I have heard a lot about a "national pool" of candidates that may receive an appointment. It was my understanding that if you receive a nomination from your congressman, then you compete against everyone else who received a nom in your district for the appointment. If my congressman nominated on a competitive pool system, could anyone in the nation take my congressman's appointment slot, or is it guaranteed to be someone from the district?
National Pool vs District Pool
- Thread starter Fritz3180
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Apples and oranges. Lots of threads on this recently.
You compete in your MOC district for a nom. Let's say you land on the MOC's slate with a nom. The SA, if they offer you an appointment, may choose to charge your appointment against that MOC's quota. They may choose to offer appointments to other(s) on that slate, and charge the appointments to the MOC quota. If they do not offer you an appointment, and you have a nom and are triple-q'ed, you then go into the national pool, competing against similarly-situated candidates from across the nation. The SA shops the pool to continue filling the class, taking a certain percentage. They may then charge those appointments to another category. Yes, your nom is from the MOC, but your appointment may be charged elsewhere, not against the MOC quota for x cadets/mids at any one time at a specific SA.
Very general overview.
For most cases the MOC submits his slate of nominees to each academy. The academy will rank those on the competitive slate and when the application window closes, the highest ranked individual will be offered an appointment. That is called resolving the slates. There are no secrets behind the scenes that move things around to help certain candidates and someone from your district will be charged to your MOC. Others on your slate may be offered appointments based on other nominations, LOA, Blue Chip etc even though they are not the highest ranked candidate when the window closes. The other individuals who are qualified and do not win that slate are placed in the National Pool and around 150 individuals are pulled of that list by order of merit.
Things get a little tricky towards the end when people start declining appointments and some MOCs do not have qualified candidates.
I would not worry about things you cannot control. Make yourself the strongest possible candidate and the chips will fall where they may and keep working on Plan B & C. There are too many variables outside your control.
Things get a little tricky towards the end when people start declining appointments and some MOCs do not have qualified candidates.
I would not worry about things you cannot control. Make yourself the strongest possible candidate and the chips will fall where they may and keep working on Plan B & C. There are too many variables outside your control.