Can a recruited athlete in my area hurt my chances?

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Sneak

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I recently found out that there is a recruited athlete in my congressional district (he's said to be the number 2 high school football kicker in the nation) and he has expressed a strong interest in going air force. In other words, he's in if he wants to get in as he's already had an official offer and all that.

Now, I've read on here a few times that the application process is "a little different" for recruited athletes but I've never seen any specifics. What exactly does this mean? Does he still require an MOC nomination? If he gets a nom from our district rep and accepts his football "scholarship" does that mean that the opportunity of getting in based on that MOCs nom is gone for me? Even if I'm on the list of 10? (Both senators and my rep use the unranked list of 10 candidates method).

I know I'm going to be met with responses on here to the tune of "it's out of your control, just worry about your own application" and I get that. But I can't help but be curious. Based on the competition in previous years in my district, I was looking to have a pretty good shot and it would crush me if that is all ruined because some kid is good at football.
 
No your chances are not over. Many MOCs have multiple folks accepted to the academy each year. Some get in on a Senatorial nom, some on a Presidential, some on a Superintendent, some via ROTC nom, and a raft who had a nom but did not win their slate get in from the national wait list (all 3Q with noms go on that list).
 
I'm going to give the readers digest version, because there's lots of threads about this topic. I'm going to make a couple of assumptions, however, there are a lot of if's involved.

If the individual is as good as you say he is, and if the academy believes he's qualified as you say he's received an "official offer", then let me clarify something for you. The closest thing the academy could have given to an official offer, this early in the application process, is a "letter of assurance" LOA. That means IF he is 100% qualified, physically, medically, and academically, AND he receives a nomination, then he will be offered an appointment. That means, when he application is complete, and he's qualified and has the nomination, he's in if he wants it. NOT UNTIL THEN. So basically, I'm saying that he hasn't been given an official offer. Not yet.

Assuming he does have a letter of assurance, is 100% qualified, and in November he gets a nomination from your congressman or senator, he'll get an official offer some time after that. Does that affect your chances? That depends. If you congressman or senator ranks their nominees, a person with the #1 nomination will get an appointment guaranteed. The athlete, being he has an LOA, would also get an appointment, because it doesn't matter if he's nomination is the lowest.

If your congressman or senators don't rank their nominations and all 10 are simply listed, then the academy will simply choose from the list. If they choose the athlete, then you are affected. That doesn't mean you can't receive an appointment. Just that you and the other 8 on the nomination list who weren't selected, will go into the national pool and compete there. This is same as if there was no athlete involved, and you weren't picked. Only one can be picked from the list. The remaining 9 go into the national pool for additional consideration. A person with an LOA, like an athlete, just needs a nomination and be 100% qualified. Whether they get the appointment from the congressman or senators list, or they get it from the national pool, doesn't matter.

This athlete might have more than one nomination. Therefor he's on more than one list for an appointment. Think of a nomination as a lottery ticket. The more you have, the more chances you have. I know many applicants who have 2,3,4 or even 5 different nominations. Both athletes and non athletes. If the athlete gets an appointment with a nomination from a source that you didn't get a nomination, then he's not really competing with you at all.

So, the bottom line is, IT DEPENDS. IF he's qualified. IF he gets a nomination. How you congressman and senators give nominations. If the athlete barely qualifies academically, they be offered a spot at the prep school and they aren't competition at all. Too many variable.

So now that your curiosity has been answered, accept the part that you already mentioned about it being out of your control, and just be the best applicant you can be. Best of luck.

Damn...., so much for readers digest. Lol.
 
P.S. I will reiterate that this athlete has NOT received an OFFICIAL OFFER yet. Not at this time. I'll bet my pay check on it. Maybe an LOA, but not an appointment offer. Big Big Big difference.
 
Christcorp said:
P.S. I will reiterate that this athlete has NOT received an OFFICIAL OFFER yet. Not at this time. I'll bet my pay check on it. Maybe an LOA, but not an appointment offer. Big Big Big difference.
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Oh I know that there's no way he has an appointment yet, but he's gotten an "offer" in the same respect that civilian schools will express interest in an athlete and say "we want you", basically. I guess what I'm trying to say is that he's been in contact with the football program and they want to recruit him for football. This guy is ranked second in the entire nation so I have no doubts that he will get in if he wants to (I know he meets the minimum academic requirements). I just wanted to know if he would be able to take away a spot from me on a nomination slate, which it sounds like he can.

