another guy
Member
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2021
- Messages
- 32
I'm an incoming sophomore in high school with USMA being my top choice for college. However, I only really learned about WP at the end of freshman year, so I've been slacking off some and not working as hard as I should have been. I've researched what I could about the academy and other alternatives in case I don't make it in, please bear in mind that I have pretty much no idea what I'm talking about, which I why I wanted to ask the people that have gone through it:
What I know:
-From what I have found, all service academies, not just USMA largely inflates their applicant numbers by including juniors going to SLE, people requesting more information, or people just putting enough information to start a file. I've seen that the "real" acceptance rate ranged from something from 15-16 percent all the way to 50-60 percent, which are both from online blogs, so I'm a bit skeptical.
-And like any other competitive college, I've also heard that some bribery was involved to getting a nomination? Which mainly includes funding specific government official's campaigns to raise your chances of nomination.
-And the last thing was that the academy reserves slots for active duty (some 85 more or less if I remember) to attend WP.
My overall questions/concerns:
-Regarding the inflated application numbers, is there any solid information that can really confirm this other than a personal account? I don't doubt that it's not wrong, I really can't imagine that many people wanting to go to USMA
-Assuming I typed in my address in correct and all, the representative for my congressional district seems like a nice lady, she seems pretty old (I don't mean to be rude but she'll almost be in her 80's by the time I do apply for a nomination). I really can't imagine someone like her just appointing some random dude because their parents paid for it, but I'll never know. Anyways, I'm not sure how competitive my district is but from the site we use to see our GPA and whatnot, we can also see how many from our high school students applied to a college. From what was recorded, which only goes back as far as 2014.
USMA: 2014 (2 applied)
USNA: 2014 (2 applied)
USAFA: 2017: (2 applied)
2018: (2 applied)
USCGA: 2017 (2 applied)
Not even considering the fact that this only means "applied" and not "appointed," I still find the numbers weirdly similar. But, based on the numbers how competitive would you say it is to get a nomination (there are about 750k people living in this congressional district which may or may not mean much). And, if these things about bribes I'm hearing is something I should be concerned about.
-If I don't make it into USMA, then that's where I can foresee the most problems arising. I haven't opened up to my parents about wanting to go to USMA yet, but I can guarantee they would be against it. I'm trying to and least go to a prestigious school so I can maybe reason with them that this is a safe path to go down. However, that's only what I think. If I don't make it in I don't really want to go to a senior military college because my parents would probably think that it's just a watered down version of USMA, however I'll still apply to one of them just in case. My main goal is to become an officer in the shortest time possible (may sound selfish but I kind of want to do it in the most efficient way possible). Where option 3 comes in, enlisting and then requesting to go to USMA. Main question is how long do you have to serve to get a chance at one of the reserved slots and if it's really worth the risk? I assume you have to serve for a couple years so your superiors can see if you're worthy or not, but if they don't, I can expect climbing the ranks and then OCS taking a long time (again it's selfish I know). For now my plan B resides in hoping to get a scholarship of some sorts to any ROTC program. For the people saying "it's your life do what you want with it," I don't disagree with you, but doing something like going through the application process of a SA isn't something you can or should really hide from the people that raised you. You need their support or and least their acceptance to go through with this, so I have to take into account what they think as well.
-Sorry for making you guys read that eye sore of a paragraph, but do the SA look at your weighted GPA? because if that's the case it doesn't even say it for me.
-Last concern:
As I only decided I wanted to go to USMA a couple months ago my application for now is looking pretty... dry.
I did XC, Winter and Spring Track from middle school all the way up to now. I do have asthma which I do see as a problem just because I had it after 13 and I'm not sure about the waiver process. Currently I'm just an average runner, no varsity letters or anything. I can't tell how I compete compared to others because our school is has a pretty good team, with some running at the national level (as far as last year and least). But I'll assume I'll make varsity by and least junior year. There's no official captain as it's more of "who's going to organize our meet ups and whatnot this year." so is it still considered a captain? (officially and least).
So what are my chances? (as of now)
-I'm a pretty skinny dude because I'm a runner but I've started to lift a little bit and I'm confident I can CFA standards.
-I'm in several clubs, but nothing leadership worthy which is concerning
-Academically, I can't really say where I stand now because my weighted GPA is 4.663 and I'm in the top 15th percentile (I think because the total students was off so calculations can be wrong, also that was a full remote-year learning environment so in-person may be different)
-I plan on taking the SAT junior year BUT seeing how they removed the writing portion for that what does it mean? Ik someone asked this before and they said they can't make you take the ACT with writing because then it makes you take one test over the other
-I'm enrolled in 1 AP class for now with the others being honors
-There is an AFJROTC program which I'm taking, but that means I'll only take it from sophomore to senior so does that put me at a disadvantage to someone who started since 9th grade?
-When it comes to extras, I couldn't find anything meaningful when it came to leadership positions but when I turn 16 I do plan on doing a junior fire department volunteer and boy's state (and maybe SLE if it feels right even though it doesn't really matter). So I think I need to work on that more.
