Difficulty getting into the USNA

Folks, we’re kind of veering off topic for this forum.

As a candidate MANY years ago and a BGO for more than 20, IMO it's nearly impossible to compare admissions today vs. the 70s. It's more than apples and oranges -- it's apples and rhinos.

When people say that USNA grads from a generation or more ago wouldn't get in today, I respond with the following: We had what it took to be appointed to USNA and we did what it took to put us in that position. Would that be enough to get into USNA today? Maybe not. However, were we candidates today, we'd do what it takes to be appointed today. You only compete with your peers, not candidates from 2 decades ago nor 2 decades in the future.

And for anyone who thinks earlier classes may not have been as strong as today's, you might consider that 2 members of the Class of 1970 went on to become the CEO of General Motors and the CEO of PepsiCo. Not too shabby.
 
I meet a USNA class on 1970 grad yesterday In Annapolis. He said it was much easier getting in back in his day. Any stats to prove this?
IF this were true, my assumption would be that it is more a case of disparate knowledge base that that the various candidates have access to. Candidates from many areas may not have had the knowledge/guidance of what constitutes a competitive application, so the ones who did may have had a noticeable advantage. Now, the internet has leveled the knowledge base enough to where that likely isnt the case anymore.

EX: We know that many more people do lots of SAT study sessions, paid tutors, etc today instead of just showing up that Saturday morning with 2 pencils. Had someone thought to do that in the 70-80s, their scores would have likely had a larger bump than it is today. (based on curve).
 
Well, in MY day I pushed the lawn mower and the lawn mower didn't have an engine:
8212_6756_large.jpg

There were only three (3) channels on TV (2 VHF and 1 UHF) and TV was in black & white on a 12" screen if you were lucky:
il_794xN.3988747528_4xre.jpg

There was a crank for the car window, not a button:
2nd-window-crank-clear-installed-g__57969.1562168279.jpg

The bright lights in a car were activated by a push-button on the floor by your left foot:
1684171175190.jpeg
and of course, I walked uphill (both ways) to and from school.
Everything was harder back then.
 
Do you really think that 33 rich parents involved in an admissions scandal that unfolded over many years “shows educations current place in American society” ?

personally I think a forum like this shows educations current place in American society.

Just on these SA forums 100s 1000s of parents willing to spend many hours doing research, asking questions, helping their child and making things happen. It’s often the parents asking these questions not the child.

Many parents spending many $1000s on travel, sports HS and club, physical trainers, academic help, test help, etc etc etc.

Just for a chance at a scholarship or a SA

I know hard working non wealthy parents who will spend many $10000s a year just to send their DC to an elite private hs In the hopes their child will end up being a success in college.

Lucky kids.

Absolutely nothing like this that I was aware of in the 50s 60s even the 70s.
That's what I mean. It shows how going to college has become an industry in and of itself. Parents and a private college admissions counselor conjured up a scheme to get an unfair advantage in the already competitive admissions process.
 
That's what I mean. It shows how going to college has become an industry in and of itself. Parents and a private college admissions counselor conjured up a scheme to get an unfair advantage in the already competitive admissions process.
The “scheme” was a total of 33 parents over a period of years that got caught up on this.

Do a search—— there are lots of for profit advisors that will help your child get info a SA—or an Ivy—there are sports trainers working with 7 year olds in a variety of sports trying to prepare 7 year olds for d-1 college scholarship or a professional career.

I know because my grandkids have gone to these trainers.

There are parents of 8 th graders that come to these SA forums to find out exactly what steps or activities their DC must take or do to help get into a SA. And we tell them exactly what they should be doing.

There kids are not driven to be the baseball hs captain or volunteering for the most part, they now know that being a captain or doing vol work is a step to a SA. We do for these parents and kids similar to what the for profit people do.

How best to game the system and have the best chances for admission

Many kids have very involved parents that will spend lots of time and money doing everything they can for their child to be a sports or academic success. It’s the nature of living in a country with involved parents and disposable money to spend.

And we spend a lot on our kids (and our pets.)

It does give an unfair advantage to for those that have and can.
 
There were tons of kids shipped off to elite private schools during the early years. The number of OGs I have met whose father’s ‘were at sea’ serving during 40s thru the early 70s and sent off to prep schools to prepare them for SAs was common. I know many.
 
But that does serve as a rationale for why the SAs and other institutions consider the "whole person". A disadvantaged kid that displays grit and drive may be a stronger candidate than someone else that has better grades, or higher test scores, but that has cruised through life due to societal/economic advantages.
 
The “scheme” was a total of 33 parents over a period of years that got caught up on this.

Do a search—— there are lots of for profit advisors that will help your child get info a SA—or an Ivy—there are sports trainers working with 7 year olds in a variety of sports trying to prepare 7 year olds for d-1 college scholarship or a professional career.

I know because my grandkids have gone to these trainers.

There are parents of 8 th graders that come to these SA forums to find out exactly what steps or activities their DC must take or do to help get into a SA. And we tell them exactly what they should be doing.

