USMA Candidate

My 2021 did not have a lot of club leadership opportunities, as he was playing 2 varsity sports that were basically year round commitments. Instead of becoming a member of several clubs just to check a box on the application, he undertook a capstone service project. He created a charitable project, promoted it on social media, recruited volunteers to work collection drives, partnered with two local hospitals to set up collection sites, delivered the collections to the national charity headquarters, and set up a plan to make the project an annual drive at his high school. His FFR said that in truth this is what they want to see. Leadership that is impactful in some way. So you may not be able to attain a leadership position in the next year through clubs or JROTC, but you can make your own leadership qualities stand out by taking on your own project to meet some unmet need in your community. I will say that this was largely successful because DS had gained the experience and know how from completing an Eagle project a couple of years earlier.
 
Definitely check out ROTC and no matter how good your app looks next fall, apply for the ROTC scholarships. Makes a really great plan B, if you don't get in. If you can secure an ROTC scholarship, you can take a Plebe like academic schedule, while attending a regular college, and reapply to WP the next year........Who knows, I have read plenty of posts on here of cadets who went ROTC and chose to not reapply, but rather continue down the commissioning road via ROTC. I am not sure how the ROTC nom thing works, but you might be able to get an ROTC nom after your year at college, should you choose to apply, and that is all you need, as far as noms go..........just one..........and keep you nose down and work.
 
Goat 965 said:
Definitely check out ROTC and no matter how good your app looks next fall, apply for the ROTC scholarships. Makes a really great plan B, if you don't get in. If you can secure an ROTC scholarship, you can take a Plebe like academic schedule, while attending a regular college, and reapply to WP the next year........Who knows, I have read plenty of posts on here of cadets who went ROTC and chose to not reapply, but rather continue down the commissioning road via ROTC. I am not sure how the ROTC nom thing works, but you might be able to get an ROTC nom after your year at college, should you choose to apply, and that is all you need, as far as noms go..........just one..........and keep you nose down and work.
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My DS is still waiting to hear from WP but has been accepted to VMI with a 4 year AROTC scholarship. The six senior military colleges are definitely worth a look if you want that kind of experience. VMI and the Citadel seem to be good fits for a lot of kids. Norwich is also an interesting place. Good luck!
 
GoArmy2022 said:
MG23Hopeful said:
Hi GoArmy, Do you have any idea how New Mexico Boys State works? Their website isn't as straightforward as the NM Girls Sate site. My son was selected for Nevada Boys State, but cannot attend because of a conflict with the rifle team. They are competing at a national event the same week as BS. I was curious if it's worth a shot for him to reach out to them and see if he can attend Boys State there instead. Do you have any advice for him?
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I do not know how Boys State works as opposed to Girls State. I could, however, attempt to reach out to someone who could answer your question if you would like.
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Thanks very much for your fast response and offer for help. DS will give their contact email a try and see if he can find out anything. If he can't get a reply in a few days, I might ask you.
 
You are taking many college courses..was that so you could save time/money on college? If you go to USMA then you have to do four years of college.
 
bopper said:
You are taking many college courses..was that so you could save time/money on college? If you go to USMA then you have to do four years of college.
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I know with my DD she took college classes because her high school didn't offer SO classes, it was a way for her to advance her course load.
 
madds12 said:
Hello! I only started looking into West Point last week, and only submitted my SLE application on Feb 26th. I don't think I'm that competitive of a candidate, considering my SAT score and lack of school sport. However, I know a current cadet at WP right now and she got the equivalent of my score on the old SAT (mine=1280, hers=1790). Also, would my lack of a school sport be accounted for in that my school does not have sports? I go to a Middle College High School, so I've taken about fifteen or more college classes, including high levels maths such as calculus. I'm also on track to graduate with 3 associates degrees, and am a geology/geography major.

