Wait listed

cmccollum4693

USMA 2015 Appointee
5-Year Member
Joined
Feb 1, 2010
Messages
194
So I did not get the primary slot for both my senatorial and district nominations, and am thus on the national wait list.

My RC told me, as of now, I am in the top 20 percentile on the wait list, but How many are generally appointed from this list?
 
Last word from the RC on this was no more than 350 from the NWL this year, possibly fewer.
 
It depends on many factors, though it ranges into several thousand since each MOC's non-principal nominees (up to 9 per MOC) go on the list. Obviously there are some other factors, like LOAs, which change the numbers, but the list is large. Each non-principal nominee with an LOA also means one fewer candidate will be taken off the NWL, since it is used to round out the class.
 
scoutpilot, say my MOC's slate was like this:

1. person with LOA
2. person with LOA
3. person with LOA
4. me without an LOA

and assume that the top three with LOA's were all triple qualified, which would mean they automatically get appointments because they have an LOA and have met all the requirements that were required for an appointment. From what I understand, they are not charged to my MOC, correct? And if they were not charged, would I be charged against my MOC and chosen for appointment, assuming that I am also triple qualified?
 
scoutpilot, say my MOC's slate was like this:

1. person with LOA
2. person with LOA
3. person with LOA
4. me without an LOA

and assume that the top three with LOA's were all triple qualified, which would mean they automatically get appointments because they have an LOA and have met all the requirements that were required for an appointment. From what I understand, they are not charged to my MOC, correct? And if they were not charged, would I be charged against my MOC and chosen for appointment, assuming that I am also triple qualified?

More than likely, one of the top 3 will be charged against your MOC. If an LOA is issued and you recieve a nomination, West Point has to match you up with an vacancy. So no nomination, per LOA, you don't get in. But, if an LOA has a nomination, West Point has to start looking for the right vacancy to maximize the yield. The LOA can be matched against the MOC's vacancy, if not against at large vacancy. For you MOC, if could be the MOC's vacancy for one LOA, Senatorial vacancy for another LOA, and Presidential nomination vacancy for another LOA.

Because someone has a LOA, that doesn't mean that person is better than someone without a LOA. One of biggest factor for LOA is completing your application. I haven't see too many LOAs with incomplete application.
 
More than likely, one of the top 3 will be charged against your MOC. If an LOA is issued and you recieve a nomination, West Point has to match you up with an vacancy. So no nomination, per LOA, you don't get in. But, if an LOA has a nomination, West Point has to start looking for the right vacancy to maximize the yield. The LOA can be matched against the MOC's vacancy, if not against at large vacancy. For you MOC, if could be the MOC's vacancy for one LOA, Senatorial vacancy for another LOA, and Presidential nomination vacancy for another LOA.

Because someone has a LOA, that doesn't mean that person is better than someone without a LOA. One of biggest factor for LOA is completing your application. I haven't see too many LOAs with incomplete application.

Oh OK, thank you. I always assumed that someone with an LOA was not charged to any slot at all.
 
Scout, wouldn't the wait list be more into the hundreds? Just looking at the class profiles, only less than 2400 are fully qualified, and about 1200 or so are admitted. Assuming that there are more offers than accepted appointments, then the wait list would be a thousand or less. Am I right? I'm sure the number of nominees is definitely in the thousands, but thats not saying they're triple qualified and on the NWL.
 
Scout, wouldn't the wait list be more into the hundreds? Just looking at the class profiles, only less than 2400 are fully qualified, and about 1200 or so are admitted. Assuming that there are more offers than accepted appointments, then the wait list would be a thousand or less. Am I right? I'm sure the number of nominees is definitely in the thousands, but thats not saying they're triple qualified and on the NWL.

Yes, but the majority of those 1200 have been appointed by being the highest WCS on their MOC's slate.
 
Admittedly I'm no expert, but from everything I've read and seen, if the number of 3Qd candidates with nominations numbers approximately 2,300 and the number of appointments offered equals 1,500 (with 1250 eventual appointments), that leaves approximately 800 on the wait list who have nominations and are 3Qd and are competing for the 350 NWL available appointments. That's how my DD who has a nom and is 3Qd (who assumes was not the top WCS on her MOC's list) is looking at it ;-)

The above includes several assumptions based on previous years.
 
Admittedly I'm no expert, but from everything I've read and seen, if the number of 3Qd candidates with nominations numbers approximately 2,300 and the number of appointments offered equals 1,500 (with 1250 eventual appointments), that leaves approximately 800 on the wait list who have nominations and are 3Qd and are competing for the 350 NWL available appointments. That's how my DD who has a nom and is 3Qd (who assumes was not the top WCS on her MOC's list) is looking at it ;-)

The above includes several assumptions based on previous years.

That's a good way of thinking about it. A little less than 50% chance of getting in.
 
Scout, wouldn't the wait list be more into the hundreds? Just looking at the class profiles, only less than 2400 are fully qualified, and about 1200 or so are admitted. Assuming that there are more offers than accepted appointments, then the wait list would be a thousand or less. Am I right? I'm sure the number of nominees is definitely in the thousands, but thats not saying they're triple qualified and on the NWL.

From the numbers that the USMA gives for prior class stats you can figure about 2400 make it all the way to 3Q'd with a nom. From there you subtract all of the principle noms, LOA's and all other nom sources that guarantee an appointment and you end up with around 850 slots filled for the class of 2015. Now take that number subtract it from the 2400 and you have what is left on the NWL - 1550. USMA's average class is around 1250, if you take that number subtract the ones with principle noms, LOA and all other nom sources that guarantee an appointment you are left with around 400 slots that will be filled using the NWL. Now take the remaining slots (400) and divide it by the rest of the 3Q'd with noms (1550) and that leaves you with a 25.8% chance of making it off of the NWL. Now remember that on average about 15 - 20% of those that receive appointments to the USMA turn them down, so that makes your odds that much better.

