in October, it became known that someone in her district (another young lady) received an LOA. BGO tried to assure her that she was still in the hunt but the applicant turned her attention to other non-SA opportunities (of which she had several). Now it could be argued that she didn't have the commitment for an SA but I would opine that seeing others you are in competition with get "the nod" can take a lot of the wind out of a young person's sails. When issuing LOAs, I wonder how much USNA takes into account the historical competitiveness and "yield" from districts/states so as not to circumvent the MOC selection process.
 
Every year we see candidates who really stress if they see or hear of an athletic recruit or LOA recipient is in their district. Do not let this discourage you! Athletes and LOA recipients still have to be 3Q and some will not end up that way. One of my good friends is a graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School in Northern VA. His class alone had 6 appointments to USNA! Every year we see lots of twins, high school classmates and everything in between get appointments. It’s why you should apply to every nomination source. Don’t let this stop or discourage you!
 
ders_dad said:
Now it could be argued that she didn't have the commitment for an SA but I would opine that seeing others you are in competition with get "the nod" can take a lot of the wind out of a young person's sails.
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By extension, could we say those who get senatorial nominations are better than those with congressional nominations? Does one have a better chance of earning an appointment than the other? Or, do presidential and vice presidential nominations trump even the senatorial nominations?

This is all silliness and anybody who bows out of the process simply because somebody seems to be doing better truly does not belong at a service academy. This is not something that can be "argued" - it is axiomatic. There are far more disappointments ahead - even once they get to the academy. What happens when this midshipman finds out they are only academically average? Remember, by definition, half of every midshipman in every class will be below average. What if they don't get their first choice in service assignment? What if they don't get the ship of their choosing /or/ the aircraft of their choosing? What if they don't get a geographical assignment that they were hoping for? Will they continuously lament that others who out perform them are getting preferential consideration?

If this is what causes a candidate to bow out of the application process, I would say that they never had the right temperament in the first place. Maybe the awarding of LOAs is a great thing - if, for no other reason, to weed out those who thought they deserved one and didn't get one ... so they quit. Good riddance!

I know that's a very blunt way of putting it - but I do not have room for sympathy for any candidate who gives up simply because some other candidate got an LOA. It seems whiny and self-absorbed to the extreme. It forebodes many other potential problems for such a person in the future.
 
Memphis9489 said:
I know that's a very blunt way of putting it - but I do not have room for sympathy for any candidate who gives up simply because some other candidate got an LOA. It seems whiny and self-absorbed to the extreme. It forebodes many other potential problems for such a person in the future.
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Could not agree with you more. It apparently happens but it does not bold well for a future lifetime of not having things go your own way.
 
Memphis9489 said:
I know that's a very blunt way of putting it - but I do not have room for sympathy for any candidate who gives up simply because some other candidate got an LOA.
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+1 to @Memphis9489. If that’s your approach to life, you could be in for a very rough time at an SA and on AD.

My DD was invited by our MOC to a reception for his slate of nominees. He’d nominated her for two SAs, and unbeknownst to us at the time, she was a principal nominee for at least one of those two. Nonetheless, she met several nominees there who already had offers of appointment to the two SAs. She was deflated — borderline devastated. She returned home and had a good cry, thinking her chances were now nil.

But because she’d already completed her applications, there was nothing to quit and she was already in play. Well, wouldn’t you know it, a few weeks later, she received LOAs from those two SAs, followed shortly by offers of appointment. As they say, it ain’t over until it’s over. (She got a third LOA and offer in late April. It ain’t over...)
 
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