Two years ago, DD received the TWE. She went to a local 4 year college, UMBC, and took Plebe-like courses. I know she had Chemistry with lab, and Linear Algebra. She did not take Calculus since she made a 5 on the AP Calculus test, and so was eligible to skip ahead. She also had English, French and Python programming. She may have had one other class I can't recall at the moment. She played club rugby, which caused me some knuckle biting after she received her appointment.
She needed recommendations from her math and English teachers again. She was able to use her high school senior teacher in English, since her college class was the mass instruction a lot of freshman English classes are. I don't remember if she used her high school or college math teacher. Her high school gym teacher readministered the CFA. She did not retake the SATs, although she had thought about it, but the timing didn't work out. She had her college send her first semester grades to the Academy.
Her MOCs were pleased to see her again, and she received her nomination. She received an LOA in early February, contingent on an updated DODMERB form. The updated form is just "Have you had any medical issues since last year". She was out of the country most of January, so updated her form in late January. She had had her wisdom teeth removed, but that raised no questions from DODMERB, and she went from "contingent on..." to full Appointment.
Her college Chemistry was stringent enough that she validated the first semester of USNA Chemistry, and she validated Calculus well enough to start with Calc III. So a college year isn't necessarily "wasted". I think the college year helped her. She learned to live with a total stranger, and deal with distractions (with no Mom around to nag).
I hope this helps.