Every year, Murphy of Murphy’s Law lies in wait for candidates who wait until December to execute their CFA (fitness test). Family emergencies, illness, injury, bad weather, sudden non-availability of the administrator or venue, derail the CFA plan, and candidates find themselves trying to explain to Admissions why they can’t meet a deadline known for months and begging for an extension, when their equally-busy equally-stellar competition has knocked it out in the past few months. I’m knocking on wood to keep Murphy away from your son, knowing it’s his own decision of when he takes it, especially since he has done well and gotten himself to an excellent situation with a principal nomination.
My first Navy boss, a salty former enlisted officer with 30+ years in the Navy, once told this raw young Ensign: “There may be plenty of good reasons for your failure to do X, but there is no String of Colorful Words EXCUSE.”
All you can do is urge him to get on with it. He’s in a very good position; all he has to do is just get remaining requirements done.
The principal nomination essentially forces a service academy to offer an appointment to a candidate, if the candidate has been found fully qualified (medical/DoDMERB, physical/CFA, academic/all other evaluated areas), regardless of how USNA has ranked applicants on that slate. Interestingly, the statutory language governing USNA differs from the other service academies, allowing them to disregard the principal nomination. Typically, though, USNA will respect it, as long as the candidate is fully qualified, in the interest of maintaining status quo with elected officials.
And welcome new member of less than 24 hours! Pro tips: As another poster mentioned, read any pinned posts at the top of Forums. There is also The Acronym List findable from the home page.