Air Force Academy help?

H

Haley_Perry

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My name is Haley and I need help:
I am a Junior and I do not have the best GPA. At the end of my Sophomore year I had a 2.5 unweighted and a 2.9 weighted. I have a 100+ Community Service hours and I try to stay active in my community. I am the Battalion S-1 at my high school and I am really involved in their after school activities. I am on the Rifle team at my school and Color guard, and I am trying to get into a club after school. Either HOSA or the National Technical Honor Society. Currently, I am taking honors classes and making A's and High B's. My first report card this year: English III Honors - 87, Health Science I - 98, Chemistry Honors - 96, JROTC III Part A - 99. I'm in the Civil Air Patrol and try to stay really involved in that because it's fun in my opinion. I know I have little to no chance of getting accepted because of my low GPA but I have a dream to become a fighter pilot. I had a slip up freshman year and I have high hopes that if I try then I can accomplish anything that I put my heart to. Even if I apply, I still have more chance of getting accepted than not applying.

:confused:
What can I do to improve my chances of being accepted?

What can I do to improve myself as a person?

Do they only consider GPA and Scores when it comes to choosing an applicant?

How can I pull my GPA up to be considered?

Do I still have a chance if I work my butt off?
 
Ok let me just say this to get it out of the way. No one here can tell you what your chance are other than 0% if you don’t apply.

With that out of the way I have to be honest from what I’ve seen and my own experiences with my DS (dear son) you have an uphill battle but if you’re up for the hard work then you can put the best application you can and be proud of that.

One of the poster here, PIMA, is the best at hitting you up with making sure you look into you plan b and c. Plan B usually being getting an ROTC scholarship to a university/college. Start looking into her post on that to learn as much as you can now.

Now onto your application question. As far as your GPA goes, it is a bit low but if you work really hard and show improvement this year it can offset that a small bit. Also if you score high on your ACT and SAT you can offset some concerns. Once again no one can say for sure but this is what I would do in your shoes. The thing is to concentrate on the solution not the problem. If you sit there an all you do is worry about it and do nothing to fix it you’re digging a deeper hole.

I don’t see any sports in what you've posted. Yes you’re on the Rifle and Color Guard teams but those aren't necessarily what the AFA would consider a sport, your HS might but not AFA. They would prefer one of the traditional ones with a team emphasis. Once again I say preferred not required we have some excellent young men and woman that have gone through with other sports go look for Fencers post as a prime example of that and PIMAs once again their kids were fencers and TKD respectively. Get into a sport now and work out all the time a small way to offset this is to score very high in you CFA. Your goal is max in every category if you set your goal to average you’ll hit below that.

I say this is important because if you look at my old post you’ll see that my DS was in a similar position but he had a great GPA and is at the AFA Prep School right now. He didn't get an important part of this process a Nomination. I strongly feel that he didn’t receive this because of the lack of sports.

Do a ton of research on this site, the information is here in old post. You have to dig for it sometimes but if you take the time to read it you’ll see certain patterns and themes. Last but not least what you read here is what I say to gets you into the no brainer category very few young men and women meet that (my opinion so take that as you wish). Your goal at the end of the day is that you can stand proud knowing that you did everything you could to put the best application forward and what happens, happens. Too many of the young men and women that come here see these things and get dishearten this is about your application and you if you can be proud of what you've accomplished in this pursuit then you’ll be better off than most that start down this road.
 
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What can you do? Get your Spaatz. My best friend's brother was not all that qualified for the Academy. Home schooled, below a 3.0 GPA, not super athletic. But he got his Spaatz award, and applied three times and finally got accepted to the Prep school. He ended up going to the Academy after that and now is a grad. I am not too sure how the process works, you can Google it, but I believe CAP sends one Spaatz cadet every year into the Prep school. So even if you are a cadet NCO, you can still work up to your Spaatz over the next few years and apply and reapply until you get in. Best of luck!
 
Haley,

My son did not have a great Freshman year in HS. He didn't want to attend the HS that he was at and as a result performed lower than he should have. He made a decision to be better his Sophomore year and got all "A"s for the remainder of high school and he ended up getting an appointment. ACT/SAT scores will help boost the academic portion so do really well on those. Don't give up, and get the best grades that you can from now on. The board recognized my son's improvement and they will see yours.

As was stated before, get some sports involvement. It is important not just for your application, but to be sure you are in top physical shape for the Academy and pilot training.

Always have a back-up plan, but never give up on your dream if you want to become a fighter pilot. Many will lecture you on the odds of being a fighter pilot, and all of the steps that it takes, and they are correct. However, if kids don't have the dream to begin with, they can never reach that goal. My son dreamt it, and he never gave up, and now he flies a fighter.

Best of luck to you!

Stealth_81
 
You have to ask what your true goal is?
Hint: I want to go USAFA because I believe that is my best chance of getting a fighter is not the answer most will see as positive as you may think.

Before we all go down this path, have you taken at least the PSAT? Are you registered for the Dec SAT/ACT?

Where are your athletics?

Leadership outside of JROTC?

Yes Boozebin is right, I am all about have plan B-Z in the works.
~ AFROTC is totally different than USAFA selection....starting with they do not include anything except SAT/ACT scores after your junior year. They also don't super score.

