Reality Check

For USAFA, I honestly do think that there was a concerted effort to attract more females the last several years. This year, there were a lot more.

I don't necessarily think its because standards were lowered or a huge push on quotas (though some). I think it's the advertisement blitz that features that young lady saying "Yeah, I can do that. I can fly. I can be an Olympic champion. I can be a hero ..." I mean, I see that commercial at least once a day! THAT'S what's attracted more females & why more qualified females were admitted. They had a goal of 30% and met it.

Yet, it's pretty tough for the girls once admitted. They fight a stigma at the SAs and those that make it through most definitely deserve that commission. I'd trust any of those young ladies to serve with my son! They are tough bunch of ladies! :)

The same goes to any group. Just getting through and graduating is a HUGE accomplishment and should put to rest any concerns about whether or not the appointment was deserved. Once commissioned, the real test begins.
 
.....but male, brown eyed posters on this forum are definitely the best. That's for sure!
 
I have been enjoying this varied exchange of views.

From another perspective, that of someone who "consumed" the junior officer product from various commissioning sources over the years, I often found zero correlation between whatever statistics they racked up in HS or at USNA and actual performance in the field when they worked for me. Yes, there was generally a sound basis of intelligence and other baseline qualities you would want in a raw ensign or 2nd LT.
What you mentioned ^^ should not be a surprise if you are managing a group of people in a less-technical or even a non-taxing environment. Meaning, if you are smart enough or if their horsepower is more than adequate, someone's gifts are not going to show and you won't see a correlation. For instance, if a doc only does colonoscopies, getting a top gastroenterologist at the Mayo (#1 in the world) isn't important at all. But if you are having GI surgery with a unique condition, maybe so. Companies hire top engineer in cutting edge fast moving technologies. That's why Apple, Microsoft, and others like to draw from MIT, CAL Tech, or Stanford. But there are a lot of design applications that matter very little so hiring a tier 2 or tier 3 engineer doesn't matter (and saves the employee some $$'s). Therefore interpersonal skills as well as a host of other attributes trump the importance of things that were taught in school or at the Academy.

The Academies are designed to teach time management, ethics, work under pressure (physical and mental) and teach them leadership skills all while chasing a college education. On average, the guys who graduates near the top should have mastered those skills sets better than the guys who graduated near the bottom. If they got anything out of an Academy that was taught and deemed useful, then they SHOULD posess those skills better than other JO's that didn't go though the same experience and training. As always, there are outliers which people gravitate towards (they remember the anomalies a lot better) and skew what is actually real. I do it too. Therefore by definition, if you put those top graduates under real-life stressful situations, their should be a correlation on who performs better. Putting it another way, a person should work in a situation where they highlight their skill sets or you are not going to see what they are really capable of doing.

If I am wrong ^^, then let's all coast and not strive to do well in academics (2.0 good to go) and just get by. Save energy only when it is important. Recruit the JO's the cheapest way possible. Make the SA's all about personality development. Because if your petri dish is an accurate representation, the current system of developing JO's is set up all wrong.
 
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If I am wrong ^^, then let's all coast and not strive to do well in academics (2.0 good to go) and just get by. Save energy only when it is important. Recruit the JO's the cheapest way possible. Make the SA's all about personality development. Because if your petri dish is an accurate representation, the current system of developing JO's is set up all wrong.

I don't think anyone has said that it would be best to 2.0 good to go, it is just that there are JO's that come out of the academy who were not stellar students and they still make fine officers. Just like the whole candidate score for admission looks at things beyond just the valedictorians in high school, so should active duty be able to say that 2nd LT X performs better than 2nd LT Y even though 2nd LT Y may have graduated higher than X. Pilots all have to take the same book tests, but instincts and hands can't always be taught. Managers may all attend the same leadership class, but when they give a presentation to their leaders or to their staff, there is always some who can just give the speech better. Even doctors may all have the same book knowledge, but their bed side manner can be extremely different - and I don't mean hand holding and comforting - I mean the ability to listen to their patient so they can accurately diagnose and sometimes look away from their books and learn to listen to their guts.

