USAFA Applications down 27.6%?

Falcon74 said:
Interesting story from a class reunion some years ago: As graduates, we frequently comment about the fact that we are glad we didn't have to compete for an appointment against a recently admitted class. One day, we (reunion class) were being addressed by the Sup/Comm/Dean/etc. The Commandant told the following story. He was speaking to a representative of the Admissions Office one day when he asked, "Does the Admissions Office keep all of the old paper admissions records"? He received an affirmative response form the Admissions Office representative. The Commandant then asked, "On a zero-priority basis, could you look at my admissions record and give me an honest answer as to whether or not I would be offered an appointment if I were competing against the records of the last admitted class." A few weeks later, the representative came back to the Commandant's Office to provide the bad news. The Commandant confessed to my class that he would not have been competitive with current admissions standards. We all felt the same way about our individual situations.
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Do not sell yourself or your generation short. I agree that the current generation of academy graduates is probably better academically, but there is a reason the attrition rate is much lower these days and is not because this generation is tougher. You posed the question of could your generation of graduates get in the academy with todays standards; I think the question of how many of todays academy graduates could complete the academy with the standards you had while at the academy is a question just as fair.

I am not saying one generation is better than the other, it is just very interesting to see how times change along with priorities.
 
T-37IP said:
According to my DS, CRT, DEI, etc is not pushed, is widely mocked, and will likely backfire, as it is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.
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Not sure the exact dates but in the 70's and 60's USAFA only had males and mostly caucasian. Fast forward to today, as I walked the Terrazzo over parents weekend, I witnessed cadets from all backgrounds and both sexes. That IMO is DEI at work and I am proud my DS is part of it and firmly believe that our future USAF warfighters as a whole will be better and stronger in defending our freedom and liberty.
 
Low employment could be the reason. People can get a job just finishing college. Another reason could be overweight. Most people are not willing to make extra sacrifices to be fit and ready for military life, especially if they have other options. If we had a recession, it would probably increase the numbers.
 
I haven't read the first few pages of posts, but maybe the decrease is because kids want to do AFROTC and experience a more normal college life (even though cadets are now hanging out at Airbnbs on weekends and able to watch Netflix/Hulu/etc. in their rooms on their laptops). That was the case with my oldest two kids. They saw Academy life firsthand through the cadets we sponsored and in the end decided it wasn't the college experience they wanted.
And with AFROTC bumping up partial scholarships to full scholarships for those Top 10 schools, going to a very top tier school is more open now.
Having said that, I don't know if AFROTC apps are down.
 
unkown1961 said:
I haven't read the first few pages of posts, but maybe the decrease is because kids want to do AFROTC and experience a more normal college life (even though cadets are now hanging out at Airbnbs on weekends and able to watch Netflix/Hulu/etc. in their rooms on their laptops). That was the case with my oldest two kids. They saw Academy life firsthand through the cadets we sponsored and in the end decided it wasn't the college experience they wanted.
And with AFROTC bumping up partial scholarships to full scholarships for those Top 10 schools, going to a very top tier school is more open now.
Having said that, I don't know if AFROTC apps are down.
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AFROTC HSSP changed this year. The 2 lower tier types are not offered. Nothing to bump.
 
ReDux said:
AFROTC HSSP changed this year. The 2 lower tier types are not offered. Nothing to bump.
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But that is recent within the last couple of months, isn't it? Applicants didn't know that a year ago and the letter still went out in January. I seem to recall posts here about children getting partial scholarships.
Still, I think the allure of a normal college experience might play into the decrease in applications. But I don't know if AFROTC applications were down as well.
 
The vaccine mandate is a factor - this forum tends to discount it too readily - but applications to Arizona and Texas universities are far exceeding prior years. Both mandate free states. Suspect Indiana and Florida the same.

It is strange that the DoD and SA continue to dismiss this factor - which further supports the conclusion of many that the military as a whole just too politicized.
 
I have two friends who work in admissions at (different) universities where the vaccine is required. Applications were up substantially at both schools.
 
EvansinAZ said:
The vaccine mandate is a factor - this forum tends to discount it too readily - but applications to Arizona and Texas universities are far exceeding prior years. Both mandate free states. Suspect Indiana and Florida the same.

It is strange that the DoD and SA continue to dismiss this factor - which further supports the conclusion of many that the military as a whole just too politicized.
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The military is not politicized. The military executes all lawful orders. Do policies change based on who is President? Yes, they do. The military implements those policies as ordered. What would make the military politicized is military leadership picking and choosing which orders they agree with.