There kids are not driven to be the baseball hs captain or volunteering for the most part, they now know that being a captain or doing vol work is a step to a SA. We do for these parents and kids similar to what the for profit people do.

How best to game the system and have the best chances for admission

Many kids have very involved parents that will spend lots of time and money doing everything they can for their child to be a sports or academic success. It’s the nature of living in a country with involved parents and disposable money to spend.

And we spend a lot on our kids (and our pets.)

It does give an unfair advantage to for those that have and can.
I think we are trying to say the same thing, I am just probably doing a poor job of communicating it. I just used the scandal as one example. I am well aware there are plenty of outside advisors, coaches, etc. Heck, my parents even sent me to one.
 
But that does serve as a rationale for why the SAs and other institutions consider the "whole person". A disadvantaged kid that displays grit and drive may be a stronger candidate than someone else that has better grades, or higher test scores, but that has cruised through life due to societal/economic advantages.
Absolutely.

And while I am a big fan of higher grades, better test scores, I do realize that for many , including mine , those test scores and grades , were not so much an indication of smart , as they were an indication of advantage , extra instruction, and effort.

But I have never understood what a higher grade in hs ( or SA) math has anything to do with quality combat leadership.

Many of the best USMC combat leaders in history were commissioned without a college degree.
 
My son had no special tutors or advantages at his public school. He received no extra instruction. He came from a two parent, middle class home. I suspect most midshipmen fall into this category. Certainly effort on his part was a factor - I guess we call it grit for others that don’t achieve the high grades?
 
Since the government has become involved in higher education, they have made higher education more accessible to more people, while in other cases inflating tuition to making it unaffordable for others.

One thing about it, my son qualifies for no financial assistance per his FASFA….but is having loans and credit cards offers sent to him daily. Academically he has a 4.6 GPA, but every university he’s applied to agrees to pay “half.” That half/tuition is so inflated due to the money universities receive via the federal government.

In the end the naval academy truly gives my son and those like him an amazing deal…if they can just get their foot in the door.
My DS is a junior in high school and he will start the college application process as soon as his transcripts are posted in late summer/early fall. Thank you for your honesty about your experience with the FASFA. I’m leery of the FASFA and was pleasantly surprised at your statement that your son qualifies for no financial assistance per his FASFA. When I say surprised it is in your admitted “qualifies for no financial assistance“ not that you did not qualify. I‘m thankful for your post because every university pounds the rock hard over the FASFA. I have searched high and low for some qualifying parameters on the FASFA and have come up empty.

My son has a 3.4 CGPA, 3.9 weighted GPA, and scored under a 1250 on the SAT. He qualifies for a 40% academic scholarship from his first choice university, a partial academic scholarship from our state, and we have a 529 fund. He has chosen to attend AFROTC as a non scholarship cadet, hopefully, and apply to #1 & #2 choice colleges, hopefully and to fund the process for what he qualifies for now and the 529. As a parent I look at my son’s situation as a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Our income is between 125-150K yet everyone at every university pushes the FASFA. I’m I wrong in thinking there are more deserving students and families with a higher financial burden that need assistance through the FASFA? My sixth sense is in line with your statement about tuition is so inflated due to the money universities receive via the federal government. With your statement about not qualifying per the FASFA it makes me think the FASFA application is another mining expedition into our personal financial situation with “Just fill it out, you never know what you may qualify for.“ from the universities.

Thank you for this post and best of luck to you and your son!
 
With your statement about not qualifying per the FASFA it makes me think the FASFA application is another mining expedition into our personal financial situation with “Just fill it out, you never know what you may qualify for.“ from the universities.

I know in our case with a midsib, the state offered a scholarship that was netted against what the federal amount was. So as an example: if tuition was 5k, and that student qualified for 4k in fed grants, then the state only paid 1k. But, if the student didnt qualify at all, the state paid 5k. That is why their school required FASFA to be filled out even if a student had no shot of receiving fed money.
 
Schools participating in federal aid programs (eg Pell grants) need to provide Net Price Calculators on their websites, use the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms, and provide a variety of aggregated data as part of their financial aid process. There's a single federal formula for combining family info (# of kids at home, # in college, etc), parent income, student income, parent savings and student savings and producing the Expected Family Contribution (EFC), a number for how much money the family can be expected to spend on college. It's not a great number since it doesn't incorporate many things (ie regional differences in cost of living) but it's at least consistent and it creates a common data set so that everyone can compare what a school costs and who is getting what kinds of aid at each school.

Every school has the freedom to tweak the EFC formulas as long as they collect and report the same basic inputs. So you might put your info in at three different schools and get quite different EFC numbers depending on the resources and priorities of the school. An inexpensive state school aiming to serve the most folks possible may spread their little money widely with a pretty low income cutoff, whereas some schools might save a chunk of their FA budget to "buy" tip top students (eg Alabama payed huge scholarships for high test scores for many years.) If there's no hope of receiving aid then you don't need to fill it out, but some schools might encourage it anyway for lesser awards like work-study in order to pump up their numbers for % Of Students Receiving Aid, for example.

