Budget Cuts and Opportunties at West Point

[BigNick]

Gloom and Doom:
I have been in the military or closely associated with the miltary for decades. There have always been periods of feast and famine. However, the value of a West Point education has remained very, very high. The essential programs that make West Pointers unique will remain in place.

For those who do not believe that, I would recommend them going to their plan B or C. There are hundreds of very qualified candidates who would do almost anything to get a West Point education - even with budget cuts.

Another point - you must be careful on this site. There are many people who clearly have no clue about how the Army and West Point operate. However, that does not stop them from presenting things as facts. One example. The post that says ROTC grads get AD is COMPLETELY WRONG. In fact, as we cut-back on the size of the Army fewer and fewer ROTC grads will get AD. All West Point grads will get AD.

 

[Aglahad]

This is not true at all I know very competent and high achieving individuals in my Army ROTC battalion who do not get active duty

Obviously they weren't competent nor high achieving. If you bother to look at OML slides you can gauge the amount of points it takes to get AD and what the sliding scale dictates as the cut off line. By looking at a few of the breakdown slides you will see that the bar is not set extremely high. I have seen 5 different OML lists go through during my time in ROTC and in general an average cadet (3.1 GPA 265 APFT and average S at camp) got AD. Even people who I thought were so bad they couldn't possibly get AD ended up going to the Regular Army component. The point deviation every year really isn't that large (although it increased a few points recently which could be troublesome for people on the borderline) for the cutoff and the only people I knew who were forced branched had absolutely terrible GPAs or the PMS hated them.

I really want to know what your definition of high achieving is before you tell me I am wrong. I have been around ROTC long enough to know that an average cadet will get AD (Branch choice is a whole other story). However, I don't have a crystal ball for the next 4-5 years but I assume it will get a bit more difficult yet still nothing out of reach for a high achieving cadet.

I was a FY 13 (Class of 2012 Dec grad) grad and my OML stats were average but I still fell well within the AD range even being competitive for one of my top 3 branches. However, I was AN and decided to go Reserves anyway.

 

[Aglahad]

Gloom and Doom:
Another point - you must be careful on this site. There are many people who clearly have no clue about how the Army and West Point operate. However, that does not stop them from presenting things as facts. One example. The post that says ROTC grads get AD is COMPLETELY WRONG. In fact, as we cut-back on the size of the Army fewer and fewer ROTC grads will get AD. All West Point grads will get AD.

I sure hope that wasn't directed at me. For CURRENT figures, an average cadet (parameters I listed previously) in AROTC will get AD.

 

[kinnem]

For those who say competent performers do NOT get AD.... keep in mind that one can CHOOSE to go Reserves. Is that perhaps the case for the competent performers you mention? I don't dispute that numbers may change over the next few years but that's being a little crystal-ballish. One never knows what the future holds. We perhaps can guess probabilities but that's quite different from possibilities. There are enough hot spots in the world that we could find ourselves manning back up tomorrow because of the actions an idiot in another part of the world took.

EDIT: It's also a good reason to go Navy where everyone goes active... Reserves is not an option.

 

[Dixieland]

Gloom and Doom:

Another point - you must be careful on this site. There are many people who clearly have no clue about how the Army and West Point operate. However, that does not stop them from presenting things as facts. .

 

[Jcleppe]

Another point - you must be careful on this site. There are many people who clearly have no clue about how the Army and West Point operate. However, that does not stop them from presenting things as facts.

Of course we all know that if you don't go to WP you know nothing about the Army.

 

[BigNick]

I did not say that if you did not go to WP you do not know about the Army.

I will say that people who went to WP have a feeling and knowledge about WP that a person who went to another school will never have - even if you have a son/daughter at WP. I am sure this is correspondingly true of a person who went to Navy or AF or any other school.

People who have not served in the Army have a very limited knowledge of how the Army operates even if you have a son/daughter in the Army.

Therefore, if you have not had that experience you are not FULLY qualified to make strong statements about how things are at WP and in the Army.

My point was that I have seen many posts on this site where people have made incorrect statements that anyone who has graduated WP and have spent years in the Army would know is not true.

I am not saying that people can not or should not make whatever statements they want, but readers should realize that many posts are not factual.