The forum discounts the mandate being a factor because there isn't empirical evidence saying the vaccine is for sure a root cause of low applications. Did COVID in general interrupt applications? Most would say yes. However, I have yet to see a survey/poll where respondents cite the vaccine mandate as being a primary reason they are avoiding the military. If there was one, I'm sure the forum would have a different line of discussion regarding the mandate.

Applications are up in California as well. The University of California System saw applications rise 20.1% from 2020 to 2022 (https://www.universityofcalifornia....tudents-apply-university-california-fall-2022). I think people are ready to go back to normal now. Plus, we lost a year or two where people were graduating HS and maybe college wasn't in the cards for them during the lockdown. Parent lost a job, they had to care for a sick relative, a family member was dying, travel was severely restricted, etc. Now that there is some equilibrium, we are seeing stuff come back. Look at the travel industry. People are traveling so much that the airlines can't keep up with demand.

I am not flat out denying that the vaccine might deter some people. There have been some posts here were getting the vaccine has been a dilemma. However, suggesting that the rise in applications in mandate-free states somehow demonstrates that the vaccine mandate is widely unpopular (and therefore the military is politicized for being issued an order to get vaccinated) is confirmation bias. Additionally, a confounding variable is that universities do not lock you into a specific career path.
 
EvansinAZ said:
The vaccine mandate is a factor - this forum tends to discount it too readily - but applications to Arizona and Texas universities are far exceeding prior years. Both mandate free states. Suspect Indiana and Florida the same.

It is strange that the DoD and SA continue to dismiss this factor - which further supports the conclusion of many that the military as a whole just too politicized.
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The State University where I teach has increased applicants, now enrollment and scores are up. This is in spite of extremely strict COVID vaccination requirements including a requirement for booster.
 
Not to be combative, but because I understand there are viewers of this forum with some influence, I think its important to press this point. We don't have to agree, but there are good reasons to support the view that this mandate is having a substantial affect on SA application numbers.

Somewhere between 20-30% of the country are unvaccinated. They see the discharges, the blanket denials of religious exemption requests, the early retirements, the drop in SA applications, the recruiting numbers in free fall, the lawsuits and temporary injunctions in federal court - these are not unrelated data points.

21 state AGs have joined in filing amicus briefs in support of those injunctions. Rep Massie's H.R. 3860 is sitting in Congress now to repeal the mandate - and has 76 co-sponsors from a large number of red AND blue states. These reps are listening to constituents - who, like many other readers of this forum (I suspect), are afraid to speak out.

The mandates are hugely unpopular. And recruiting and SA applications dropped as soon they were instituted.
 
Maybe it’s the mandate. But academies also still require standardized tests - very few other schools do now. That may impact it - and continue to impact the numbers.
 
EvansinAZ said:
Not to be combative, but because I understand there are viewers of this forum with some influence, I think its important to press this point. We don't have to agree, but there are good reasons to support the view that this mandate is having a substantial affect on SA application numbers.

Somewhere between 20-30% of the country are unvaccinated. They see the discharges, the blanket denials of religious exemption requests, the early retirements, the drop in SA applications, the recruiting numbers in free fall, the lawsuits and temporary injunctions in federal court - these are not unrelated data points.

21 state AGs have joined in filing amicus briefs in support of those injunctions. Rep Massie's H.R. 3860 is sitting in Congress now to repeal the mandate - and has 76 co-sponsors from a large number of red AND blue states. These reps are listening to constituents - who, like many other readers of this forum (I suspect), are afraid to speak out.

The mandates are hugely unpopular. And recruiting and SA applications dropped as soon they were instituted.
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Maybe it’s more a positive weeding out process than an overall loss for the SAs?

If the military is anything it’s a team concept. Not a Me and what I want and what my personal beliefs allow me to do concept.

I think if these , individual rights over service or team types , are not applying as much, that may be a very good thing for our military.
 
Seniormom said:
academies also still require standardized tests
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Not entirely on-topic, but I struggle to understand why there is such a push to get rid of standardized tests. Any thoughts? (Not saying that's what you were pushing for that, just curious for people's thoughts :) )
 
There are people who hate on standardized test for any number of reasons* but the one I find with substantial merit is the fact that you can prep for them very effectively. Scores do tend to follow socio economic status and the one thing that the academies are looking for is a wide spectrum of qualified candidates. A test that has that much weight shouldn't be something that you can buy 2 or 4 or 7 points of improvement on, and people with more money end up doing better because they usually prep better. Khan Academy and the other free prep sites are good, but nothing like a live tutor drilling you day after day and explaining test strategies tuned to the sections you're having trouble with.

