Competitiveness Of Application+ What should I work on?

P

patrick77

USNA ‘24
Joined
Feb 22, 2019
Messages
24
Hi everyone, I am a 16 year old male junior in high school who is extremely interested in getting an NROTC scholarship or by some miracle a USNA appointment. I can’t find many stats online about average gpa/SATs for either program, but have seen similar posts to mine and was hoping the forum might be able to give me some clarity on my chances. So here’s my info-
• Varsity Swimmer
•4.35 GPA(weighted)
•1470 SAT(760 English, 710 Math)
•Community service chair 2 yrs of a community service/ career club, will be President next year
•Have had a part time job this year
•Involved in engineering and philosophy club as well
•Will be going for Tier One Major(Mechanical Engineering), first choice is UCSD as a cross town affiliate
•100+ hours of community service
•4 yr Principals Honor Roll Recipient

Thanks!
 
I would say go for both. You are competitive. However, I don’t see leadership in your description.

Cross town affiliates can be a hassel commuting to drill and meetings. My DS is looking at that.
 
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A 760 on English on the SAT is impressive. A 1470 will definitely cut it anywhere, but you could definitely raise that math score. I won the scholarship this year with a 1480, but I got a 800 on math. If you wanna go MechE, my guess is you’re pretty good at math. Just take some practice tests and go over every mistake you made and you are probably capable of a 780+. I know the navy stresses science and math so maybe that will help you. I don’t know if they super-score, I think they do but I could be mistaken. If they do might as well give it one more shot, other than that looks solid. My biggest tip is start as early as you can on the application so you get viewed more times by the board. Also you should be able to get a great fitness score, just work on it. If I could tell you how I got my scholarship, I would say my essays made me stand apart. I feel like my essays made me unique, showed why I wanted to join the navy, and how the navy would benefit by choosing me. So don’t settle for weak essays just to get reviewed by a board another time. Take your time on the application, but get it in ASAP.

Good luck
 
I believe NROTC superscores math and english (USNA does, for sure). What can you still work on at this stage? You can still take a shot at increasing the math SAT (or ACT).

Also, while you cannot apply to "regular" colleges for early decision (because you are applying to USNA), take advantage of any early action (i.e. non-binding) application opportunities. We learned this past year that selective schools often take a much higher percentage off the early decision/early action applicant pool because the applicants are showing them the "love" and the likelihood that YOU will turn THEM down is much less (i.e. they will have higher yield). Just think of the selective schools as the popular girl in class who wants to be asked to prom by all the guys so that she can be the one to pick and choose (and you are the one who's carnation gets crushed).
 
... What should I work on?
Clearly you have academic talent and high performance -that's impressive. Also really liked the leader positions noted.

For the academies do your due diligence research on what helps you stand out - not my area of focus since my DS didn't want it, but boy's state, eagle scout, NHS, captain of a varsity team, any distinctions athletically. Could you compete for them at the NCAA college level at something? Or can your folks pay 300k to photoshop you as a standout rower for USC? (just kidding). All well documented and you should get a good sense of how competitive you are. Also, talk to their admissions team. Annapolis heavily recruited my DS and they were very informative/ honest / pretty great to deal with. I felt he knew exactly where he stood with them and what he needed to do if that was his path.

On your impacts - I recommend you articulate further - Where did you stand-out as a scholar, athlete, leader? I'll be honest, I recommend changing your verbiage from "involved" to describe participation in a club - alternatives like "lead" would be more attention grabbing as where you lead - were an officer / leader. The number of hours of comm service should be noted - that's good , but---what did you do? What impact did your service have and did you have on the project(s)? Show how in the classroom, on the athletic pitch, in organizations, you have been a leader and use your essays to show how were you effective and to tell them who you are. Can you be a captain of your swim team next year? Can you itemize how many AP/ honors courses on your app? National honor society? Also, what makes you unique? Have you lived abroad? Did you take the ACT also, and how did you do? With such a strong showing on the SAT you might max out on some of the ACT scores/ composite score - why not try?

Obviously you're in the top 2% of SAT scores, great GPA. I think for ROTC if you can articulate what makes you stand out you are very competitive. recommend applying to at least 3 branches (Army, Navy, USAF, Merchant Marine, Coast Guard) and to both ROTC and Academies if that is your interest, and see what happens b/c a lot of young people and their family/ support teams on this board were also very talented and got TWEs thin white envelopes/ ding letters - for the academies and some ROTC programs. many were definitely strong in a lot of areas - again talk to their recruiters. Also talk with the coaches - The track coach from West Point was excellent in advising my DS you would need a ____ time in ____ events. Swim coaches can do the same. Good for you to know where you stand.

Hope this helps / good luck!
 
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