Last year someone posted a link to a source which listed how many nominations each MOC has made every year. It was surprising to me that many MOC 's made only a few nominations to each academy, instead of the ten they are allowed for each slot. This led to my conclusion that those MOC 's were gaming the system to cater to a certain group within there constituency . These were not small or uncompetitive districts either. Many including one of my Senators, appeared to be nominating almost soley "underrepresented" groups. Not trying to steer this in the wrong direction, but if the question is whether some MOC 's have a broader agenda than nominating the most qualified candidates, I strongly suspect there may be merit to the contention. And other perhaps more qualified candidates may fall victim to those politics.
This was my grad's experience with all of his MOC interviews.Many MOCs use boards to interview the candidates to avoid the appearance of favoritism. The boards create the slates and the MOC rubber stamps it.
What State / Dictrict Pct-wise wins the NWL battle from a trend year after year is still an open question.
Of course they have a broader agenda. That is why they passed the laws to create nominations in the first place. It always has been about patronage. The concept of doing what is best for the country as a whole has yet to catch on in the halls of Congress. If you want fair, most states and counties have them during the summer.
College students attending out of state colleges will apply to the MOCs where they have official legal residence......
I may have read too much into but I implied that JL123 was suggesting MOC shopping was an ok part of the nomination process
Misleading. A college student can justify legal residence at school or home. They are adults.
And, yes, you did read too much into it. I never suggested anyone was "MOC shopping". In most cases it is impossible to determine which district is going to be less competitive. It was in response to the suggestion of trying to game districts that I provided the information about potential candidates that one can not account for in trying to gauge competitiveness. Source: Knowledge of candidates that had a choice and chose the more convenient one.