Wowwwww that's just really unfair and really irresponsible on the panels part if that's true. I'd be furious if I spent the time with essays and putting a packet for me to not even be sent an email or be notified that I haven't been selected or even worse in this case they didn't hold interviews... That's kind of unacceptable.
Elected officials may choose any way they like to conduct their nomination slate selection process, including choosing not to nominate anyone at all, along with interview or not, notify or not, method for slate submission, etc.
In the case where they do not do interviews, they may feel their review panel or assigned staffers have the experience and insight to select the 10 most impressive applications, or however many they choose. They see hundreds (at least) of applications each year, and they are expert at assessing them, since the general tone and scope do not vary that much over the years. From the applicant’s point of view, maybe not ideal, but from the elected official’s point of view, it will be consistent with how they wish to devote their resources and time to constituent issues, their prerogative.
This is very similar to the real world job searching process, where hundreds of resumes flood in for a job, and no interviews might be offered at the initial stages.
When it comes down to just a resume being reviewed at the elected official’s office, it becomes clear that an applicant should be thoughtful and intentional about what they submit, paying careful attention to ATFQ (answer the full question), content, but also to clarity, flow, visual impact, spelling, grammar, punctuation and other factors. A submission riddled with errors may well be quickly tossed into the discard pile, as an indicator the applicant does not pay attention to detail.
Since there are many days left in the exciting journey ahead, you may wish to contemplate editing your user name to “USNACandidate2026.” Or you could use ‘26, as the accepted abbreviated form of the full year, as the apostrophe takes the place of the first two digits. This is certainly an informal forum where typos abound (I suffer from them regularly), but being proper about your dream class year and your dream SA abbreviation should be a starting line practice.
