LOA

Hopeful2025

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Joined
Jan 11, 2020
Messages
237
I receieved a call from my congressional staffer today informing me that I had actually recieved an LOA from USNA on November 13th. However, I do not see anything on my portal. For those who have recieved LOAs, are you able to see your LOA and where?

Thanks
 
no....my DD received an LOA and it does not show up anywhere on the portal. Her BGO called her to let her know! She was super excited and he assumed she already knew. Her admission's person said they mailed it by snail mail on Nov. 17th and it has not arrived. Wonder how your congressional staffer knew you received an LOA? Does USNA send them a copy? I did not realize they alerted the congress people? She would love to share a copy of the LOA with senators and congressman so her admissions person is going to try and get a copy to email her.
 
no....my DD received an LOA and it does not show up anywhere on the portal. Her BGO called her to let her know! She was super excited and he assumed she already knew. Her admission's person said they mailed it by snail mail on Nov. 17th and it has not arrived. Wonder how your congressional staffer knew you received an LOA? Does USNA send them a copy? I did not realize they alerted the congress people? She would love to share a copy of the LOA with senators and congressman so her admissions person is going to try and get a copy to email her.
My congressional staffer said they sent him an email letting them know that I have an LOA since I am a candidate within their district. Will contact my BGO and ask him.
 
My congressional staffer said they sent him an email letting them know that I have an LOA since I am a candidate within their district. Will contact my BGO and ask him.
well that is great - hoping the same was done for my DD - but who knows! She is waiting to hear back from admissions guy! Your BGO will have it listed in his/her portal.
 
my DD received a copy of her LOA by email from her admissions counselor.......there is no date on the letter. our snail mail copy till has not arrived.
 
Finally got my LOA in the mail today. Was "given" it Nov 13, they sent the letter Nov 17, came today Dec 3.
 
Updated to portal is taking considerable time with respect to any documentation. BGO interview took over 25 days to get updated on portal.

I guess their systems are new, so some challenges ahead and they are having to do manual updates.
 
Do you mind sharing when you turned in your application? Additionally, can you also share your stats if you don't mind?
Sure. I turned in my full application maybe late Septemberish time? Then got my CFA and all evals in by mid October. Stats were meh imo. 1310 SAT 3.5 UW GPA which is actually below the median for USNA. If I had to guess I think it's my ECs that got me in. If you want to know more about my ECs feel free to shoot me a PM.
 
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1310 SAT and an LOA .... interesting.

Daughter, class of 2024, took it one time with a score in the low 1400s in her Junior year 2018, and they sent her to NAPS all last year.

Probably her Chem, Physics, and Calc grades weren’t so hot in HS ... and Northern Virginia sends about 35 kids each year to the Naval Academy. So she is competing against kids that get 6.0 GPAs or whatever.

I remember talking to parents at our daughters sporting events or piano concerts, and they would tell me how many times their kid would sign up to take the SAT .... it was like a sporting event for them .... Crazy.
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1310 SAT and an LOA .... interesting.

Daughter, class of 2024, took it one time with a score in the low 1400s in her Junior year 2018, and they sent her to NAPS all last year.

Probably her Chem, Physics, and Calc grades weren’t so hot in HS ... and Northern Virginia sends about 35 kids each year to the Naval Academy. So she is competing against kids that get 6.0 GPAs or whatever.

I remember talking to parents at our daughters sporting events or piano concerts, and they would tell me how many times their kid would sign up to take the SAT .... it was like a sporting event for them .... Crazy.
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To be quite honest I'm surprised as well to get an loa with my academic stats. I have friends and people I know who have 1500+ and 4.0s without an loa. Which is my guess my ECs are what did it, maybe a few of my hooks such as first gen American as well. Even with that, I don't have any "spectacular" ECs that are highly noteworthy. Biggest is probably founder/president of a club imo. But as we all know, no one knows the criteria for people who earn an LOA.
 
