Could a good ACT score make up for an average GPA?

i_like_planes said:
Yeah that makes sense. Right now I'm sitting at a 90 in my AP classes which should be okay, still trying to raise them though. I definitely have been challenging myself in the classes that I'm taking. Do you think it would be a good idea to reach out to an admissions rep now to talk about grades?
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Definitely wouldn't hurt. Also sounds like you're doing great, keep trying to raise it obviously, but great job. But as soon as you are given contact info for your ALO, I recommend introducing yourself (maybe schedule a phone call to do so), and ask him/her your question. Personally, I think that would make a great impression.
 
i_like_planes said:
If you don't mind me asking, what were your extracurriculars like?
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Activities (the numbers are the grades I did it in):
Cross Country - 9, 10, 11, 12 co-captain, varsity runner, varsity letter all four years
Student Council - 9, 10, 11, 12, class historian 9, 12
Mini-Thon Planning Committee - 10,
Track and Field - 9, 10, 11, 12, varsity runner, varsity letter in 9th
Wrestling - 12 (earned varsity letter, but after appointment was offered)
Science Olympiad - 9, 10, 11, 12, 1st in bracket in 11th grade competition
Model UN - 10, 11, (cancelled 12 due to COVID-19), multiple awards, including multiple Chairman’s Choice and one Consensus Builder award
NHS - 11, 12, co-historian in 12th
Judo - 9, 10, 11, 12, orange belt
Jiu Jitsu - 10, 11, 12, three stripes, placed first in tournament
Girl Scouts - 9, 10, 11, 12, Bronze Award, Silver Award
Animal volunteer group - 9, 10, 11, 12 co-editor of blog in 12th, award, currently leading virtual 5k fundraising initiative
Dog Rescue volunteer - 11, 12
Girls Camp volunteer/counselor - 9, 10, 11, (cancelled 12 due to COVID-19)
Boys Camp Program volunteer/counselor - 11, (cancelled 12 due to COVID-19)
Nature Club - 12
Geology Internship - 12
Winter Job at snow tubing place - 10

Just keep in mind that I am one person of more than 1,000 that were offered an appointment. This information probably won't help as much as you think it will.
 
i_like_planes said:
Kind of a weird question but do you think a military aviation instagram would be something of value to add in the application? Right now I have a little more than 150,000 followers.
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It's hard to know exactly what USAFA is looking for, but it all depends on how you look at it. For example, you could highlight growing skillsets in relationship building, content generation, etc.
 
I just received an appointment on the big drop as well. Someone just mentioned essays being extremely important and I just want to second that. I’m not sure if the OP saw, but there was a cheating scandal at the Academy just this past year. The ethical dilemma I wrote about for my essay (the essay prompt was asking for an ethical dilemma) was about how I handled some of my colleagues cheating back when remote learning started. I think that my essay was well written, but more importantly, it was extremely relevant to the Air Force Academy core values and I proved to the admissions team that I could handle a similar situation at the academy if one were to happen (And there is evidence that it does - no academy is perfect). My suggestion is to wrap some of the AFA’s core values into your essays without actually mentioning said core values. Good writers can make connections without explicitly mentioning the connection.

Also I will mention that I got a 79 in AP Calculus and still got accepted. All my other grades were good, so one little screw up isn’t the end of the line. Don’t worry yourself with what others have done and just submit an application that displays ALL of what YOU have done. Good Luck!
 
AFCGN2025 said:
I just received an appointment on the big drop as well. Someone just mentioned essays being extremely important and I just want to second that. I’m not sure if the OP saw, but there was a cheating scandal at the Academy just this past year. The ethical dilemma I wrote about for my essay (the essay prompt was asking for an ethical dilemma) was about how I handled some of my colleagues cheating back when remote learning started. I think that my essay was well written, but more importantly, it was extremely relevant to the Air Force Academy core values and I proved to the admissions team that I could handle a similar situation at the academy if one were to happen (And there is evidence that it does - no academy is perfect). My suggestion is to wrap some of the AFA’s core values into your essays without actually mentioning said core values. Good writers can make connections without explicitly mentioning the connection.

Also I will mention that I got a 79 in AP Calculus and still got accepted. All my other grades were good, so one little screw up isn’t the end of the line. Don’t worry yourself with what others have done and just submit an application that displays ALL of what YOU have done. Good Luck!
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Thanks for the advice, that's very helpful. I was actually planning on mentioning how it was very tempting to cheat in my classes when online school started in my interviews. I saw a few people say that that's a possible question they will ask you.
 
KiwiBird said:
Activities (the numbers are the grades I did it in):
Cross Country - 9, 10, 11, 12 co-captain, varsity runner, varsity letter all four years
Student Council - 9, 10, 11, 12, class historian 9, 12
Mini-Thon Planning Committee - 10,
Track and Field - 9, 10, 11, 12, varsity runner, varsity letter in 9th
Wrestling - 12 (earned varsity letter, but after appointment was offered)
Science Olympiad - 9, 10, 11, 12, 1st in bracket in 11th grade competition
Model UN - 10, 11, (cancelled 12 due to COVID-19), multiple awards, including multiple Chairman’s Choice and one Consensus Builder award
NHS - 11, 12, co-historian in 12th
Judo - 9, 10, 11, 12, orange belt
Jiu Jitsu - 10, 11, 12, three stripes, placed first in tournament
Girl Scouts - 9, 10, 11, 12, Bronze Award, Silver Award
Animal volunteer group - 9, 10, 11, 12 co-editor of blog in 12th, award, currently leading virtual 5k fundraising initiative
Dog Rescue volunteer - 11, 12
Girls Camp volunteer/counselor - 9, 10, 11, (cancelled 12 due to COVID-19)
Boys Camp Program volunteer/counselor - 11, (cancelled 12 due to COVID-19)
Nature Club - 12
Geology Internship - 12
Winter Job at snow tubing place - 10

Just keep in mind that I am one person of more than 1,000 that were offered an appointment. This information probably won't help as much as you think it will.
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Thanks for that. I'm just curious about what other people who got in have.
 
