- Joined
- Jan 31, 2010
- Messages
- 846
I doubt any LOA recipient hears anything about the NWL. MY DS had a LOA and I never heard of the NWL.
Another data point confirming that, DS was LOA holder, no word of NWL. Specifically, the letter stated "I have reserved a cadetship for you contingent on .....".
This does not invalidate the potential that they use slots from the NWL for that, just that it appears to be a very different bucket.
Somewhere last year or further back I found a MALO/RC brief that was the best accounting for the slots by category that I've seen, which showed even after the vacancies were filled, supe, rotc, presidential, etc, that there were slots available for LOA holders and (still) allowed the NWL minimum to be placed. Here was their math:
841 Congressional & service related (assuming all MOC's nominate at least one qualified candidate)
150 qualified alternates from the NWL (makes 991)
Plus however many qualified Medal of Honor related (few if any)
USMA can then fill the rest of the class with "additional Appointees" without regard to WCS in a 3:1 ratio of congressional to service related.
If the target class size is now 1150, that would leave roughly 159 slots in addition to the required NWL placed by WCS. And that's assuming all MOC slots nominated at least one qualified applicant. Don't know what the recent stats are, but in the past I've read that it's not uncommon to have unused MOC slots.
Also, my understanding from reading title 10 section 4342 that it mainly talks about who must be appointed (MOC, presidential, etc) if qualified.
After all the quota stuff, Section 4343 then states:
"If it is determined that, upon the admission of a new class to the Academy, the number of cadets at the Academy will be below the authorized number, the Secretary of the Army may fill the vacancies by nominating additional cadets from qualified candidates designated as alternates and from other qualified candidates who competed for nomination and are recommended and found qualified by the Academic Board."
This is separate from the 150 mandated from the NWL. They are referred to as "additional appointments" in zection 4343.
IE: If there are unused MOC slots, etc, those could be used for LOA as long as the candidate was qualified and on a nomination slate from some other source. Can't trade the nom slot, but they can use the unused MOC slot.
There were also ratios where 3/4 of the additional appointments had to come from MOC related noms. (rather than service related, etc)
Unused service related slots get allocated to other service related.
All that said, my read as an outsider is that while many LOA holders end up getting positioned as "qualified alternates" rather than vacancy appointees, they never really enter the NWL process. And in fact, would goof up the NWL process as they often have high WCS's. Likewise, most have appointments before other candidates start hearing about NWL.