Your head is in the right place IMO. In a post from last year, Falcon Foundation Scholars were offered the choice between NWP, NMMI and GMC. I agree with following the model USAFA chooses to follow for candidates they are paying to develop. (My opinion does run counter to several who contribute here and suggest you should enroll into a local school and follow a rigorous course load... etc. Happy to dive deeper on my thoughts in a PM is anyone cares to dive into that, but it would drift off topic of this request.)
Certainly the details would tell more of the story like the number of self prep in the program - not just those who succeeded in gaining an appointment AS WELL AS the success rate of netting an appointment to their top choice school. If you were self prepping and did not get your top school, does that somehow degrade the experience? The candidate did secure at least one appointment offer when presumably they did not achieve that in the prior admissions cycle. I would still consider that a success.