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I remember talking to parents at our daughters sporting events or piano concerts, and they would tell me how many times their kid would sign up to take the SAT .... it was like a sporting event for them .... Crazy.
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Why would any college applicant not practice and retake the standardized test more than once? Unless of course they already have a perfect score. So much is riding on those scores. Scholarships and acceptance to dream schools would likely never happen for some applicants if they settled for one test score. The system allows retakes and some schools super score as well. Some people don’t like the standardized tests and their use, but that is what is/was the system (at least prior to the plague).
It’s repeated on this forum to control what you can control, and the standardized test is a perfect example of that, so practice and retake your standardized test.
So is practicing the CFA, or retaking it to improve your score an example of control what you can control.
DS took his ACT more than once and improved his score by 5 points with much practice training. Not all kids are great test takers, but they still know the material.
 
Define perfect score. If you get 1500, should you take it again, despite not being perfect 1600?

I don’t understand the LOA process ... which is ok. We can know the statistics of candidates with or without LOAs and beat a dead horse. What we dont see is the USNA needs for that specific LOA or class, nor do we know how to define it.

Not sure about the ECs as being the basis. Many 1500 plus kids with perfect 4.0s have great ECs.
 
Define perfect score. If you get 1500, should you take it again, despite not being perfect 1600?

I don’t understand the LOA process ... which is ok. We can know the statistics of candidates with or without LOAs and beat a dead horse. What we dont see is the USNA needs for that specific LOA or class, nor do we know how to define it.

Not sure about the ECs as being the basis. Many 1500 plus kids with perfect 4.0s have great ECs.
A Perfect score is just that, perfect. Maximum amount of points possible. A 1500 SAT or 35 ACT score is an example of a fantastic, but not perfect score of course. Personally, if time allowed and I felt I could improve my score above a 1500, I absolutely would retake the test. What would I have to lose other than time to take the test and the cost of the test?
At what point someone doesn’t wish to retake a test is their own choice, but a fantastic score would likely satisfy most people.
The LOA awarding process is indeed puzzling. Based on LOA awardees self reporting of stats etc... it’s difficult to see any pattern. They aren’t always a “Rockstar” candidate but they have something (in addition to a solid application) that the SA really wants in that years class. Unless one is able to see behind the curtain how that years class puzzle is being put together, we will only get to continue playing the comparison guessing game.
We do know for certain that LOA’s are great, but also not necessary for admission.
In other words, don’t fret if you don’t get an LOA!
 
Why would any college applicant not practice and retake the standardized test more than once? Unless of course they already have a perfect score. So much is riding on those scores. Scholarships and acceptance to dream schools would likely never happen for some applicants if they settled for one test score. The system allows retakes and some schools super score as well. Some people don’t like the standardized tests and their use, but that is what is/was the system (at least prior to the plague).
It’s repeated on this forum to control what you can control, and the standardized test is a perfect example of that, so practice and retake your standardized test.
So is practicing the CFA, or retaking it to improve your score an example of control what you can control.
DS took his ACT more than once and improved his score by 5 points with much practice training. Not all kids are great test takers, but they still know the material.
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This is Classical Signal Detection — Predictive Analytics — Machine Learning .... type of problem. It is the standard Precision vs. Recall accuracy in any learning model ..... Perfection is not possible, nor is it desired, because every system process is inherently Stochastic in nature, and we do our best to work with the noise that is ever present in everything .... including Malformed ambiguous SAT questions.

700 is about the “Hinge-Point” in the Precision/Recall curve for both SAT math and verbal sections. Half of the questions that were missed getting to this plateau hinge point in the curve are mostly flip-a-coin questions that were not well written, and can go more than 2 possible ways.

With this in mind, a test taker should practice and know before hand what their Benchmark or basis is before taking even the 1st Official test. Practice tests and Kahn revealed that our daughter needed no additional practice on the SAT verbal. She was already at that plateau of 700. I worked with her on the Math section for about 2 months before she took her 1st test, identifying mostly strategy issues and the way she approached certain problems ... like quickly Doodle-Graphing linear inequalities as opposed to more time consuming substitution or factor elimination techniques .... Adding more Tools to her Math problem solving toolbox helped her tremendously.

Conclusion .... 700+ Math/Verbal scores are very good scores .... and if they are on gotten on the same day in the same sitting (no superscore), it is that much better, because it really is a Marathon.

Anything at 750 and above is really wasted effort as far as the Statistics go, because you start working in the Noise region of the Stochastic problem.
 
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