(Sorry for getting off-topic.)
 
But I have never understood what a higher grade in hs ( or SA) math has anything to do with quality combat leadership.
Nothing. The reason USNA focuses on STEM -- including of course, math -- is that the USN is increasingly a technical service. Today's aircraft, ships and subs are much more technologically complex than they were decades or generations ago. They want officers who have the technical background to understand their platforms and also to lead the enlisted personnel who maintain them. This was front and center in the Rickover years (when 80% of grads had to be STEM majors) and then reinforced about 15 years ago when the CNO mandated that 2/3 of USNA grads had to be STEM majors.

War is no longer limited to small unit combat. We now fight wars with drones, with cyber, with crypto and in other ways not dreamed of 50 years ago. I'm not suggesting combat leadership is no longer necessary -- of course it is. But the next war isn't Vietnam or may not even be like Afghanistan and having officers who understand modern warfare is critical and that means having a technical education. This is especially true in the USN, somewhat less so in the USMC (not saying they don't need to be smart but they are more about combat leadership and less focused on your undergraduate degree).
 
Leaders must be fluent and agile at the place where strategy, vision, operations and tech intersect.

Heard that the other day from a Navy admiral leading Navy tech innovation.
 
Well, in MY day I pushed the lawn mower and the lawn mower didn't have an engine:
8212_6756_large.jpg

There were only three (3) channels on TV (2 VHF and 1 UHF) and TV was in black & white on a 12" screen if you were lucky:
il_794xN.3988747528_4xre.jpg

There was a crank for the car window, not a button:
2nd-window-crank-clear-installed-g__57969.1562168279.jpg

The bright lights in a car were activated by a push-button on the floor by your left foot:
View attachment 14095
and of course, I walked uphill (both ways) to and from school.
Everything was harder back then.
As a kid, I was the remote ;) and the antena adjuster
 
My DS is a junior in high school and he will start the college application process as soon as his transcripts are posted in late summer/early fall. Thank you for your honesty about your experience with the FASFA. I’m leery of the FASFA and was pleasantly surprised at your statement that your son qualifies for no financial assistance per his FASFA. When I say surprised it is in your admitted “qualifies for no financial assistance“ not that you did not qualify. I‘m thankful for your post because every university pounds the rock hard over the FASFA. I have searched high and low for some qualifying parameters on the FASFA and have come up empty.

My son has a 3.4 CGPA, 3.9 weighted GPA, and scored under a 1250 on the SAT. He qualifies for a 40% academic scholarship from his first choice university, a partial academic scholarship from our state, and we have a 529 fund. He has chosen to attend AFROTC as a non scholarship cadet, hopefully, and apply to #1 & #2 choice colleges, hopefully and to fund the process for what he qualifies for now and the 529. As a parent I look at my son’s situation as a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Our income is between 125-150K yet everyone at every university pushes the FASFA. I’m I wrong in thinking there are more deserving students and families with a higher financial burden that need assistance through the FASFA? My sixth sense is in line with your statement about tuition is so inflated due to the money universities receive via the federal government. With your statement about not qualifying per the FASFA it makes me think the FASFA application is another mining expedition into our personal financial situation with “Just fill it out, you never know what you may qualify for.“ from the universities.

Thank you for this post and best of luck to you and your son!
Isn't it FAFSA (not FASFA?) ... Free Application for Federal Student Aid ... or has the name changed?
 
Schools participating in federal aid programs (eg Pell grants) need to provide Net Price Calculators on their websites, use the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms, and provide a variety of aggregated data as part of their financial aid process. There's a single federal formula for combining family info (# of kids at home, # in college, etc), parent income, student income, parent savings and student savings and producing the Expected Family Contribution (EFC), a number for how much money the family can be expected to spend on college. It's not a great number since it doesn't incorporate many things (ie regional differences in cost of living) but it's at least consistent and it creates a common data set so that everyone can compare what a school costs and who is getting what kinds of aid at each school.

Every school has the freedom to tweak the EFC formulas as long as they collect and report the same basic inputs. So you might put your info in at three different schools and get quite different EFC numbers depending on the resources and priorities of the school. An inexpensive state school aiming to serve the most folks possible may spread their little money widely with a pretty low income cutoff, whereas some schools might save a chunk of their FA budget to "buy" tip top students (eg Alabama payed huge scholarships for high test scores for many years.) If there's no hope of receiving aid then you don't need to fill it out, but some schools might encourage it anyway for lesser awards like work-study in order to pump up their numbers for % Of Students Receiving Aid, for example.

(Sorry for getting off-topic.)
A big thank you to @StPaulDad & @justme! Your explanation on the FAFSA is much better and easier to follow than anything I have received from other sources. SAF has been a great resource for a thick headed old salt like myself. 😉
 
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