Gobsmacked
Member
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2021
- Messages
- 68
I realized today that perhaps it would be considered rude that I have posted but not introduced myself. Please excuse the oversight I attribute it to being similar to the fan/celebrity dynamic. After years of watching their favorite actor the fan feels like they know the celebrity...yet the celebrity doesn't know the fan exists.
I have been monitoring, not lurking, (I am sure there is a difference) this forum for around 5 or 6 years since my son declared he was going to attend the USNA.
Long story short after I told him that I thought there might be more to getting in than just saying "I'm going to attend" he responded with " Like what?" I said "well let's figure it out." So began my journey to become the most knowledgeable advisor that I could. I have attained a moderate amount of success professionally using this methodology: find people that know more than me about a subject and get them to teach me, then learn more. I figured that model should transfer to this task.
Around the time of that conversation my closest friend accepted a terminal assignment (not with admissions) at the USMA. That afforded all of us the opportunity to spend a bit of quality time there over the years. I am still in awe of that place and the people that choose to attend and work there.
After the 8th grade my son was able to attend Summer STEM at USNA. He came home from that and his desire to attend had solidified. It has never really wavered except for a period of time during his junior year when he was rejected from NASS and accepted to SLE and was getting a lot of attention from the FFR here. He did his FFR interview at 16 about 3 weeks after submitting his SLE application and they continued to include him in events and checking in with him up until this fall. They did a great job.
Anyway I like to understand things. The appointment process can be hard to understand from a casual view. So for 5 or 6 years it has been my hobby to dig out every single bit of information about the process I can, books, the minutes to every board of visitors meeting, reports, published interviews, questioning old grads as I encounter them, every related law and regulation, on and on...oh yeah and this forum! It's more interesting and valuable to me than studying birds or dinosaurs I guess.
What I have never done is speak to an "official" in the process, that in my opinion is the candidates responsibility. Plus we once saw my son's eventual BGO call out a mom in the middle of a rather large Congressional Academy Night with a "Excuse me ma'am, who wants to attend, you or your son?" I decided right then never to be that person.
So the process is over for him and my knowledge of the process will eventually fade into memory. He applied to USMA and USNA and received appointments to both. It is looking like he is going to follow through with the USNA and for all the reason he articulated to me I believe it is the correct choice. But man I was secretly hoping to spend some more time at the USMA!
I am currently writing a briefing book on the process at the request of the youth organization we are involved in and then unless I can contribute here in some meaningful way I will likely move on to other things. It's a hard habit to break 'monitoring' this forum and searching for obscure data points.
Thanks for everything.
I have been monitoring, not lurking, (I am sure there is a difference) this forum for around 5 or 6 years since my son declared he was going to attend the USNA.
Long story short after I told him that I thought there might be more to getting in than just saying "I'm going to attend" he responded with " Like what?" I said "well let's figure it out." So began my journey to become the most knowledgeable advisor that I could. I have attained a moderate amount of success professionally using this methodology: find people that know more than me about a subject and get them to teach me, then learn more. I figured that model should transfer to this task.
Around the time of that conversation my closest friend accepted a terminal assignment (not with admissions) at the USMA. That afforded all of us the opportunity to spend a bit of quality time there over the years. I am still in awe of that place and the people that choose to attend and work there.
After the 8th grade my son was able to attend Summer STEM at USNA. He came home from that and his desire to attend had solidified. It has never really wavered except for a period of time during his junior year when he was rejected from NASS and accepted to SLE and was getting a lot of attention from the FFR here. He did his FFR interview at 16 about 3 weeks after submitting his SLE application and they continued to include him in events and checking in with him up until this fall. They did a great job.
Anyway I like to understand things. The appointment process can be hard to understand from a casual view. So for 5 or 6 years it has been my hobby to dig out every single bit of information about the process I can, books, the minutes to every board of visitors meeting, reports, published interviews, questioning old grads as I encounter them, every related law and regulation, on and on...oh yeah and this forum! It's more interesting and valuable to me than studying birds or dinosaurs I guess.
What I have never done is speak to an "official" in the process, that in my opinion is the candidates responsibility. Plus we once saw my son's eventual BGO call out a mom in the middle of a rather large Congressional Academy Night with a "Excuse me ma'am, who wants to attend, you or your son?" I decided right then never to be that person.
So the process is over for him and my knowledge of the process will eventually fade into memory. He applied to USMA and USNA and received appointments to both. It is looking like he is going to follow through with the USNA and for all the reason he articulated to me I believe it is the correct choice. But man I was secretly hoping to spend some more time at the USMA!
I am currently writing a briefing book on the process at the request of the youth organization we are involved in and then unless I can contribute here in some meaningful way I will likely move on to other things. It's a hard habit to break 'monitoring' this forum and searching for obscure data points.
Thanks for everything.