Money Matters and Earlier Vaccines
I am an accepted Class of 2018 appointee. For the most part, I found the online system to be very smooth. I appreciate the "release as you complete" mechanism, as being presented with ALL the forms at once might be overwhelming.
However, I think the Immunization form could be released sooner...perhaps around February. Having it release in May and scrambling to find local doctors providing some of the required vaccines would have been a little less frantic if done earlier in the year. It was made even more so with the "exotic-ness" of some of the vaccines (there was only ONE doctor with an adult polio vaccine on hand in my area), and the fact (which several doctors informed me of upon inquiry) that there was a national shortage of skin TB tests.
These difficulties were (thankfully) overcome, but would have been significantly more easy to handle if I had more time to get the vaccines. Releasing the vaccine form in February would give appointees 5 months before entry to schedule all the necessary appointments and gather needed paperwork (if they don't have all of it), while still adhering to the "within 6 months of entry" rule some vaccines had.
Also, there's the money matters. We're REQUIRED to activate an Armed Forces Bank account, and we receive a follow up email from them upon successful processing of these papers. HOWEVER, we are not given our account information so as to access the online banking portion of the account prior to our departure for Beast.
This is a dilemma I'm currently finding to be highly stressful, as I'd like to take the funds from my current bank account and move them to my Armed Forces bank account, so as to have access to them on/near/before the beginning of the Academic year. Traveler's checks in the sum I'd like to transfer are simply not a good idea, neither is combining the funds into a debit-card-accessible checking account. What other options do I have available to transfer civilian money into a military bank before Academics begin?
Also, there's the matter of the "advance of pay" ("an interest free government loan") used to cover mandatory cadet expenses. It is projected in the handbook (Pages 35-36) that a cadet's annual salary is $12,000 dollars, while the mandatory expenses of the first year total $10,000, and that this money will be automatically deducted from the cadet's pay. Naturally, I would like to be rid of the loan as quickly as possible. However, nowhere in the handbook (or anywhere else) is it mentioned if we can use lump sums of money to pay it off more quickly. I have been saving money with the intention to pay down the $10,000 dollars, but there's no guidance in the handbook as to how one would go about doing this, which is rather important.
As bright as these appointees are, many of them are just simple kids with great potential, and have no idea how to do many of the things that adults may take for granted, such as transferring funds between banks or paying off loans. Matters like this are not addressed anywhere in the cadet handbook or online portal information, and while it may be considered "minutia", they are very important and highly stressful things for a young mind to consider.
If changes are to be made, I think adding the following would be most beneficial:
- Applying for the Armed Forces Bank account online, and sending a print out showing the process has been completed (along with the required copy of a photo ID)
OR
Sending appointees an email with login information to the online portion of the Armed Forces Bank upon successful processing of their registration paperwork.
- Including more information in the "Instructions to Appointees" handbook on the advance of pay loan, with particular attention to paying the loan down more quickly using personal money
- Opening the Immunizations form in February instead of late May
- Lessening the use of red text on the portal (perhaps blue or orange would be better; still eye-catching, but not as alarmingly so as red)