Yes - maybe #1 in the class means you will go on to great success and people will whisper your name with reverence for the ages. Yes - everyone should STRIVE to do their absolute best and their goal should be to be #1. BUT - a lot can be accomplished by also looking for the best in those around you and trying to encourage and bring out the best in them as well. And it shouldn't matter if those around you were #1, #2 or #999, having respect for the job they are doing and encouraging them will make you #1 in a lot of people's minds.
 
Oh , 2.0 good to go.... Or D for Done (although a D average will lead to a different kind of "done").
 
My son says the female cadets and cadre are generally excellent, and every bit as squared away as the men. All belong, that's for sure.


Most classmates will be excellent, high performers. Every class has a few "how did he/she get in here" cadets or midshipmen. That doesn't end at graduation but transforms into "how does this person still work here?"

Luckily, that's not the case where I work now, but this is an exception to that rule.
 
I don't think anyone has said that it would be best to 2.0 good to go, it is just that there are JO's that come out of the academy who were not stellar students and they still make fine officers. Just like the whole candidate score for admission looks at things beyond just the valedictorians in high school, so should active duty be able to say that 2nd LT X performs better than 2nd LT Y even though 2nd LT Y may have graduated higher than X. Pilots all have to take the same book tests, but instincts and hands can't always be taught. Managers may all attend the same leadership class, but when they give a presentation to their leaders or to their staff, there is always some who can just give the speech better. Even doctors may all have the same book knowledge, but their bed side manner can be extremely different - and I don't mean hand holding and comforting - I mean the ability to listen to their patient so they can accurately diagnose and sometimes look away from their books and learn to listen to their guts.

Yes - maybe #1 in the class means you will go on to great success and people will whisper your name with reverence for the ages. Yes - everyone should STRIVE to do their absolute best and their goal should be to be #1. BUT - a lot can be accomplished by also looking for the best in those around you and trying to encourage and bring out the best in them as well. And it shouldn't matter if those around you were #1, #2 or #999, having respect for the job they are doing and encouraging them will make you #1 in a lot of people's minds.
You might have missed my main point. :) Capt MJ said she didn't notice any correlation. Others commented on how the best officers they came in contact with were outside of an Academy. If there isn't a correlation to brainpower or Academy experience (making a better JO), then a lot of people wasted time, energy, and tax payers money. Meaning everyone should just take a path to becoming a JO anyway they like. Of course the 8xx graduates in 2016 year very well will go on to great things independent of their BOM. Learning doesn't stop, and some skills are not always applicable. For instance some people are not as smart in calc or chemistry. I've been walking the planet for 51 years and I have not used any calc or chem in work or in life and I took a lot of it way-back-when. Yet learning technical stuff could be the real learned skill set. I am studying how to make a technical widget work all day today. that's the learned skill that chem and calc was actually used for (learning to learn).

At the end of the day, folks at USAFA are chasing the smartest students that they can. Admissions are touring the HS's to help gain additional visibility in order to get even smarter and more athletic students into USAFA. I proposed a theory in my post that if you are smarter than you need to be on a topic, 2x smarter adds zero value. BUT, in a more physical and stressful environment the Academy grad SHOULD be better (on average and in theory) than other JO's without that experience. Now if they are pushing paper and flying a desk, the SA experience isn't going to add a lot of value. That was my point....
 
It is harder for admissions to assess character than intelligence or academic and athletic ability. The others can me measured somewhat objectively, but character can't. So, they use the tools they can, and hope that kids with good grades, test scores and athletic accomplishments translate to good kids overall. A good percentage of those kids will have good character, but not all.

What the academies have which traditional schools don't is that is says a lot about a kid that he or she wants to attend an academy, and then serve thereafter. Essays may be relevant in the equation too.
 
Can you tell which are prior enlisted? Recruited athletes? Prep schoolers? Turn backs? Foreign nationals? I can't.

They're not "my white males."
All I said was that it is difficult for a high school graduating white male to win an appointment. Seems I've hit your nerve.
Do you have a point besides one that claims that white males are at a disadvantage to be appointed? White males make up the majority of cadets.
 
Do you have a point besides one that claims that white males are at a disadvantage to be appointed? White males make up the majority of cadets.
They make up the majority because they make up well over 10,000 of the 16,000 applicants. Because there are so many white male applicants there are way more super high achieving candidates out of that bunch (and way more lower level candidates too); way more than they need to fill an entire class. However, the Academy isn't going to fill the class just with white males, so many of those super high achievers will receive denial letters. Those that get appointments are going to have higher averages than the other categories.
 
