Principal Nominee Question

S

Shaka

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My son received the Principal Nomination from his MOC. Does this mean (he is qualified in all other respects including CFA and DODMERB) that he should be receiving his appointment shortly? My other son at West Point was a recruited athlete so we went a little different route. Many thanks in advance.
 
Shaka said:
My son received the Principal Nomination from his MOC. Does this mean (he is qualified in all other respects including CFA and DODMERB) that he should be receiving his appointment shortly? My other son at West Point was a recruited athlete so we went a little different route. Many thanks in advance.
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Which service academy? Navy 'rules' are different than Army and AF Academies. CGA?
 
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For USMA, if you’re fully qualified, they have to appoint you by law given the principal.
 
A1Janitor said:
Hmm

I originally wrote USNA does not have to appoint principal noms, but took it out because I thought this was in USMA forum.
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I wasn't aware that USNA had different rules for principal noms as opposed to those at Army and Air Force. Can you please clarify?
 
Staffer said:
I wasn't aware that USNA had different rules for principal noms as opposed to those at Army and Air Force. Can you please clarify?
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From another thread years ago posted by @usna1985:

As a general rule, USNA will offer an appointment to the principal nominee if the candidate is fully qualified. Although USNA is not required to do so by law, as are USMA and USAFA, they almost always do and it is a VERY rare occurrence for principal nominees not to be appointed.

I have seen @Capt MJ or @NavyHoops discuss it before too (apologies to them I forget which one).
 
Staffer said:
I wasn't aware that USNA had different rules for principal noms as opposed to those at Army and Air Force. Can you please clarify?
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Here’s a primary source. Look at the footnotes at the bottom of P. 5. That’s where it is mentioned USNA is not bound in the same way to offer a fully qualified principal nominee an appointment. As noted, they usually do.


Paging @A1Janitor to ensure you see the citation, so someone else knows where it hides.
 
Capt MJ said:
Here’s a primary source. Look at the footnotes at the bottom of P. 5. That’s where it is mentioned USNA is not bound in the same way to offer a fully qualified principal nominee an appointment. As noted, they usually do.


Paging @A1Janitor to ensure you see the citation, so someone else knows where it hides.
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LOL I knew I have seen it before from one of you! My quick search couldn’t find it.

It will in the future. :)
 
The CRS report should probably be considered a secondary source regarding the legal requirements for nominations and appointments. While it seems it is generally accurate it is not perfect. For instance reference 16 regarding the appointment of principal nominees to the USAFA shows 32 CFR 901.27, this would more accurately be attributed to 901.18:
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The primary source for information regarding this issue related to the USNA, in my opinion, is 10 U.S.C. § 8454:
"Each Senator, Representative, and Delegate in Congress, including the Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico, is entitled to nominate 10 persons for each vacancy that is available to him under this section. Nominees may be submitted without ranking or with a principal candidate and 9 ranked or unranked alternates."

So while the wording is different, the fact that nominating a "principal candidate" is codified is significant. It should be noted that the Air Force and Army references are CFR and the Navy reference is USC. I don't know if this has ever been challenged but a good argument could be made that since congress wrote it into law...they intended that the USNA follow it.

Having said that I would not consider it a 100% probability even if the candidate is fully qualified, but I would wager it is very close.
 

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I didn't know the USNA exception either nd that is how I got my appointment to USNA! It makes sense they follow it closely. Don't want to bite the mouth that feeds you.
 
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