If you'd like her to talk to a graduate, feel free to call me. I can provide a number in a private message if you'd like. I don't "sell" CGA. I'm not going to sugar coat or dress it up. I will say, I didn't like it, hated parts of it, and was often miserable.....BUT.....
I would do it all over again, in a second. My best friends were my classmates. They saw me through some of my worst times and supported me. I tried to do the same for them. I don't think you can find a better friend than one who has seen you break, and then stood there and said "man, don't worry, we'll get through this and I'll help you." For me, that was a guy named Brendan, and I think he knows that. I've told him, and I told my swabs when I was a cadre (only I called him Mr. sjdnsjdns). My best man for my future wedding was my best friend at CGA. After graduation he went to Kodiak, AK and I went to Cape May, NJ. After our first tours I went to CGHQ and he went to grad school and then Miami. We hadn't seen each other in 3 years, but when he came to DC for the Marine Corps Marathon, it was like nothing had ever changed.
The Coast Guard is a very VERY small community, with even smaller communities in it. If you don't know someone, you know someone who does.
I knew very little about the Coast Guard when I started looking at CGA...and here's what I can tell you, after going to CGA and serving as an officer, I personally find this to be true.
The Coast Guard gets very little respect, especially from sister services. You get thick skin. There's pride, but it's not loud. Coasties like what they do, and have lost interest in forcing everyone around them to understand what that is. Who knows what the Coast Guard does? Coasties. That's it. Not anyone else in uniform. So if you want to know what they do, don't ask a sailor, soldier, Marine or airman. They have no idea.
The Coast Guard not only has a number of missions, but they've very diverse. That allows for identity issues now and then. Is search and rescue or aids to navigation very military? No. Is a 378' cutter patrolling the North Arabian Gulf very domestic? No. A 418' cutter may feel very military while a small boat station may come off very "federal law enforcement". Within the Coast Guard it's not that hard to figure out. Conveying that identity to the rest of the world, no so easy.
The Coast Guard Academy is not fun. As a high school student, a blue and gold officer from the Naval Academy visited my school. As I talked to him we walked over to midshipman (or were they cadets? Can't remember now), and he asked them "which academy is the hardest, or most regimented"
Their answer "the Coast Guard Academy". There's no getting lost in the numbers. There are less cadets at CGA than a single class at USMA, USNA, or USAFA. If you mess up, there's a good chance people will know. No one there is riding a D1 "scholarship" with hopes of making the NFL.
It's 4 years. It's in a less than impressive town. You'll get a sick feeling in your stomach as you drive over Gold Star Bridge from PVD every year...but then after those 4 years you'll have some fond memories, and that sick feeling will go away. Sure, you'll get a rush of images as that familiar Chase Hall scent returns or you enter the old or new quad. You may get a smile on your face when you try to explain to your grad school classmates why your college experience was so "messed up", but....you know who you'll never explain it to? The guys and gals, men and women, who did it do. Who "hit the bulk head" on either side of you, who sweat in that hot Connecticut summer, who saw you break and broke in front of you, who experienced everything you experienced, and who will never have to explain to you why their college experience was so "messed up".
I recommend CGA, but I'm a little biased.
