USAFA Waiting Thread C/O 2027

One person’s “squander” is another’s happily and gracefully accepted path to a commission in the service they want via a path they want, and they are willing to invest a year of their lives to go that route, trusting the SA has decades of experience in determining who is not quite ready to be directly appointed and could benefit from this year. The SA so desires the individual, they are willing to wait a year and have saved a seat in the Class of 2028 for them.

An offer of the service prep school - with all that comes with it - military enlisted status (time as an enlisted service member that counts for military retirement down the road) that makes them eligible for a new category of nom, all expenses covered except for personal leave travel, every single aspect of the program tailored to future success at the SA - is a path that deposits the prepster right where they aspire to be, if they successfully complete the program. They have learned to be away from home for a year, gained newfound maturity, have gotten a jump on “the military stuff/culture/language,” a shiny new set of academic and military tools, and have a group of friends who will go with them to the SA. For those willing to swallow a spoonful of pride and are willing to do what it takes to earn an appointment, it is indeed the golden ticket.

Just for fun, since I am most familiar with NAPS, I excerpted a quick partial list of former NAPSters. Note the USAFA grad and MOH awardee in the mix! Source is Wiki. Names are correct, might be a little dated on current status.

 
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ConflictedMom said:
I will say that we saw the same with civilian unis this year. I live in NJ, our school district is #1 out of the 300+ in the state in diversity (student population speaks 62 languages). DS is a first generation American (both dad & I are foreign-born naturalized citizens) and he is three or more races (the ones that tick all the DEI boxes). His qualifications ranked him above the averages (SATs, GPA, etc) for the cohort that are normally accepted to these schools.

He received rejections from the Ivies, multiple prestige engineering schools in CA. He was recruited hard from universities in the midwest, the south, and the East Coast. He received hundreds of thousands in scholarship offers from places that didn't rank high on his preference list. It was a bit like whiplash with such a disparity in his college search process.

He reached out to USAFA admissions to understand why he was rejected and received a generic email in response stating that he should try to reapply next year, take more challenging classes (at 17 he's 4 classes shy of an associates degree and has taken 13 APs & is a National Merit Scholar, AP Scholar w/Distinction, etc.) to increase his likelihood of an acceptance next year.

I'd say we can probably attribute this year's anomaly to two things; economic downturn with rising college costs and the TOP Gun effect.
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I'm not sure what town you're speaking of but I think its different from the High School that I attended that also says that it is the most diverse in NJ as well. Sadly, it was and is extremely low rated with among the lowest SAT scores in the state.
When you say that his SATs, GPA, etc are above the average, you need to make sure that you're using the correct averages. Remember that there are a substantial number in the entering class who come in via different routes and they tend to (but not always) have lower SATs, etc. Direct admits from High School tend to be higher and through years of doing Senatorial interviews in NJ, I can tell you that the typical candidates that I interviewed by the dozens were much higher than the averages that are published. That is the competition that your son is up against and being on the NAPS list is a testament to the strength of his application.
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I hear what you're saying about a wasted year but the "typical" four year degree path is not so typical. I teach at a local university and most of my students are technical majors. Very very few of them are able to graduate in four years for a number of reasons and five years can sometimes be a stretch.
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I hope that you hear what I'm telling you, getting the Prep School is good news or at least is good news for the vast majority of candidates I've known.
 
Good Morning All,

Received my decision this morning, I was wait-listed for direct admit. I've been very eagerly waiting thusfar, and I maybe too quickly agreed to be put on it. It was very unclear how binding this was- does anyone know? I'm curious if this is something I should notify my commander of, or if I should just treat it like I'm still waiting.

Thank you, and I hope everyone hears the news that is best for them this morning.
 
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johnsmith27 said:
Good Morning All,

Received my decision this morning, I was wait-listed for direct admit. I've been very eagerly waiting thusfar, and I maybe too quickly agreed to be put on it. It was very unclear how binding this was- does anyone know? I'm curious if this is something I should notify my commander of, or if I should just treat it like I'm still waiting.

Thank you, and I hope everyone hears the news that is best for them this morning.
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Waitlisted for USAFA? I don't think I realized they have a wait-list for direct admit. Congrats for that!
 
Hi I am new and my DD applied to USAFA and got an email at 10:30, she looked in her portal and she said nothing changed as well. What does that even mean?
 
PAMomof2 said:
Hi I am new and my DD applied to USAFA and got an email at 10:30, she looked in her portal and she said nothing changed as well. What does that even mean?
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If there is not a golden envelope to click on then the emails may have arrived before the system updated with the decision. I would check back this afternoon to see what the update is. Good luck!
 
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