Very quiet on USMMA SAF forum

azmilmom

5-Year Member
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Nov 11, 2016
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When compared with other years, it is very quiet on the USMMA forum this year. Taking into account the unusual circumstances, I would anticipate a bit more activity given that so many resources are limited in connection. However, I am concerned that because ours is the 'best kept secret' academy, the word isn't getting out there via the usual connections.

Is this the same in other forums? I've gone on the other Academies' forums and it is difficult to tell. Thoughts?
 
Here is something to read and think about, that is very relevant to USMMA. I just read it over the weekend.

The Megaships That Broke Global Trade​

With a new generation of giant container ships, firms and governments made a big bet on the future of globalization—and lost

On August 16, 2006, five tugboats dragged Emma Maersk from a Danish shipyard and towed her backward to the sea. The length of four soccer fields, her keel nearly a hundred feet below her deck, Emma was far larger than any container ship ever before ordered and by far the most expensive. She was a bet on globalization: By transporting a container more cheaply than any other vessel afloat, she and her six sister ships were expected to stimulate even faster growth in international trade, lowering the cost of moving goods through the supply chains that had reshaped the global economy and turned China into the world’s workshop.

The opposite occurred. Though supremely efficient at sea, Emma and the even larger ships that followed in her wake became a nightmare. By making freight transportation slower and less reliable than it had been decades earlier, they helped to stifle the globalization of manufacturing well before Brexit, Donald Trump and Covid-19 came along.
Container ships are the workhorses of globalization. Operating on regular schedules—such that an identical vessel departs Shanghai every Wednesday, stops in Singapore nine days later and arrives in Antwerp five weeks hence, with tight connections to barges and freight trains—intermodal container transport gave manufacturers and retailers the confidence to plan tightly organized long-distance supply chains. Before Emma, each new generation of ships since the dawn of the container age in 1956 had been slightly larger than the one before. The rationale was straightforward: On a per-container basis, a larger vessel cost less to build and operate than a smaller one, allowing the owner to undercut competitors’ cargo rates and still earn a healthy profit.
Their size was expected to give Emma and her sister ships an immense cost advantage on the most important route in shipping, the roughly 14,000-mile haul between China and northern Europe. Maersk forecast in 2006 that a global trade boom would double the demand for container shipping by 2016. Its concern was having enough ships to handle all that cargo.
im-247894

At the port of Qingdao, China, a railway train is loaded onto a ship bound for Sri Lanka, March 3, 2020.​

PHOTO: CHINA DAILY/REUTERS
The major ship lines, almost all of which were state run or family controlled, felt compelled to follow Maersk’s lead. Megaship mania took hold, and orders for ships even larger than Emma flooded Asian shipyards. With the help of low interest rates and generous shipbuilding subsidies from the Chinese and South Korean governments, ships were to be had for far less than the true cost of building them. But the expected trade boom never occurred. Instead, international trade collapsed amid the financial crisis in 2008-09, and when it picked up again, its growth was far weaker than before. In the decade before the crisis, trade had expanded by 78%. In the decade after 2008, it increased less than half as much. Merchandise trade—exports plus imports—came to 51% of the world’s economic output in 2008, but hasn’t reached that share again.

By the early 2010s, there simply weren’t enough container loads to fill all the new capacity. Had the U.S. imported as much in 2016 as it did in 2011, relative to GDP, an additional half-trillion dollars of imports would have entered the country in a single year. The trade slump wiped out the cost advantages of larger vessels. Freight rates fell so low that revenue didn’t cover operating costs, flooding the oceans with red ink. Some carriers folded. Others found merger partners. The survivors sought shelter in alliances with competitors, in hopes that several ship lines working together could generate sufficient cargo to fill their ships.

The megaships themselves, though, played a role in slowing the growth of trade. As ship lines trimmed capacity by anchoring vessels and canceling services, a box filled with time-sensitive merchandise might have to sit longer at the port before it could be loaded aboard ship. Discharging and reloading the vessel took longer as well, and not only because there were more boxes to put off and on. The new ships were much wider than their predecessors, so each of the giant shoreside cranes needed to reach a greater distance before picking up an inbound container and bringing it to the wharf, adding seconds to the average time required to move each box. Thousands more boxes multiplied by more handling time per box could add hours, or even days, to the average port call. Delays were legion.

MORE IN IDEAS​


Once, container ships would have been able to make up those delays en route. But that was, and is, no longer possible. To save fuel and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, recent generations of vessels are uniformly designed to steam more slowly than their predecessors. Instead of 24 or 25 knots, they travel at 17 or 18, adding several days to a long ocean voyage. And where earlier ships were able to speed up if required to get back on schedule, the megaships cannot. By 2018, 30% of the ships leaving China departed late.
The land side of international logistics was scrambled as well. At the ports, it was feast or famine: Fewer vessels called, but each one moved more boxes off and on, leaving equipment and infrastructure either unused or overwhelmed. Mountains of boxes stuffed with imports and exports filled the patios at container terminals. The higher the stacks grew, the longer it took the stacker cranes to locate a particular box, remove it from the stack and place it aboard the transporter that would take it to be loaded aboard ship or to the rail yard or truck terminal for delivery to a customer.
Where once an entire shipload of imports might be on its way to inland destinations within a day, now it could take two or three.
Freight railroads staggered under the heavy flow of boxes into and out of the ports. Where once an entire shipload of imports might be on its way to inland destinations within a day, now it could take two or three. Queues of diesel-belching trucks lined up at terminal gates, drivers unable to collect their loads because the ship lines had too few chassis on which to haul the arriving containers. And often enough, the partners in one of the four alliances that came to dominate ocean shipping didn’t use the same terminal in a particular port, requiring expensive truck trips just to transfer boxes from an inbound ship at one terminal to an outbound ship at another.
Today, much of the world’s trade moves in vessels far larger even than Emma Maersk, each able to carry more freight than 10,000 full-size trucks. After a prolonged rate war, consolidation has finally allowed the carriers to push up cargo rates by idling ships, but hidden costs have soared. Governments have picked up many of those costs, subsidizing international trade by funding higher bridges, deeper harbors, stronger wharves and larger cranes to accommodate megaships, as well as the vessels themselves.
Shippers have borne a considerable burden as well. To reduce the risk that goods won’t arrive on time, businesses are keeping more inventory, shipping via multiple routings and producing in multiple factories rather than in giant sole-source plants. Such measures, reversing a decades-long focus on minimizing production, transportation and inventory costs, don’t flatter the bottom line. With proper accounting, the globalization of manufacturers’ supply chains no longer seems such a bargain, regardless of whether populists and pandemics are raging.