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They make up the majority because they make up well over 10,000 of the 16,000 applicants. Because there are so many white male applicants there are way more super high achieving candidates out of that bunch (and way more lower level candidates too); way more than they need to fill an entire class. However, the Academy isn't going to fill the class just with white males, so many of those super high achievers will receive denial letters. Those that get appointments are going to have higher averages than the other categories.

Thank you Brovol for putting that into terms anyone should be able to understand!
 
Thank you Brovol for putting that into terms anyone should be able to understand!
I think that many minority applicants who apply may be more qualified. Who knows really. But I can hypothesize as well as you can.
 
I know enough about statistics that your logic is flawed to conclude that because there is a larger pool there are more and higher qualified candidates in that pool.

The only thing you knew about the pool was at best a small handful of candidates in the pool and from that you extrapolated what you wanted
 
I think that many minority applicants who apply may be more qualified. Who knows really. But I can hypothesize as well as you can.
I am 100% certain that many of the absolute most qualified candidates (the very high achievers, with top numbers) are minorities; same with women, athletes, and those coming from non-competitive districts. I suspect by your comment that you don't understand mine.
 
I know enough about statistics that your logic is flawed to conclude that because there is a larger pool there are more and higher qualified candidates in that pool.

The only thing you knew about the pool was at best a small handful of candidates in the pool and from that you extrapolated what you wanted
My logic isn't based only on the pool size, but, do you disagree that if one applicant class, in this situation, has three times more applicants than all other applicant class, they will not have more upper level, more mid level, and more lower level candidates? And if not, what other factors do you base your conclusions on?
 
They make up the majority because they make up well over 10,000 of the 16,000 applicants. Because there are so many white male applicants there are way more super high achieving candidates out of that bunch (and way more lower level candidates too); way more than they need to fill an entire class. However, the Academy isn't going to fill the class just with white males, so many of those super high achievers will receive denial letters. Those that get appointments are going to have higher averages than the other categories.
I would leave out the word "super". Maybe even leave out the word "many" too. IMHO, "super high achievers" (all three descriptors) means that are on the far left of the bell curve and statistically speaking, they all get in. Now if you are a white male x̅ applicant amongst a school looking diversity, you surely can and do get bumped. As a white male, I have no problem with that approach. Infact, it makes a lot of sense.
 
I would leave out the word "super". Maybe even leave out the word "many" too. IMHO, "super high achievers" (all three descriptors) means that are on the far left of the bell curve and statistically speaking, they all get in. Now if you are a white male x̅ applicant amongst a school looking diversity, you surely can and do get bumped. As a white male, I have no problem with that approach. Infact, it makes a lot of sense.
I am not expressing criticism for the policies either. I am only suggesting that , as a whole, the "average" test scores and other statistics for white male applicants are going to be at least slightly higher than the rest of the class, for several reasons, one being statistics and pure numbers. But there is also a reason the academies identify certain categories of applicants as "underrepresented". There is an overt goal to increase those numbers. As I have said many times, I do not disparage the academies for doing this. I only say it is what it is, and in today's world of political correctness, that is an unpopular thing to do.
 
I am not expressing criticism for the policies either. I am only suggesting that , as a whole, the "average" test scores and other statistics for white male applicants are going to be at least slightly higher than the rest of the class, for several reasons, one being statistics and pure numbers. But there is also a reason the academies identify certain categories of applicants as "underrepresented". There is an overt goal to increase those numbers. As I have said many times, I do not disparage the academies for doing this. I only say it is what it is, and in today's world of political correctness, that is an unpopular thing to do.
I didn't think you were. :) I was intentionally clarifying my point so I don't get put in a bucket (I understand why diversity is needed). My point to you was that "super high achieving" white males are (statically) getting in and not bypassed. But not as much for x̅ white males in the applicant pool (who are pretty darn smart but IMHO, not super high achieving).

Some interesting points (which are in no way statistically significant). The #1 USAFA grad last year was female and a Rhodes winner. The #1 2016 Naval Academy Midshipman grad was a Rhodes winner. Also female (see https://www.usna.edu/NewsCenter/201...hipman-named-rhodes-scholarship-recipient.php ). Congratulations Megan!
 
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