One follow-up question: if a candidate that has an LOA gets a nomination, does that automatically mean that all of the others on the same nomination slate can't be appointed based on that nom, or is it possible for the academy to pick a non-LOA candidate and then both candidates get an appointment?
 
Sneak said:
One follow-up question: if a candidate that has an LOA gets a nomination, does that automatically mean that all of the others on the same nomination slate can't be appointed based on that nom, or is it possible for the academy to pick a non-LOA candidate and then both candidates get an appointment?
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Re-read Christcorp's post carefully. He already answered that question. Bottom line it is possible, but it also DEPENDS!!! There are a couple different ways it COULD happen but doesn't mean it WILL happen.
 
Don't worry about the recruited athlete. I sit on our local congressman's board. Last year we interviewed eight candidates who were realistically qualified for USAFA. Four of them are at USAFA now. Only one will ultimately get charged to the congressman. Each Representative/Senator can "nominate" ten candidates. A nomination is not an "Appointment". Christcorp does a great job of explaining the different nomination machinations but do a search on this forum for Nominations and you can get deeper in the weeds about the inner workings of the process.

Be the best candidate you can be and don't worry about things you can't control.

Some easy things you can control; Your prep for the CFA and any interview prep you can get. My DD's high school counselors did practice college interview prep. Be able to answer why you want to go to USAFA and what you want to do in the Air Force. Quick tip, "Because it's free." all by itself is not a good answer.

Hope this is clear as mud.
 
Replevin said:
Don't worry about the recruited athlete. I sit on our local congressman's board. Last year we interviewed eight candidates who were realistically qualified for USAFA. Four of them are at USAFA now. Only one will ultimately get charged to the congressman. Each Representative/Senator can "nominate" ten candidates. A nomination is not an "Appointment". Christcorp does a great job of explaining the different nomination machinations but do a search on this forum for Nominations and you can get deeper in the weeds about the inner workings of the process.
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*Bingo* ! I have seen how that actually works, first hand; with excellent results !!

So, to do your absolute best you need to:

(1) increase your Plan A Whole Person Score [by getting good Grades, retake SAT/ACT, another CFA (BTW, Most Kickers suck at CFAs ;>, Extra-Cur, Community Service,
(2) Have a Plan B and apply to at least one other Service Academy,
(3) Have a Plan C and apply to AFROTC,
(4) Have a Plan D and apply to NROTC
 
"Because some kid is good at football"...Maybe work on your attitude (and reading comprehension to the responses). If an academy is interested in a player they bring more to the table than just being able to kick (or throw) a ball. Remember they are building leaders and part of that is being a team player - an I'm not talking about the football team. At this point he probably doesn't even have an LOI. Be more worried about what you can control not what you can't. If there are several qualified candidates in your area it is quite possible to see multiple nominations and appointments come out of one district.
 
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The question posted at the top of this thread is a perfectly reasonable one. Given the need for a nomination (generated at the local and state level) and the Academy's desire for geographic distribution, then any potential candidate would prefer to NOT live in an area with lots of other highly competitive applicants. That's not a bad attitude - that's just realistic. At least in some sports, highly recruited athletes do get some support in the admissions process. Of course, they wouldn't be highly recruited if they were not competitive applicants academically. Having made that point - please be aware that those highly recruited athletes did not just wake up one day, startled to discover they were so highly recruited. They have worked extraordinarily hard, day in and day out, for years; suffered setbacks, recovered from injury, balanced school with time-intensive athletic activities and succeeded often in team environments-- this package reveals character traits that are highly desired at service academies tasked with training future military leaders. Being a highly recruited athlete is as much deserving of respect as those candidates who are highly competitive for other reasons. Interestingly, some candidates are highly competitive BOTH for sports AND academics.
 
