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Dear candidate,
CONGRATULATIONS on making it this far in the West Point admissions process! You have much to be proud of. In the Northeast region this year, 2,983 candidates began the quest for a cadetship by opening an application to the USMA class of 2015. 1,207 of them did not complete the application. 913 of those remaining did not receive a nomination. 137 of those who did were disqualified academically, medically, or physically.
Only 726 of you have stayed the course… fewer than one quarter of those who started along this path. Some of you have already received offers of admission, some of you have received a letter stating that you are fully qualified and on the National Waiting List, and others remain unresolved. For those of you in that last category, you should have some resolution within the next couple of weeks… I pushed the last unresolved candidates forward for qualification this past week; MOST of you who were still waiting to hear will be qualified for admission.
If you’ve accepted your offer of admission, CONGRATULATIONS! I look forward to seeing you this summer. Stay out of trouble, don’t get broken, finish strong in school, and run, run, RUN like crazy. The class is already very large; expect little to no leniency for academic, disciplinary, or medical issues that pop up from here on out.
If you’ve been offered admission but have yet to make your decision, I would encourage you to do so as quickly as possible. Other candidates’ fates may rest in your hands… at some point it becomes too late to “backfill” the slot you are currently holding with another qualified candidate. If my Field Force representatives or I can provide you with any information that will assist you in making your decision, please don’t hesitate to contact us at any time! I would also strongly encourage you to come up for an overnight visit if you have not already done so. You can schedule a visit online using the admissions website. Remember that this is a decision that YOU must make. You’re the one who shows up here on R-Day to start an intensive, immersive, and transformative 47-month cadet experience, not your parents or your coach. ALL West Point graduates are commissioned as Second Lieutenants in the United States Army, trained to lead America’s sons and daughters into harm’s way, accomplish the mission, and bring them back safely. Is THAT the challenge and the responsibility you seek? Don’t come here for the sparkly ring or the nifty uniforms or the small class sizes or the dedicated faculty or the fact that it’s a “free” education… come here because you want to be an Army Officer and we’ve been making the best of them for the last couple of centuries. That other stuff is just the icing on the cake!
If you are not yet MEDICALLY qualified for admission, time is running out. If you have a Letter of Assurance, the deadline is whatever is printed on your LOA (a recent allowance by the Director… 15 April in most cases). For all other candidates, the deadline is 15 March, with exceptions on a case-by-case only basis. As mentioned in my communiqué just prior to the file completion deadline, it is your responsibility to ensure you’ve satisfied all remedial requirements to make sure the ball is not waiting unnecessarily in your court. I will do everything I can on my end to spur DoDMERB and/or the West Point waiver authorities along to ensure speedy resolution to any outstanding medical issues, but unfortunately some of you will simply run out of time… it is the nature of the rolling admissions process, compounded by I.T. difficulties that DoDMERB has been experiencing of late.
If you are (or soon will be) fully qualified and on the National Waiting List for admission, please continue to exercise patience. We are currently not offering admission to ANY candidates who do not have a Principal nomination or a Letter of Assurance until later in the month in order to allow for better resolution of the class. When it does open back up, it will likely only do so for those who will win their congressional district’s vacancy. Please refresh your memory on these terms by reviewing the letter I sent out to all candidates just before the holidays. Here’s a friendly reminder about something else in that letter: Questions like “where do I stand on the waiting list” and “what can I do to improve my chances?” will go unanswered… there are still many variables at play and I am unable to answer this question case-by-case for several hundred curious candidates.
If we operate under the assumption that the waiting list will NOT open back up to non-vacancy-winning candidates for the remainder of the admissions cycle, those still on the NWL fall into three general categories (no, I cannot tell you which you are in, because it may still be changing):
1) A few of you ARE the vacancy winners in your congressional districts, I am only waiting on word from the Director that I am cleared to send you forward for an offer.
2) Many of you are at the mercy of your congressional districts. There is another candidate or candidates who have been offered admission, and we won’t be able to tell whether or not you can receive an offer until they accept or decline theirs. You could be waiting until May. If they decline and it’s not too late, we may backfill the vacancy by offering you admission. If they accept, see the third category below.
3) Some of you are in congressional districts where there is already an offered and accepted candidate AHEAD OF YOU in the competitive list. Within the next couple of weeks, we will determine if you fall into this category and you will receive a letter stating that you are fully Qualified but will Not be Selected for admission this year (QNS.) This will be the “end of the road” for 99.5% of those who get this letter… very rarely, a candidate who receives this letter will be called upon very late in the game to backfill a vacancy where an offered/accepted candidate has their offer withdrawn for any number of reasons.
If you haven’t already received explicit communication from me indicating that I am considering recommending you for a possible USMA Prep School or Civil Prep slot, then that window of opportunity is closed… I have enough candidates on the “short list” for each of those programs that I will absolutely run out of allocated slots before I run out of candidates (unfortunately.) If you have heard from me (I sent an email with a description of the program and asking you four direct questions), I will let you know one way or the other whether or not you are selected as those slots are allocated to me and as your peers on the list accept (or decline) their USMAPS/CP offers.
If you don’t have an offer yet, please make sure you’re aggressively working alternative courses of action such as ROTC or perhaps enlistment. Remember that application to a service academy is different than to a civilian college… almost 1/3 of our cadets did NOT come to West Point straight out of high school, so if you’re worried about not being a first-time “GO,” it’s more common than you’d think. Continue to maintain contact with your Field Force representatives as well… they are still your “first line of defense” for questions you can’t find the answers to yourself. We are in the “home stretch,” so finish strong! I’m continuing to fight hard on your behalf… if there’s a slot for you in the class of 2015, I WILL find it.
