How did you choose which school to go to? Did you do anything that offered insight and made you think "This is the one"?
What opportunities at West Point have you received that you don't think would have been offered anywhere else?
I visited USMA first during SLE and was really impressed by the architecture. I think it's great that they have such a rich history and that the new buildings reflect the original gothic style. Of course this wasn't high up on my list for choosing it, but as far as emotional appeal goes, it left me in awe more than the other academies and it was the first thing that I noticed.
I also visited USAFA for an appointee tour, and up until that point, I was planning on going to USAFA. After visiting, I was very disappointed by the bland architecture and living scene. All of the buildings felt like office buildings, and overall the atmosphere struck me as bland. In all the photos USAFA posts they always prominently feature the cadet chapel, which is an impressive building to be sure - but after visiting, I understood why it was the only thing they ever seem to advertise. It's truly the only notable building there, except maybe for Polaris, the admin building just north of the chapel.
There is certainly more to consider than just the architecture and physical layout of the school, but personally I considered it somewhat important, because I would rather spend four years of my life in an interesting environment, rather than in stale office buildings.
Most important to me was how each academy would challenge me and develop me. My strengths leaving high school were, roughly speaking, academics, then leadership, then physicality. So I chose the school that I believed would most challenge and develop me physically and as a leader, and in that regard, I believe I chose correctly. I don't think that any of the academies has the prestige that West Point has, and I asked myself "twenty years from know, which school would I be most proud to call my Alma Mater?"
Additionally, I'm interested in branching Cyber, and the Army had just added a Cyber branch and seemed to be investing great resources into developing the cyber program at West Point and the cyber branch in the regular Army. That was another big reason that I chose West Point.
As for USNA - I probably did not give USNA as in-depth of a look as the others. I didn't visit the campus (which is truly a beautiful campus), but I still perceived it to have less prestige in general than USMA, and the branching choices from leaving USNA didn't appeal to me to nearly the extent that they did from USMA.
In summary I chose USMA because the environment and campus are superior to the others, in my judgement it has the richest history and most prestige to its name, the branching opportunities best aligned with what I wanted to do post-graduation, and its values stood to best develop me to be well rounded. I will qualify all of this by saying that I could have given USNA more of a chance, and I didn't look into it nearly as much as I looked into USAFA or USMA.
