Sponsored vs non-sponsored chances

njbaseball

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My DS who was 3Q'd,with 2 nominations, eagle scout, private pilot,baseball, basketball, pres of Beta and senior class plus many more EC's has been admitted to Marion Military Institute to take part in the SAP program. He is going in as an un-sponsored cadet. While talking to Col Lewis he stated that not many come to take part in the SAP un-sponsored most are sponsored. Well DS was not lucky enough to get one of those spots. Col Lewis said that they really don't have "numbers " as to what % of un-sponsored cadets get appointments to the Naval Academy because un-sponsored cadets usually quit.

He said that if DS comes and gets all A's with maybe a B thrown in and brings his ACT grade up by maybe 3 points he has a good shot for next year. Funny how sponsored cadet, will have a position wating for him there next year as long as he maintains A"s, B's and maybe a C. go figure. I guess that is where "no method to the madness" comes in...

Any insight to any of this would be greatly appreciated.
 
My DS also chose to attend a school similiar to MMI this past year and he also was a non sponsored student (free agent). He has not, as of yet received an appointment to his first choice SA, (Naval Academy, also), but is on the national wait list. Your son will definitely have a better chance of getting in, though, by making good grades and bringing up the ACT's. Reapplying isn't a guarantee, but the SAs , according to this forum, do like candidates that reapply. As far as I have observed, your chances increase, but I'm not sure by what %. At my son's prep college, which is smaller than MMI, there are non sponsored kids who received appointments to USNA, so there is always hope! We live in CA and in a competitive DISTRICT, so our son, even with a 4.0, and good SAT and ACT and a year of Prep college is still not where we were hoping he'd be at this time. Are we disappointed? Yes, of course, but it's not over yet. He's still in the race. As far as the comment about non sponsored candidates dropping out, that was news to me. No one at my son's prep school dropped out this year. All of them were just as motivated as the sponsored candidates. We had a good number make it in to USNA, USMA, and also some to USAFA. Some non sponsored kids also received the SA prep schools as a way to get into the USCGA and USMMA. Your DS's stats look very competitve, so attending MMI can only enhance his chances. He still gets a year of college too, so he's not waisting his year. Our Prep college, Greystone (Schreiner University), has the Greystoners apply to 3 SAs and also have another back up plan in place as well, such as ROTC. There are many ways for your son to get to his goal!
 
If you follow this link to MMI's site: http://www.marionmilitary.edu/about-mmi/sap assessment.da , they do list the number of sponsored and unsponsored cadets to get into each academy for the last several years. They don't give %s, so you don't know how many are actually applying though. Maybe you could call MMI Admissions for more complete info?? Here is another link that gives some numbers for this year, although I don't see anything for USNA yet... http://www.marionmilitary.edu/programs/sap news.da

Good luck!
 
My son is planning on doing the same at MMI. He was recruited for wrestling but his grades and scores were not enough. Well, we don't know for sure where he is as we were on Spring Break last week and had not received anything prior to us leaving. We expect either a denial or wait list but the coach has not called in a couple weeks which is probably a denial. He is being recruited by MMI as well and the coaching staff is excellent. There will be some scholarship money but not a full ride like he has in-state at a good school. We have the same questions you have but he wants to be an officer in the military with the CGA being his first choice. We feel he will have multiple opportunities at Marion being able to apply to multiple academies, the ECP program, and possibly ROTC. If he changes his mind, he can transfer home to a in-state school.

We discussed it today and he made a good point, too meet up with your son and others like them to form a group to work as a team to smoke that prep year. I will have him PM your child if he does decide to go to MMI.

Good luck in your decision.
 
As you review the admissions statistics for non-sponsored preps and try to "read the tea leaves", you might want to keep in mind that success rates for the different academies seems to vary. Based on nothing scientific, my impression from the numbers is that USMA is the most accepting of non-sponsored preps and the USNA is the least, with the USAFA in the middle but toward the higher end. As I understand it, the Naval Academy Foundation has cut down significantly on the number of preps it sponsors perhaps because USNA admissions believes it can fill its class without as many prep kids, meaning non-sponsored preps applying to USNA may have very little or even no edge in the admissions process.
 
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