National pool size?

[usna1985]

The yield rate for USNA is quite high, meaning that the overwhelming majority of those offered an appointment accept.

It is unlikely they have done much with the NWL at this point given that MOC slates were not due until Jan. 31 and I know at least some MOCs didn't turn theirs in until the last minute.

At the end of the day, if you're appointed, you are unlikely ever to know whether you won an MOC slate or came from the National Pool. And it doesn't make any difference.

As others have said, the # in the national pool can vary greatly from year to year. The number of those appointed from the national pool is generally decreasing each year as the number of admitted candidates decreases. The (sad, for applicants) fact is that USNA becomes more competitive each year as the number of qualified applicants stays the same or increases and the number of members of the entering class decreases.

 

[Cerberi]

I would think not many appointments from NWL are reported here since there are so few appointments and not a huge amt of applicants actually are on this forum. As of last week though there were still slates not figured out according to many posters...so who knows

It is rarely clear how the USNA charges appointments to what nominating source. Just because Senator Corker nominated you and you received an appointment does it mean you were charged to Senator Corker. Senator Corker could nominate 10 people and all 10 receive an appointment, but it doesn't mean more than 1 is 'charged' to Corker's quota of 5 per 4 years.

Fundamentally, USNA tells everyone that the majority of appointments come out in March and April. If you have a nomination and completed all other aspects of the application process - you are still in the game.

No doubt the waiting sucks!!!

However, the only options are (1) withdraw your candidacy (2) wait it out

I think it also wrong to assume that the majority of candidates are familiar with the Service Academy Forum page. Last year, someone tried to project the number of appointments made known on this board to the total number of appointments made and I think what was reported on the appointment thread was 15-20%

Remember - the deadline for the MOCs to make nominations was the end of January and many wait until the last day. USNA can't/won't do too much analysis of candidates without a nomination, so the majority of work for the admissions committee has truly just begun.

What is truly heartbreaking is when the TWE's are released and you see the incredible qualifications of people that do not get an appointment.

Everyone still in the game is very good, now you also need to be lucky.

 

[usna1985]

Just to be clear, historically,the majority of appointments come in February and early March. Relatively few come in late March and April, although some definitely do.

 

[MaltDuck]

This seems to make sense. A very large number of the initial appointments are made to nominees who also received appointments from the other SA's. Additionally, some these high level students will choose other options as well.

 

[wannabeplebe]

So my question is, do they wait for everyone on an MOC slate to submit their app before choosing who "wins" that slate?

 

[USMA 1994]

I do not know when the deadline for all application material is for USNA but it is the end of February at USMA. That date is really what drives the process and I think it has to be the end of February as well Most of my knowledge is in the USMA admission process but overall all three academies do it very similar. The candidates are ranked from almost Day 1 as they start the applications for the summer seminar that you apply to before during your Junior Year. Since this is done early, the rankings can change significantly over time but it is the military and you are always racked and stacked against your peers. A majority of the class is filled through competitive slates from MOCs. If you start adding numbers, its somewhere between 60%-65% of the class. There are also other "buckets" that are used to fill the slots, Service Connected, Prior Service, ROTC etc and these are also competitive slates. The first wave of offers that go out early in the year are for the no-brainer candidates that have LOAs , presidential nominations, or principal nominations. All nomination data is required to be submitted by the end of January and this includes the service connected nominations as well as MOCs. The next big wave will be after the application period completely closes. Candidates may have had earlier deadlines, but they are still allowed to submit improvements. The academies also need some time to process they nomination data and incorporate it into candidate files. Most of the slates are competitive with candidates and not just by name. A congressman's list of ten will usually have 2-4 very strong candidates competing. Once the application period closes, the academy will resolve all of the primary slates including the MOCs and other buckets. Once that is complete and they know how many offers they have made, admissions will start to look at the NWL to fill out the class. Again, by US Code, they must take the next 150 by OML off the NWL and then they can start taking more based on other factors if they still have remaining openings. Those offers will be more of a trickle as the numbers start to get close and candidates accept or decline offers. In my opinion, there has been no one offered off the NWL as the list is not final and they must use OML for the first 150.

With that said, there are a few exceptions as things get completed at different times, but this is generally the admission process.

You also cannot use data from this forum to make reasonable judgements on the timing of the process. I saw an individual post a few days ago that based on the 2020 Appointment thread, 75% of the offers are completed prior to February, because last year 75% of the people who posted on the forum stated that. The problem with that data assumption is that there was only about 115 individuals that reported at all. The posters on this forum are mostly above the mean in terms of involvement and communication and will add a bias to the data.

Hope that helps understand the overall process and keep in mind that no one on this forum knows with 100% certainty all of the nuisances behind the scenes in admissions. I am trying to give the group a broad overview of how the process generally works.