OTOH they are pretty good at identifying the students who can read quickly and with comprehension, don't get bogged down in ambiguity and can press on to find answers and finish the work. While standardized tests alone don't corelate with college grades all that well, test scores in conjunction with HS grades are about the best predictor there is of college performance.

I don't want to be the one defending standardized testing because I know there are problems with how it's been done over the years. But I don't want to be the one knocking them down either because they do have value in bucketing kids into categories. I just think they don't have the precision people tend to read into them these days. At the very extreme they can only say Yup Really Smart or Nope Not Good At All so I believe people should just treat the scores above a 32 ACT or whatever as above the line rather than as some accurate measure, just as the scores below 15 are all Pretty Low and there are really only a few shades of grey in between. If you can get a perfect score then what it measures has a real ceiling, so treat it that way. AP subject test scores are graded 1-5 and that's kind of how I feel about the SAT and ACT.

* Other reasons are all over the place:
- schools teach to the test rather than covering the material on its own merits
- they don't result in improved student performance (ie better scores <> better grades)
- tests have been racist, classist, and sexist
- very difficult for ESL students
- not very consistent (kids have bad days, test instances are not equally difficult)
- not very accurate (can't measure process by multiple choice)

You can google up quite a mountain of standardized test debate in moments.
 
StPaulDad said:
There are people who hate on standardized test for any number of reasons* but the one I find with substantial merit is the fact that you can prep for them very effectively. Scores do tend to follow socio economic status and the one thing that the academies are looking for is a wide spectrum of qualified candidates. A test that has that much weight shouldn't be something that you can buy 2 or 4 or 7 points of improvement on, and people with more money end up doing better because they usually prep better. Khan Academy and the other free prep sites are good, but nothing like a live tutor drilling you day after day and explaining test strategies tuned to the sections you're having trouble with.

OTOH they are pretty good at identifying the students who can read quickly and with comprehension, don't get bogged down in ambiguity and can press on to find answers and finish the work. While standardized tests alone don't corelate with college grades all that well, test scores in conjunction with HS grades are about the best predictor there is of college performance.

I don't want to be the one defending standardized testing because I know there are problems with how it's been done over the years. But I don't want to be the one knocking them down either because they do have value in bucketing kids into categories. I just think they don't have the precision people tend to read into them these days. At the very extreme they can only say Yup Really Smart or Nope Not Good At All so I believe people should just treat the scores above a 32 ACT or whatever as above the line rather than as some accurate measure, just as the scores below 15 are all Pretty Low and there are really only a few shades of grey in between. If you can get a perfect score then what it measures has a real ceiling, so treat it that way. AP subject test scores are graded 1-5 and that's kind of how I feel about the SAT and ACT.

* Other reasons are all over the place:
- schools teach to the test rather than covering the material on its own merits
- they don't result in improved student performance (ie better scores <> better grades)
- tests have been racist, classist, and sexist
- very difficult for ESL students
- not very consistent (kids have bad days, test instances are not equally difficult)
- not very accurate (can't measure process by multiple choice)

You can google up quite a mountain of standardized test debate in moments.
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Interesting points that I can definitely see the merit in. Thank you
 
Peter2025 said:
Not entirely on-topic, but I struggle to understand why there is such a push to get rid of standardized tests. Any thoughts? (Not saying that's what you were pushing for that, just curious for people's thoughts :) )
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Because the existence of standardized tests scores inhibits the social engineering these progressive schools would like to do.
 
Or, you know, possibly just an attempt to measure students across tens of thousands of wildly different schools and districts to attempt to see how they compare to one another. But sure, make it into an elaborate and complicated multi-generational conspiracy. It could be either thing.

EDIT: I am cranky this morning. The objection isn't to testing, it's to people making the numbers more than they should be. If testing results were used as the indicator it was meant to be rather than some accurate measure of a student's worth and achievement people would worry about testing so much less. One point of ACT scoring means nothing, and people wanting to use them to get into fabulous schools are using the numbers like a drunk uses a lightpole, for support instead of illumination.
 
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