—Mr. Levinson is an economist and historian. This essay is adapted from his new book “Outside the Box: How Globalization Changed From Moving Stuff to Spreading Ideas,” published by Princeton University Press.
 
It does seem like there is much more traffic on the other SA forums and it also seems like there was more posting on this forum last year than this year. Wow.
 
Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard recognized by all whether it be on the front page or the sports page. What per cent of the country has even heard of KP much less knows what it's about? Without the large MOC Academy Days, even fewer of those who might be interested are exposed to its existence. DD was looking for discipline, time management, service, immediate responsibility, and a good job. When asked which academy she said she didn't know. MOC replied "Good, you're going to KP for the options." But I met an MOC interviewer whose response to KP was "what's that." Solution: make sure MOCs and their staff know about KP. On the other side, posts on SAF and discussions with alumni indicate there are many who don't want this "hidden gem" (a phrase used by many alumni of the other 4 academies) further exposed. They STRONGLY believe there should be no other options than sailing and that those who want to sail know of KP. What is "best" or "right?" Damned if I know. DD spent 3 1/2 years with an open mind seriously exploring all options.
 
I think there is an overall slowdown to the forum in this cycle. Posts to the USMMA forum are down significantly, but in general, it feels WAY lower across all boards in contrast to the prior admissions cycle.
 
When compared with other years, it is very quiet on the USMMA forum this year. Taking into account the unusual circumstances, I would anticipate a bit more activity given that so many resources are limited in connection. However, I am concerned that because ours is the 'best kept secret' academy, the word isn't getting out there via the usual connections.

Is this the same in other forums? I've gone on the other Academies' forums and it is difficult to tell. Thoughts?

This is a great question. In terms of overall site traffic (user visits, threads, and posts) we have experienced quite a bit of growth this year compared to last year. As one data point, in September 2020 we averaged 25% more posts per day compared to September 2019. That said, we do experience periods of higher and lower traffic, where January, February, and March tend to be our periods of higher traffic.

-TN
 
I had that same thought. With the Cocktail, Bacon, Everything Drawer, COVID Memes, anything food-related, I certainly felt I was hanging out in Off-Topic way more than usual.
 
I'm felt the same way. Rummaging through old forum posts recently, there is a noticeable decrease in posts by prospective candidates. My two cents? While deterred outreach does play a part, I think that the mental health impact of Covid has also played a significant role.

This school year, most peers will agree, is significantly easier than in past years. Even in the most stringent school environments, remote learning has made homework more manageable than ever and I, at least, have an overabundance of time to focus on college admissions. This year's seniors are probably the least stressed in decades.

You'll note that prior to Covid-19, most forum posts seem to originate from a place of anxiety. Several "Rate my profile" and "Are these CFA-ACT-SAT-Grade Scores Good Enough?" type posts comprising (by my spitball estimate) 20-50% of the USMMA SAF. This season, almost every candidate post has been a technical inquiry.

I imagine that because of the lower stress levels, manageable school work, and extra free time, most young people are less anxious, and by that virtue, less likely to write angst-riddled forum posts.
 
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I'm felt the same way. Rummaging through old forum posts recently, there is a noticeable decrease in posts by prospective candidates. My two cents? While deterred outreach does play a part, I think that the mental health impact of Covid has also played a significant role.

This school year, most peers will agree, is significantly easier than in past years. Even in the most stringent school environments, remote learning has made homework more manageable than ever and I, at least, have an overabundance of time to focus on college admissions. This year's seniors are probably the least stressed in decades.

You'll note that prior to Covid-19, most forum posts seem to originate from a place of anxiety. Several "Rate my profile" and "Are these CFA-ACT-SAT-Grade Scores Good Enough?" type posts comprising (by my spitball estimate) 20-50% of the USMMA SAF. This season, almost every candidate post has been a technical inquiry.

I imagine that because of the lower stress levels, manageable school work, and extra free time, most young people are less anxious, and by that virtue, less likely to write angst-riddled forum posts.
Lol. I am completely opposite and running on high levels of stress since I am brick and mortar and 4 hours varsity sports every day. I work on the weekends and tutor during the week after practice. I just took my SAT and super scored. I also kept straight As 1st Q with an extremely challenging 6 course load. And college admissions along with that and then Honors college applications. And now I am preparing for at least 3 of the most important interviews I have had thus far in my life. I am not complaining but everyone’s stress level is not the same as no two regions are treating Covid the same.
 
I think the drop is across the board. I wonder if the access to the SAT and ACT is a factor? The SA application process is fairly time consuming. Is the uncertainty about the ability to get a good test score at a date to be named later enough of a deterrent to prevent people from applying? Many schools with equal stature as SAs have gone test optional.
 
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