- Joined
- Nov 18, 2007
- Messages
- 863
Ah - this can of worms...a favorite recurring topic
The Academy DOES try to recruit diversity candidates, but diversity from the perspective of groups that don't typically apply to an academy. They want diversity of thought and an officer population that reflects the country's demographics, but as @OldRetSWO pointed out, that pool may not yet be big enough because of institutional barriers and norms in the early years that keep those kids from getting interested in STEM (a driver for a low pool of women for sure), or from even having the opportunity to do well in school and build the kind of profile that USAFA is interested in. That's a bigger problem and one certainly not unique to USAFA.
USAFA has (or at least had...my info is about 10 years dated) programs like grassroots - which sends cadets from areas that don't get a lot of applications home early for thanksgiving to give recruiting talks in their home towns. They also use their summer camps and summer seminar as a tool and have a diversity recruiting office dedicated to trying to reach the populations that wouldn't normally hear about the Academy. That is how they try to bring the demographics of USAFA in line with the rest of the country. All that being said, being a minority is unlikely to get you in with a low score, that's why USAFA demographics still don't reflect the country's, USAFA isn't filling quotas.
I would believe that all things being equal (and I mean identical) a diverse candidate might have a better chance, but there are SO many factors that that statement doesn't even make sense (no two candidates will ever really be equal).
If it's a topic of real interest, here is RAND study from 2010. I think it would be really interesting to see an updated version of this, but I haven't been able to find one.
The Academy DOES try to recruit diversity candidates, but diversity from the perspective of groups that don't typically apply to an academy. They want diversity of thought and an officer population that reflects the country's demographics, but as @OldRetSWO pointed out, that pool may not yet be big enough because of institutional barriers and norms in the early years that keep those kids from getting interested in STEM (a driver for a low pool of women for sure), or from even having the opportunity to do well in school and build the kind of profile that USAFA is interested in. That's a bigger problem and one certainly not unique to USAFA.
USAFA has (or at least had...my info is about 10 years dated) programs like grassroots - which sends cadets from areas that don't get a lot of applications home early for thanksgiving to give recruiting talks in their home towns. They also use their summer camps and summer seminar as a tool and have a diversity recruiting office dedicated to trying to reach the populations that wouldn't normally hear about the Academy. That is how they try to bring the demographics of USAFA in line with the rest of the country. All that being said, being a minority is unlikely to get you in with a low score, that's why USAFA demographics still don't reflect the country's, USAFA isn't filling quotas.
I would believe that all things being equal (and I mean identical) a diverse candidate might have a better chance, but there are SO many factors that that statement doesn't even make sense (no two candidates will ever really be equal).
If it's a topic of real interest, here is RAND study from 2010. I think it would be really interesting to see an updated version of this, but I haven't been able to find one.