 

[Capt MJ]

I do not know when the deadline for all application material is for USNA but it is the end of February at USMA. That date is really what drives the process and I think it has to be the end of February as well Most of my knowledge is in the USMA admission process but overall all three academies do it very similar. The candidates are ranked from almost Day 1 as they start the applications for the summer seminar that you apply to before during your Junior Year. Since this is done early, the rankings can change significantly over time but it is the military and you are always racked and stacked against your peers. A majority of the class is filled through competitive slates from MOCs. If you start adding numbers, its somewhere between 60%-65% of the class. There are also other "buckets" that are used to fill the slots, Service Connected, Prior Service, ROTC etc and these are also competitive slates. The first wave of offers that go out early in the year are for the no-brainer candidates that have LOAs , presidential nominations, or principal nominations. All nomination data is required to be submitted by the end of January and this includes the service connected nominations as well as MOCs. The next big wave will be after the application period completely closes. Candidates may have had earlier deadlines, but they are still allowed to submit improvements. The academies also need some time to process they nomination data and incorporate it into candidate files. Most of the slates are competitive with candidates and not just by name. A congressman's list of ten will usually have 2-4 very strong candidates competing. Once the application period closes, the academy will resolve all of the primary slates including the MOCs and other buckets. Once that is complete and they know how many offers they have made, admissions will start to look at the NWL to fill out the class. Again, by US Code, they must take the next 150 by OML off the NWL and then they can start taking more based on other factors if they still have remaining openings. Those offers will be more of a trickle as the numbers start to get close and candidates accept or decline offers. In my opinion, there has been no one offered off the NWL as the list is not final and they must use OML for the first 150.

With that said, there are a few exceptions as things get completed at different times, but this is generally the admission process.

You also cannot use data from this forum to make reasonable judgements on the timing of the process. I saw an individual post a few days ago that based on the 2020 Appointment thread, 75% of the offers are completed prior to February, because last year 75% of the people who posted on the forum stated that. The problem with that data assumption is that there was only about 115 individuals that reported at all. The posters on this forum are mostly above the mean in terms of involvement and communication and will add a bias to the data.

Hope that helps understand the overall process and keep in mind that no one on this forum knows with 100% certainty all of the nuisances behind the scenes in admissions. I am trying to give the group a broad overview of how the process generally works.

Good points on the dangers of extrapolating from Forum data. And I enjoyed your surely unintended but innocently funny typo about "nuisances" behind the scenes in Admissions. Bless auto-correct.

 

[Cerberi]

So my question is, do they wait for everyone on an MOC slate to submit their app before choosing who "wins" that slate?

They don't necessarily wait to offer appointments before they decide who 'wins the slate'. My DD had an LOA in September/October of 2015 (she is a 2020 Plebe). The LOA was conditional on her receiving a nomination. As soon as she had the nomination, it was converted to an appointment. That is not to say she 'won the slate' or where her appointment was charged.

We have no idea where my DD's appointment was charged and others on the same MOC slate were also appointed.

 

[USMA 1994]

They don't necessarily wait to offer appointments before they decide who 'wins the slate'. My DD had an LOA in September/October of 2015 (she is a 2020 Plebe). The LOA was conditional on her receiving a nomination. As soon as she had the nomination, it was converted to an appointment. That is not to say she 'won the slate' or where her appointment was charged.

We have no idea where my DD's appointment was charged and others on the same MOC slate were also appointed.

We are comparing Apples to Oranges here. You may be on multiple slates and not win any of them and get an offer and you could also be on a slate as the highest ranked individual and not get an offer. Generally they wait for competitive slates and again it is just not MOC slates that are competitive. The academies want to fill the class with the best possible kids. Again, they may be small exceptions but they are just that exceptions.

So the answer to @wannabeplebe that you are most likely on a competitive slate and those will be resolved at the beginning of March. If you do not win your slate, you still may have a chance to get an offer off the NWL.

 

[Brawny77]

This year, on I-day they told us there were 1177 that showed up. I think the appointments offered were about 1450. My old TI calculator says that's about 81% who accepted. That's pretty high. I'm not sure what the other S.A's have but that's way better than most "regular" universities. This really isn't surprising if you consider all the hoops those kids jumped through to get the appointment. Most who don't really want it will likely bail somewhere before completion. I remember after my son completed all the process for all three S.A's , he sat down to do the application for one of his plan B schools. The whole thing took 20 minutes! He said "That's it?"

 

[Cerberi]

This year, on I-day they told us there were 1177

And I heard that USNA 2020 had a higher yield rate than expected, so (if true) the target class size was less than the 1177

 

[Brawny77]

They lost some during plebe summer but I haven't heard how many are still there. The Sup. predicted that 2020 might be the first class to graduate 90%. That would be a great indicator that admissions is picking well.

 

[Cerberi]

They lost some during plebe summer but I haven't heard how many are still there. The Sup. predicted that 2020 might be the first class to graduate 90%. That would be a great indicator that admissions is picking well.

I was referring to yield as appointments offered vs appointments accepted, but yes - they do a 'better' job of screening and they actually talk to people that are considering leaving. Back in the day, if you said you wanted to quit - they pretty much took you to the front gate. (They also admitted a number of people that never had a chance academically)

 

[BLUF]

I think that at this point there may be some horse trading going on with NROTC and USNA to get as many as possible of the USNA qualified in the game one way or another.

 

[Cerberi]

They lost some during plebe summer but I haven't heard how many are still there. The Sup. predicted that 2020 might be the first class to graduate 90%. That would be a great indicator that admissions is picking well.

The latest third hand information is 50 have left to date.

 

[ktnatalk]

The (sad, for applicants) fact is that USNA becomes more competitive each year as the number of qualified applicants stays the same or increases

I think as we all are sharing information on SAF, collectively we are increasing the number of qualified candidates and it does make it "harder" overall. As a Sailor, a parent, and a taxpayer, I am okay with that.