There are over 2000 HSs in the nation. Nobody can make a true decision about your cgpa without knowing what the AFA looks at for academics.
~ 2.5 on a 7 point scale is different than a 2.5 on 10 point
~~ My kids were on 7 point. A C+ was an 84. D was a 77 and failing was 69.
~~~ Same goes with weighting. Honors was 4.0 like std. AP was 4.5.

Just food for thought before you think that your cgpa is OMG!

That is also before we discuss if you will be seen as a diversity candidate or how competitive your district/state is for nominations.

My advice is to sit down with your GC and discuss where you stand competitively for a four year college! From there chart with them what you need to do to be competitive for an AFA appointment.

I know I come off as Janie Raincloud, but it is because I get that the school is referred to as the Little Engineering School in the Rockies.
~ Have you looked at the mandater curriculum? If you stink at Math and Science, I truly can't say it is a good fit.
~~ Our DS pulled a 720 M on his first SAT, but he wanted to go non-tech. He had all of the squares filled, but AFA was not a good fit. He went AFROTC scholarship. Enjoyed College and winged out of UPT with fencers DS into the same airframe.
~~~ The student that got a 22 was prior enlisted, commissioned OCS. The 15E pilot was AFROTC. The rest were Bs or FAIP.

Point is once at UPT they don't give a hoot regarding your commissioning source, yet you can't get to UPT until you commission and there has never been a 100% commissioning rate out of USAFA! Heck, I think on average it is 80% at best.
 
Boozebin,

For you for today!

I do like to make people smile when I can!
 
That is what this site is about....supporting other posters whenever possible!:shake:

Now back on topic. Go and talk to your GC...that is what they are paid for!
~ One question to ask is what does the school profile looks like? They will be required to submit it to USAFA.
~~ Percentage that go to an Ivy? Private/Public? CC?

Huge difference if the post graduation breakdown is 0% Ivy, 15% Private, 20% Public, 35% CC and 30% work force compared to 25% Ivy, 25% Private, 30% Public and 20% CC.
~ The latter says that the As were not handed out like candy on Halloween!

They will also ask the GC to state how their honor/AP program works. Prerequisites for honors/AP/IB classes.
~ Our DS in NC could not take AP Bio if he had not already taken Bio (std or honors), in essence two Bio classes. When we moved to VA, our other children could take AP BIO, honors or std.
~~ Point is if the GC didn't have the option to say he couldn't take AP Bio out the gate like VA he would have taken a hit!

Hence, the school profile is going to be a player in the equation as much as your cgpa and the amount of APs in your packet.

OBTW, the same is true for graduation requirements. In VA you must take PE all four years in HS to graduate. In NC you only need a year.
~ See above. It meant for my DS he had more elective options available to him than my other children, and with that information they would look at his curriculum rigor....did he fill it with weight lifting or another AP? My younger kids would be did they take honors when they could have taken AP?

Talk to your GC. Seriously, nobody here without knowing your HS profile can give you a true answer.
~ Google TJ HS in VA. This school is a public magnate. You must test to get in, it is free.The school has been moved from public to private HS and still they rank in the top ten nationally. 2.5 there would not really be an issue because their school profile is that amazing. This is the reason why you really have to understand the PAR portion of the WCS is not just about the GPA.
 
Most of an applicant's accomplishments are difficult to improve on. If your GPA is in the 2.5 area as of your junior year, it's difficult to raise that significantly; even if you get a 4.0 your entire senior year. It will raise, but you're not going to end up with a 3.8-3.9 gpa. Not really possible.

So; what do you do? You work on the things you CAN affect. Obviously, as for grades, nail that 3.9-4.0 gpa your senior year. That will show the academy that you can and are improving. Next; make sure that you nail the CFA. If you can max out the situps, pushups, pullups, mile run, etc... that also shows excellence. If you really want to make up for your GPA; nail the ACT/SAT. If you pull off 32-35 ACT scores or 700+ on the SAT's, that shows that your academics may have had some exceptions to it.

Will doing all this guarantee you an appointment? Nope. Not at all. There are no guarantees. But it may be enough that you meet the minimum standards and the academy sees promise. Maybe with high enough ACT/SAT, senior year grades, CFA, volunteering, sports, teamwork, leadership, etc.... you might get an appointment or an offer to the prep school.

Bottom line is: Don't concentrate on things you have no control over. It's a total waste of your time. You learn from your past to improve your future; then you let the past go. You already know all the answers to all of your questions. There's nothing that anyone here can answer for you. You asked: "How can you pull up your GPA"? Do you really need someone to answer that????? Get higher grades in future classes than your current GPA, and your GPA will increase. (That's basic math). The higher you get on your remaining classes, the higher your GPA will go. Obviously, you have a finite number of classes before graduating and thus a finite amount your GPA can improve.

So, as others have said. If you apply to the academy, then you have a chance. If you don't apply, you have a 100% chance of NOT receiving an appointment. The more you improve in the areas you can control like senior classes, CFA, ACT/SAT, leadership, volunteering, athletics, etc... the more your overall application will improve. Will it improve enough? NO one here knows. But you only have 2 choices. "GO FOR IT"...... or "DON'T GO FOR IT". It's up to you. Best of luck. Mike....
 
I had a bad freshman year in HS...

Courseload, SAT/ACT have a large impact.
 
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