Looking at myself, I'm pretty much known as the introverted guy as well so that doesn't help but assuming I can change that I think I'm in the "he's just an average candidate"
I would appreciate any advice and feedback on the path I plan to take and if there's anything else I missed, thank you!
(I'm not re-reading what I just typed so sorry if something doesn't make sense)
What I know:
-From what I have found, all service academies, not just USMA largely inflates their applicant numbers by including juniors going to SLE, people requesting more information, or people just putting enough information to start a file. I've seen that the "real" acceptance rate ranged from something from 15-16 percent all the way to 50-60 percent, which are both from online blogs, so I'm a bit skeptical.
-And like any other competitive college, I've also heard that some bribery was involved to getting a nomination? Which mainly includes funding specific government official's campaigns to raise your chances of nomination.
-And the last thing was that the academy reserves slots for active duty (some 85 more or less if I remember) to attend WP.
My overall questions/concerns:
-Regarding the inflated application numbers, is there any solid information that can really confirm this other than a personal account? I don't doubt that it's not wrong, I really can't imagine that many people wanting to go to USMA
-Assuming I typed in my address in correct and all, the representative for my congressional district seems like a nice lady, she seems pretty old (I don't mean to be rude but she'll almost be in her 80's by the time I do apply for a nomination). I really can't imagine someone like her just appointing some random dude because their parents paid for it, but I'll never know. Anyways, I'm not sure how competitive my district is but from the site we use to see our GPA and whatnot, we can also see how many from our high school students applied to a college. From what was recorded, which only goes back as far as 2014.
USMA: 2014 (2 applied)
USNA: 2014 (2 applied)
USAFA: 2017: (2 applied)
2018: (2 applied)
USCGA: 2017 (2 applied)
Not even considering the fact that this only means "applied" and not "appointed," I still find the numbers weirdly similar. But, based on the numbers how competitive would you say it is to get a nomination (there are about 750k people living in this congressional district which may or may not mean much). And, if these things about bribes I'm hearing is something I should be concerned about.
-If I don't make it into USMA, then that's where I can foresee the most problems arising. I haven't opened up to my parents about wanting to go to USMA yet, but I can guarantee they would be against it. I'm trying to and least go to a prestigious school so I can maybe reason with them that this is a safe path to go down. However, that's only what I think. If I don't make it in I don't really want to go to a senior military college because my parents would probably think that it's just a watered down version of USMA, however I'll still apply to one of them just in case. My main goal is to become an officer in the shortest time possible (may sound selfish but I kind of want to do it in the most efficient way possible). Where option 3 comes in, enlisting and then requesting to go to USMA. Main question is how long do you have to serve to get a chance at one of the reserved slots and if it's really worth the risk? I assume you have to serve for a couple years so your superiors can see if you're worthy or not, but if they don't, I can expect climbing the ranks and then OCS taking a long time (again it's selfish I know). For now my plan B resides in hoping to get a scholarship of some sorts to any ROTC program. For the people saying "it's your life do what you want with it," I don't disagree with you, but doing something like going through the application process of a SA isn't something you can or should really hide from the people that raised you. You need their support or and least their acceptance to go through with this, so I have to take into account what they think as well.
-Sorry for making you guys read that eye sore of a paragraph, but do the SA look at your weighted GPA? because if that's the case it doesn't even say it for me.
-Last concern:
As I only decided I wanted to go to USMA a couple months ago my application for now is looking pretty... dry.
I did XC, Winter and Spring Track from middle school all the way up to now. I do have asthma which I do see as a problem just because I had it after 13 and I'm not sure about the waiver process. Currently I'm just an average runner, no varsity letters or anything. I can't tell how I compete compared to others because our school is has a pretty good team, with some running at the national level (as far as last year and least). But I'll assume I'll make varsity by and least junior year. There's no official captain as it's more of "who's going to organize our meet ups and whatnot this year." so is it still considered a captain? (officially and least).
So what are my chances? (as of now)
-I'm a pretty skinny dude because I'm a runner but I've started to lift a little bit and I'm confident I can CFA standards.
-I'm in several clubs, but nothing leadership worthy which is concerning
-Academically, I can't really say where I stand now because my weighted GPA is 4.663 and I'm in the top 15th percentile (I think because the total students was off so calculations can be wrong, also that was a full remote-year learning environment so in-person may be different)
-I plan on taking the SAT junior year BUT seeing how they removed the writing portion for that what does it mean? Ik someone asked this before and they said they can't make you take the ACT with writing because then it makes you take one test over the other
-I'm enrolled in 1 AP class for now with the others being honors
-There is an AFJROTC program which I'm taking, but that means I'll only take it from sophomore to senior so does that put me at a disadvantage to someone who started since 9th grade?
-When it comes to extras, I couldn't find anything meaningful when it came to leadership positions but when I turn 16 I do plan on doing a junior fire department volunteer and boy's state (and maybe SLE if it feels right even though it doesn't really matter). So I think I need to work on that more.
Looking at myself, I'm pretty much known as the introverted guy as well so that doesn't help but assuming I can change that I think I'm in the "he's just an average candidate"
I would appreciate any advice and feedback on the path I plan to take and if there's anything else I missed, thank you!
(I'm not re-reading what I just typed so sorry if something doesn't make sense)