He did it!

Sam2018

Sam2018

10-Year Member
Joined
Nov 11, 2013
Messages
610
Big night tonight, DS officially accepted his USAFA appointment and declined those to USNA and USMA. Weird range of emotions. He's always wanted USAFA first but it was still hard for him to click the decline button and he grieved a little over what could have been all the while celebrating his decision and his future. Strange exciting times! Siblings were not at all surprised by the choice and are confused by his mix of emotions, but as a parent and an adult I get it. Adult decisions, even with all good choices, can be difficult. He would love to attend them all :) But knowing that's not a possibility he was ready to have the decision done and he did not want to hold on to a spot he was not going to use for too long. I was proud of him too, he called his BGO first, before he declined Navy, because he has been so helpful. Another tough adult thing, he hates letting people down. Go AF!
 
Sam2018 said:
Big night tonight, DS officially accepted his USAFA appointment and declined those to USNA and USMA. Weird range of emotions. He's always wanted USAFA first but it was still hard for him to click the decline button and he grieved a little over what could have been all the while celebrating his decision and his future. Strange exciting times! Siblings were not at all surprised by the choice and are confused by his mix of emotions, but as a parent and an adult I get it. Adult decisions, even with all good choices, can be difficult. He would love to attend them all :) But knowing that's not a possibility he was ready to have the decision done and he did not want to hold on to a spot he was not going to use for too long. I was proud of him too, he called his BGO first, before he declined Navy, because he has been so helpful. Another tough adult thing, he hates letting people down. Go AF!
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Last year I had the same feeling when my son had to decline the others to accept his appointment to West Point. All of them are such fantastic options, and knowing how hard it is to earn the appointments it sucks to have to decline the others. My sons original goal was West Point, but he would have been delighted with any one of them, and when he had the options he saw so many pro's with each school. Then, once he made final decision my wife and I started thinking, "boy, I hope it's the best fit and works out great". So far so good for my son. He loves WP, and being a part of the Corps. I'm sure it will be the same with yours.
 
Congratulations! On the plus...you can tell him he opened spots at USNA and USMA for kids who really want to go there...and he has earned the personal victory of saying, "Back up school" to other academy grads for the rest of his life. Ahem...
 
Sam2018 said:
Big night tonight, DS officially accepted his USAFA appointment and declined those to USNA and USMA. Weird range of emotions. He's always wanted USAFA first but it was still hard for him to click the decline button and he grieved a little over what could have been all the while celebrating his decision and his future. Strange exciting times! Siblings were not at all surprised by the choice and are confused by his mix of emotions, but as a parent and an adult I get it. Adult decisions, even with all good choices, can be difficult. He would love to attend them all :) But knowing that's not a possibility he was ready to have the decision done and he did not want to hold on to a spot he was not going to use for too long. I was proud of him too, he called his BGO first, before he declined Navy, because he has been so helpful. Another tough adult thing, he hates letting people down. Go AF!
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First Congrats on your DS decision o. USAFA. His actions speak volume and is consistent with 3 SAs decision to offer your DS appointments. Our DS is still waiting while solidifying backup plans. Again congratulations.
 
brovol said:
Last year I had the same feeling when my son had to decline the others to accept his appointment to West Point. All of them are such fantastic options, and knowing how hard it is to earn the appointments it sucks to have to decline the others. My sons original goal was West Point, but he would have been delighted with any one of them, and when he had the options he saw so many pro's with each school. Then, once he made final decision my wife and I started thinking, "boy, I hope it's the best fit and works out great". So far so good for my son. He loves WP, and being a part of the Corps. I'm sure it will be the same with yours.
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Exactly :) And DS LOVED West Point, just loved it. But they don't offer aerospace engineering and he wants to fly fixed wing otherwise I'm sure that's where he would have accepted. I have to hand it to the cadets he met on his overnight visit, they were all so helpful and really listened to what he was looking for as a degree and after graduation and told him we'd love to have you here but with your goals AF would be better...couldn't bring themselves to say go Navy...lol.

Turning down Navy was tough too. He didn't love it as much but they do offer the same degrees and ability to fly and the BGO was so great. But he wasn't sold on the living on a boat thing and is better suited to the flying community of AF he thinks after talking to pilots from both, he likes checklists :) He was also told it is somewhat easier to pursue advanced degrees while in the AF as opposed to the Navy.

No bad choices and I'm sure he will love AF but sometimes having choices can complicate things :)
 
DrMom said:
Congratulations! On the plus...you can tell him he opened spots at USNA and USMA for kids who really want to go there...and he has earned the personal victory of saying, "Back up school" to other academy grads for the rest of his life. Ahem...
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That's exactly why he didn't want to wait too long to officially decide and accept one and decline the others. He wanted to potentially free up that spot for somebody else.