Sneak - All you can do is put together the best possible package you can. You really cannot worry about others during this process. You do you, and you will just have to wait to find out if you will be admitted or not. So many variables. My guess is that the #2 kicker in the country will end up at a big 'ol D-1 civilian school anyway.
 
Milly said:
The question posted at the top of this thread is a perfectly reasonable one. Given the need for a nomination (generated at the local and state level) and the Academy's desire for geographic distribution, then any potential candidate would prefer to NOT live in an area with lots of other highly competitive applicants. That's not a bad attitude - that's just realistic. At least in some sports, highly recruited athletes do get some support in the admissions process. Of course, they wouldn't be highly recruited if they were not competitive applicants academically. Having made that point - please be aware that those highly recruited athletes did not just wake up one day, startled to discover they were so highly recruited. They have worked extraordinarily hard, day in and day out, for years; suffered setbacks, recovered from injury, balanced school with time-intensive athletic activities and succeeded often in team environments-- this package reveals character traits that are highly desired at service academies tasked with training future military leaders. Being a highly recruited athlete is as much deserving of respect as those candidates who are highly competitive for other reasons. Interestingly, some candidates are highly competitive BOTH for sports AND academics.
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You actually said what I intended only much better, my comment about attitude was in regards to the remark about thinking the only thing the kid brought to the table was being good at football.
 
socalfan said:
"Because some kid is good at football"...Maybe work on your attitude (and reading comprehension to the responses). If an academy is interested in a player they bring more to the table than just being able to kick (or throw) a ball. Remember they are building leaders and part of that is being a team player - an I'm not talking about the football team. At this point he probably doesn't even have an LOI. Be more worried about what you can control not what you can't. If there are several qualified candidates in your area it is quite possible to see multiple nominations and appointments come out of one district.
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Maybe before insulting my reading comprehension, you work on developing your own? If you would have read my post in its entirety, I mentioned that this guy is qualified academically/extra-curricular wise. Obviously I can't speak for his medical status but if he is a recruited athlete then waivers are probably not hard to get.

My question stemmed from the concern that he would be able to circumvent the normal process due to the fact that he is a recruited athlete. I have my own moral/ethical objections to how recruited athletes are given preferential treatment based on athletic ability and nothing else but I am not asking to change the system. That is all completely out of my control (as I stated in my original post... Again, maybe if you read it). I simply asked for an explanation of how this process works and how it might damage my chances since recruited athletes are basically given a free pass into the academy as long as they meet the minimum standards. My question has been answered: someone with an LOA and a nom receives an appointment but that appointment is not charged to the nomination source that they received their nom from and someone else on the same slate also gets an appointment.
 
parentalunit2 said:
Sneak - All you can do is put together the best possible package you can. You really cannot worry about others during this process. You do you, and you will just have to wait to find out if you will be admitted or not. So many variables. My guess is that the #2 kicker in the country will end up at a big 'ol D-1 civilian school anyway.
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Yeah, this has been my attitude about it for a while. I thought he would end up at a big D1 civilian school too since he can choose pretty much any school in the nation. But then there was an article posted online by the local newspaper that says in an interview he expressed that his dream is to be a fighter pilot and to go to USAFA and that got me worried.

Like I said, this post was based on my own curiosity. I knew there would be people on here who knew the information I was looking for. The "you can only affect your own application" argument is very easy to make when you are not a candidate. As I said in the original post, I understand that. But what is the harm in knowing as much as you can about what is affecting your chances of admission?
 
Thank you all for the responses. I didn't mean to implicate anything, I was just trying to ask a question and it has been answered.
 
Sneak said:
My question has been answered: someone with an LOA and a nom receives an appointment but that appointment is not charged to the nomination source that they received their nom from and someone else on the same slate also gets an appointment
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Actually, the answer given was that someone with an LOA may or may not be charged to their nominating source. It depends on many factors.

Stealth_81
 
Stealth_81 said:
Actually, the answer given was that someone with an LOA may or may not be charged to their nominating source. It depends on many factors.

Stealth_81
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Right, I meant my previous post in the sense that they do not necessarily take that spot from someone else on the slate.
 
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