GSNumber4.0 said:
I was recently appointed with a 1300 SAT early February, and I mention this because at this point I recommended earning leadership and extracurricular activities such as boys state etc. Also work on those essays starting on day one, and practice a bit of interviewing. Although it is based on your district on how competitive it is, however, as many others would say admissions takes a holistic approach (Youve already got a great lead on the SAT/ACT side) Practice practice practice on the CFA, I was able to max 4 out of the 6 or so events...
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Yeah, I plan on starting my essay and everything the second the application opens in July. I also recently started training for the CFA. I definitely need to work on push ups. Luckily my mile time is pretty good from running cross country and track.
 
Don't think in terms of "what's good enough" or "what others got in with". Your goal when you populate every item in your portal should be "There is nothing I could have done more or better. I am so glad that I will never look back and regret anything, because I could not have done more. In my heart of hearts with no justifications, I can sleep well tonight." That doesn't mean that you reach perfect scores, but that you did all YOU could. And this is an ideal - you will always be trying to bridge the gap between ideal and a solid effort - move the dial towards ideal.

The 34/35 ACT is excellent. It also means you cannot be too weak in any one subscore. Great job! Look at your performance as standardized score to class grades to school profile - do they tell a consistent story? We don't know the distribution of the 3.7 - where are the low grades? What is your core gpa average? What is the trend? Take the hardest schedule possible but DOABLE for YOU. Don't chase after higher levels just for the sake of getting them on your transcript, and having it backfire.

Excellent you are in cross country and captain. How can you engage more? How could you lead even if you weren't captain? Title vs. leadership.

Wonderful you are planning your CFA and recognize weaknesses. What's your plan? Mapped out on your calendar? Ready to test at the earliest possible window? Got your CFA entourage lined up?

Instagram: I do think it is good for future leaders to harness social media properly. I hope your posts are tasteful, stand up in any church or if shown at a PTA meeting of moms (and a few dads)....I hope i'm not so old-school that I can't appreciate youthful humor. Does watching Impractical jokers count? I love that show. You see for example, Supt, Commandant, Dean of Academics do have social media as well. Notice how "scrubbed" they are - in a good way - always wholesome, inspiring, uplifting, and sometimes funny (such as the Gen. Clark on people's TikTok when he stayed in the dorms during Stage 5). The question for you: how does your instagram NOW related to who you want to be LATER? Questions for you: Besides follower #'s, what does your instagram account actually do? How does the instagram account translate to qualities desired of a candidate? You are in a new breed of candidates with social media presence, which can be good, but you will have to be deliberate about it as it relates to SAs.

Volunteering: In general, for anyone that cares to read down this far, there is nothing wrong with thinking in a cold-hearted, calculated and strategic way, as long as it's actually what you want to do. If you aren't running to volunteer there already, or that organization doesn't speak to you, then think of what does, and do that. SAs are not looking at your potential in terms of WHERE you volunteer or spend your time, but WHAT you do with the time you have.

I can't wait to here your progress by the end of the summer. Your goal is to come back and fish for compliments, like hitting a perfect/near perfect CFA and asking us if it's good enough, or hitting that 35 but debating about taking it yet again since you hit the dreaded 35.25.
 
AFCGN2025 said:
I just received an appointment on the big drop as well. Someone just mentioned essays being extremely important and I just want to second that. I’m not sure if the OP saw, but there was a cheating scandal at the Academy just this past year. The ethical dilemma I wrote about for my essay (the essay prompt was asking for an ethical dilemma) was about how I handled some of my colleagues cheating back when remote learning started. I think that my essay was well written, but more importantly, it was extremely relevant to the Air Force Academy core values and I proved to the admissions team that I could handle a similar situation at the academy if one were to happen (And there is evidence that it does - no academy is perfect). My suggestion is to wrap some of the AFA’s core values into your essays without actually mentioning said core values. Good writers can make connections without explicitly mentioning the connection.

Also I will mention that I got a 79 in AP Calculus and still got accepted. All my other grades were good, so one little screw up isn’t the end of the line. Don’t worry yourself with what others have done and just submit an application that displays ALL of what YOU have done. Good Luck!
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I want to second this.

I know a guy (my family is actually pretty close with his; my parents are friends with him and his wife, I'm friends with his daughter, his son was my camp counselor one year, etc.) who served as part of Admissions for a little while, and he gave me this piece of advice: on the essays, one ethical dilemma is worth five setbacks. USAFA would much rather see how you handled an ethical dilemma as opposed to seeing how you worked through failure. Everyone works through failure, but not everyone handles ethical dilemmas in the way that they should. The essays are their judge of character. Showing how you handled an ethical dilemma shows a lot about your character. But you have to make it look good.
 
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