Another difficult point for me is my extracurricular. Since I travel so far for my school (about an hour commute each way at 5am), and our college classes are wedged between our normal ones, I normally don't have a lunch time to participate in clubs. Here's my list of activities so far on my application:

National Honor Society
Principal's Honor Roll (I haven't put this on my app since I don't know where to put it)
Club Soccer, was team captain several years ago for two years (stopped last year due to a crazy schedule with school and practice)
Debate Club Member (just joined)
Project Linus Member (a charity club that makes blankets for underprivileged kids)
Tang Soo Do/Karate 1rst Degree Black Belt (plus some Krav Maga)
Geology Club (a college club)

I also listed my volunteering in the remarks section, as well as my sports since they were not "school".
Volunteering: 120+ hrs at a local elementary school, and 40+hrs at my local library, 20+ other charity volunteering opps

Also working on publishing a book, as well as other short fiction online, although I don't know if this could even go anywhere on the app? And even if I was in the process of publishing it while I applied to WP, could I still list it on my app?

My GPA: 3.84 unweighted, 4.36 weighted. I'm a bit confused about my school's system and am asking my counselor tomorrow, but there's also a 10-12 GPA that's a 4.62 weighted. Does WP look at weighted or unweighted?
Class Rank: 38/104 unweighted, 34/104 weighted. I hope they keep in mind that I go to "nerd school", but I doubt they will.

I'm looking into joining a sport again, although I am debating between finding a lower level soccer team (like regional AYSO, if you know what that is) or tryign to find a wrestling team since I excelled at competitive karate as a kid. Or maybe JROTC, but it wouldn't start again until next school year I think. Which one would be better? I'm also trying to join the journalism club, applying for an officer position in NHS, and have been trying to start my own club.

Three other people from my school have applied, all three with 1500+ SAT scores, and only two were accepted. Kind of making me nervous. Also not sure about the competitiveness of my district, CA-25. Does anybody know how I could find that out?

Thank you and good luck!
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You are rocking it, and under the circumstances I think usma will accept the club soccer and it won't hurt that you don't play a varsity sport. Your class standing is quite low though, but I do suspect that usmawill consider the quality of your school. You need to work to get that up as well as SAT. Your WCS needs to be competitively high, so work on the things you can improve.
 
Thank you for all the advice. I'm currently working to apply to JROTC next year, and unfortunately I am not playing a sport right now due to scheduling and other team issues. I'm taking college classes because my school is super small (each teacher teaches the entire school on one subject) so the classes are limited, but are drastically made up for in the college. For example, I'm currently a geology/geography major, so I am able to take Geology/Geography major classes at the college for my third year of science. Also, our math program stopped at Algebra II/Trig, so I went up to CalcI at the college then dropped out fo the calc sequence (scheduling/grade issues).

I'm working on bringing up my SAT, but I'm taking the ACT in a few weeks and I strongly think I will do better on it than the SAT.

Also, I'm no longer in karate after my black belt, but I was thinking about looking into a wrestling team. I used to do it as a kid and loved it. But if I did that, then I'd sacrifice truing for community level soccer. Any recommendations on which?
Thanks.
 
Yeah. Probably the best thing you can do is demonstrate you can do well in calculus. It's required at the academy and if you can do well in high school, it helps.
 
kinnem said:
Yeah. Probably the best thing you can do is demonstrate you can do well in calculus. It's required at the academy and if you can do well in high school, it helps.
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Sorry if I wasn't clear in my last post. I'm not taking calculus anymore because I stopped after calculus 1. I originally was going to continue, but my grade on my final dropped me to a C in the class and my counselor strongly recommended against it. Now could I try to go on to calculus 2 anyways? Yes, there's nothing blocking me officially, however my GPA suffered heavily from the C in Calc1 so I don't want to risk it again. Also, I sacrificed the units (since we're only allowed 11 units/semester) so that I could complete another degree in Geography.
I know I have to retake calculus if I get into WP, but I think I could do it again now that I've been through the college class once.
 
Whether you totally dropped Calculus or got a C in it is entirely moot. So you have 2 choices. Apply with a C in Calculus on your transcript, or a higher grade for Calculus 2. Of course this would take work and effort on your part - the same work and effort it will take at USMA. Decision is entirely yours. I don't know that a C in Calculus would hurt you. Just one man's opinion.
 
kinnem said:
Whether you totally dropped Calculus or got a C in it is entirely moot. So you have 2 choices. Apply with a C in Calculus on your transcript, or a higher grade for Calculus 2. Of course this would take work and effort on your part - the same work and effort it will take at USMA. Decision is entirely yours. I don't know that a C in Calculus would hurt you. Just one man's opinion.
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Thank you. I'll look into what I can do about it and ask my counselor whether or not I can/should start the sequence again.
 
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