MOC Notification of Principal Nominee Rejection?

Beeswax

Beeswax

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Does anyone know when Congress is notified when their Principal Nominee is rejected? I’d imagine there would be one report at the end of the process sent to the nominating office notifying them of what happened and why? This would explain why some Principal Nominees always seem to wait until the very end before receiving a TWE. I’ve looked in prior years and see a few Principals every year who wait until the bitter end to be told they aren’t receiving an appointment. Being a Principal nominee, I reckon they’d get a first look and if not meeting the 3Q minimum, they get passed over. If they don’t make the cut at this first look, they surely won’t qualify in the National Pool - why not just be straightforward with them at that juncture?
 
Beeswax said:
Does anyone know when Congress is notified when their Principal Nominee is rejected? I’d imagine there would be one report at the end of the process sent to the nominating office notifying them of what happened and why? This would explain why some Principal Nominees always seem to wait until the very end before receiving a TWE. I’ve looked in prior years and see a few Principals every year who wait until the bitter end to be told they aren’t receiving an appointment. Being a Principal nominee, I reckon they’d get a first look and if not meeting the 3Q minimum, they get passed over. If they don’t make the cut at this first look, they surely won’t qualify in the National Pool - why not just be straightforward with them at that juncture?
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One reason could be a candidate’s DoDMERB qualification/waiver decision could go well into the spring or even May-June. They may not be found to not meet the medical qualification until late in the cycle.

Or, the principal nominee may be teetering on a knife edge of academic qualification, similar to the anecdotal reports seen here every year of someone being offered prep, but then seeing it change to a direct appointment a week later.

And - the list of appointees seen here is only a small slice of the entire dataset that is the numbers relating to actual appointments offered, number of principal nominees, etc. Typically, by cycle end, roughly 10% of those offered appointments to the DoD SAs find their way to SAF to post. There is no way of accurately determining if there is a definite trend of principal nominees hearing their decision later in the cycle.
 
Thanks Capt MJ. My DS is DoDMERB qualified, Principal nominee and likely right on the academic ‘knife edge‘. Was asked to submit mid year grades, which he did. They’re trending higher than his normally good grades, part of original submission. It seems to us it should’ve be a binary choice: they meet the requirements or not. If DS didn’t get the appointment yet, in your experience, what would have to change so they did get it?
 
Beeswax said:
Thanks Capt MJ. My DS is DoDMERB qualified, Principal nominee and likely right on the academic ‘knife edge‘. Was asked to submit mid year grades, which he did. They’re trending higher than his normally good grades, part of original submission. It seems to us it should’ve be a binary choice: they meet the requirements or not. If DS didn’t get the appointment yet, in your experience, what would have to change so they did get it?
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I think DoDMERB and CFA are indeed they either are or are not qualified. “Academic” includes everything else that is evaluated, assessed, looked at, considered, in both “art and science” ways of looking at the whole person, so I believe that knife edge has some blurry spots within a range of academic qualification, so the decision could go either way. I am sure Admissions is doing risk analysis every step of the way. They have decades of experience in evaluating an applicant’s ability to successfully complete USNA. Each year, the specs on the knife edge probably adjust a small amount, and it’s early enough in the cycle that the knife edge is not firmly defined.

In a way, this is good news they are not rubber-stamping a principal nominee, but taking the same care to evaluate as with any other candidate.

Admissions contacts are always the primary and best resource to advise an unsuccessful candidate, if that becomes your son’s outcome this cycle.

As just an annual bystander, I am not particularly fond of principal nominations. The nomination review panels are diligent, experienced, thoughtful people as they review nom applicants and their applications, but they do not have visibility of the entirety of the candidate’s package at Admissions or know the standards set internally within Admissions. I favor an unranked slate, where the panel has done the work to choose what they think are the top ten candidates, but let the SA rack and stack them. But that doesn’t help your son!

Be hopeful until there is concrete reason to not be. If USNA finds your son qualified, regardless of how he ranks against other fully qualified members on his slate, with a principal nom, USNA should make the offer.

My standard advice: focus on what you can control, tend alternate plans, finish this year strongly, PT to relieve stress.
 
And on the flip side of the ‘principal’ slate/qualified piece, is a candidate who USNA wants to appoint, but doesn’t receive the nom bc they didn’t meet the nominating sources academic criteria.

This happened to a candidate I worked with in a past years. They held an LOA, but didn’t meet the minimum academic requirements to secure the nom. Boy, usna was creative in looking for one, but to no avail.

I personally also agree with @Capt MJ. For reasons she already stated. I wonder where the idea of a Principal nom came from? The reasoning behind it? Seems common sense that an unranked slate is best. It’s still the most common method.
 
I can't speak for every academy, but I know friends whose children received nominations (one even a Principal), passed the CFA, but did not excel at the CFA and were not offered appointments based on a barely passed CFA. This is especially true for USCGA which does not require noms. They seem to fluctuate every year with the numbers of the PFA that are acceptable, passing at the bottom sometimes does not cut it.
 
OldRetSWO said:
It is now.

I've heard that in the past (not recent), there were many more MOCs who named a Principal nominee.
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Our MOC said he uses the competitive nomination method (which was a relief). But then as I was searching for threads on last year’s nomination cycle, I stumbled upon a couple of candidates that said they were the principal nominees for our district. So I reached out to our MOC’s office to clarify. They said in past years the MOC did use principal nominee, but that the service academies expressed a preference for the competitive slate process, as it gives them the most flexibility in offering admission. (I, for one, was grateful.)
 
wnsham96 said:
Our MOC said he uses the competitive nomination method (which was a relief). But then as I was searching for threads on last year’s nomination cycle, I stumbled upon a couple of candidates that said they were the principal nominees for our district. So I reached out to our MOC’s office to clarify. They said in past years the MOC did use principal nominee, but that the service academies expressed a preference for the competitive slate process, as it gives them the most flexibility in offering admission. (I, for one, was grateful.)
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I don't know for sure and there is not way that I know of to research this but since we did not have interviews in my district when I was a candidate, instead we all came to a local post office and took some sort of Civil Service exam which was used by the Congressman and his staff (his wife) to select his nominees.
 
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