Back up school. lol, when he started applying this summer I told him he also needed to apply to other schools as a back up. He said Navy is my back up :)
 
Nice to see. Congratulations!

Candidates reading this, with multiple offers in hand, should also feel free to take the time they need to make their acceptance/declination decisions, up to the deadline, if that is what they need. They can use the time to suit their decision process.

The SAs deliberately offer more appointments, allowing a margin for declination, based on predictive models, so turning down an appointment doesn't necessarily equate 1:1 to another appointment being offered. The class size is a range, not a pinpoint.

I feel for those who (a) are still waiting (b)may be facing an eenie-meenie-miney-mo challenge, if they are equally torn.
 
My DS was in the exact same situation last year. You gotta admit it is a nice problem to have! He wanted aerospace engineering as well so he quickly narrowed it down to USAFA and USNA. I took him to both on spring break. All along his first choice had been USAFA but after the visits the whole family went out to eat. At the table he reached into a bag and put a USNA hat on. Now he is a happy plebe (well as happy as a plebe can be). Ironically he is giving serious thought to systems engineering due to cool things he has seen at USNA (mainly robotics).
Congrats and welcome to the roller coaster!
By the way, we are from Texas district 04 as well. Maybe we will see you guys at a future academy day. They sometimes bring the Mids and Cadets down for those.
 
Brawny77 said:
My DS was in the exact same situation last year. You gotta admit it is a nice problem to have! He wanted aerospace engineering as well so he quickly narrowed it down to USAFA and USNA. I took him to both on spring break. All along his first choice had been USAFA but after the visits the whole family went out to eat. At the table he reached into a bag and put a USNA hat on. Now he is a happy plebe (well as happy as a plebe can be). Ironically he is giving serious thought to systems engineering due to cool things he has seen at USNA (mainly robotics).
Congrats and welcome to the roller coaster!
By the way, we are from Texas district 04 as well. Maybe we will see you guys at a future academy day. They sometimes bring the Mids and Cadets down for those.
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Maybe we've met? Or have been at the same places. Did you or your mid attend the BGO Christmas party? DS could have been happy at any of them I think, but his first love has always been AF so he went with his gut. Decision making can be tough on him so I think he wanted it done so he can focus on the future.
 
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Capt MJ said:
Nice to see. Congratulations!

Candidates reading this, with multiple offers in hand, should also feel free to take the time they need to make their acceptance/declination decisions, up to the deadline, if that is what they need. They can use the time to suit their decision process.

The SAs deliberately offer more appointments, allowing a margin for declination, based on predictive models, so turning down an appointment doesn't necessarily equate 1:1 to another appointment being offered. The class size is a range, not a pinpoint.

I feel for those who (a) are still waiting (b)may be facing an eenie-meenie-miney-mo challenge, if they are equally torn.
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Absolutely! I told DS there was no hurry at all but he's been making the decision all fall since he had LOAs in hand so he was ready. As his mom I kind of wanted him to wait a little longer to do it online but that's not how he rolls, it had to be official. His dad wanted him to wait a bit to decline as well, make sure there were no glitches, but nope. We did at least convince him to accept first, then decline instead of the other way around :)

Good luck to those still waiting or deciding.
 
Sam2018 said:
Maybe we've met? Or have been at the same places. Did you or your mid attend the BGO Christmas party? DS could have been happy at any of them I think, but his first love has always been AF so he went with his gut. Decision making can be tough on him so I think he wanted it done so he can focus on the future.
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We didn't attend the party in Rockwall. We got the invitation email late and had a family thing. That BGO is fantastic by the way. He came to my DS graduation and presented his appointment. The crowd went wild! It was really cool. We were also really impressed with our MOC's staff during and after the process. They were fantastic and have even checked up on him at the Academy! Those folks are class acts.
 
Brawny77 said:
We didn't attend the party in Rockwall. We got the invitation email late and had a family thing. That BGO is fantastic by the way. He came to my DS graduation and presented his appointment. The crowd went wild! It was really cool. We were also really impressed with our MOC's staff during and after the process. They were fantastic and have even checked up on him at the Academy! Those folks are class acts.
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+1 BGO and MOC staff are wonderful!
 
Congratulations to you and your son. USAFA is an awesome place. My son went thru most of the same. When he finally decided on USAFA and declined the others, someone else got his appointment to the other academies. It turns out, we think one of his friends and football teammate growing up got the appointment my son turned down to USNA. His friend was waitlisted to USNA but had an AROTC Scholly offered. About a week after my son declined his appointment to Annapolis, his friend was offered an appointment. His friend is now flying CV-22's for the USMC.
 
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