So what does all of this mean? If you made it to the NWL (like my DS found out yesterday:biggrin:) you are still in the running and it is pretty much in a higher beings hands at this point (God or the Acceptance Board whomever you feel has more pull right now....lol). So say your prayers sit back and enjoy a ride that less than 1% of the population of this Great Country have the privilege of or are willing to taking:thumb:

All numbers are from the USMA website (and my memory from prior posts) and are rough figures so please don't drag me over the coles about them:redface:
 
Here's part of a mass email i received back in december from my Far West Admissions Officer that i think would be useful for this thread:

"About 550 slots in the class will be filled by the congressional/senatorial/VP "vacancy winners." Those are the candidates that are either designated by the Member Of Congress as their Principal nominee (about 20% of MOCs do it this way, but remember that even a P-NOM won’t save you from being academically, physically, or medically DQed) or that we determine to be the best-qualified candidate out of the entire unranked (competing) list of nominees provided by the MOC… they can give us up to 10 names for each vacancy. If competition is tight on that unranked list, we may have to wait all the way up until the file completion deadline before determining the vacancy winner in order to give all the candidates an equal opportunity to make their files as competitive as possible. THIS IS ONE POSSIBLE REASON WHY EVEN THOUGH YOUR FILE IS COMPLETE, YOU ARE FULLY QUALIFIED, AND YOU HAVE A NOMINATION, YOU MAY STILL HAVE TO WAIT A WHILE FOR AN OFFER. You will get the “National Waiting List” letter while we wait for the files of all candidates on that congressional list to fully resolve… this doesn’t mean that you might not wind up winning that vacancy and getting the offer, only that you may have to wait longer to find out.



Another 300 slots in the class will be filled by service-connected (aka "Presidential") nominees. 100 son/daughter of career military, some son/daughter of deceased on duty / 100% disabled vet / MOH winners, up to 85 active duty and 85 reserve component nominees, and up to 20 Jr. or Sr. ROTC nominees. Just like the congressional nominations, there are more nominees than there are slots for them to fill. For example, several hundred sons/daughters of career military personnel and ROTC cadets receive those nominations each year… far more than the 120 slots available between those two categories.



That means that the remaining 350 slots in a 1,200 person class come from the National Waiting List... those fully qualified candidates who received a congressional or service-connected nomination but were NOT the vacancy winner. THIS is where our required-by-law class composition goals come into play: Scholar, Leader, Div I Athlete, Female, Soldier, or Minority (African American, Hispanic, or Native American), and this is how the admissions committee "fine-tunes" the class. Every candidate on the NWL has been qualified, so they can choose the candidates that help West Point to meet those goals or the candidates whose overall file strength is above a certain level. The committee will say, at certain points throughout the cycle, "Give us all the fully qualified & nominated candidates with a file strength of XXXX who fall under the YYYYYYY class composition goal. You have ZZ days to send them forward to the committee." This is already happening. Those X, Y, and Z values will change throughout the cycle, usually getting MORE stringent as the class fills up, so if you were waiting until the last minute to take your fitness assessment or still working on getting Q-MED, you might miss the boat!



If you are on the National Waiting List, you must exercise PATIENCE. It could take a week to get an offer, or a month, or it could not come at all. Many folks currently on the NWL are sitting just below a candidate who will win the vacancy IF that candidate gets medically qualified or IF they accept their offer of admission or IF they pass their CFA retest, etc. If that candidate declines or gets DQed, then we start going down the list and MAY get to you. Asking me where you are on the district, state, or national list (I cannot tell you) and/or asking me “what are my chances” (I won’t know until at least the file completion deadline) will not change anything and will not get a response. Rest assured, however, that I am constantly reviewing EVERY ONE of my 84 congressional districts and 20 senatorial slates to see what’s going on with every candidate… communicating with them and angling for offers at every opportunity both leading up to and following the file completion deadline.



By late March to mid-April, we will have resolved almost all of the congressional and service-connected vacancies, and selected the remainder of our candidates from the NWL. A handful of offers will come out as late as June, but those are exceptional cases. Sometime in the middle of April you should receive final word about whether or not you will be coming off of the NWL. If not, you will receive a letter telling you that you were considered fully Qualified for admission, but Not Selected. In other words, you are “QNS.” IF you applied for an ROTC scholarship, and IF you selected that "ROTC consideration" checkbox on our application, we will automatically notify them that you are on our QNS list. ROTC will hold an additional scholarship board and review all of our "QNS" names, picking many of you up if you haven’t already received word from them.

I hope that this summary helps provide you with some clarity and valuable information on what lies ahead for you in the admissions process. For those of you receiving this email who have already been offered admission, please make your decision as SOON as you can… other candidates are waiting for your reply with bated breath, whether they know it or not! For those of you who have accepted your offers, CONGRATULATIONS! Stay out of trouble, keep your grades up, and don’t get medically broken. I see offers withdrawn every year for these issues and more… don’t be the candidate who suffers from a “self-inflicted wound” like that!"
 
350 slots only? It really seems like my chances at West Point are slimming.
 
Just stay confident Peter, stay optimistic, yet realistic. Battle ain't over yet.
 
Waitlisted??

My daughter received her qualification and nomination letters over the past month. We do not know if her MOC labeled her as his Primary or if the MOC uses the Primary (USMA website says some MOCs may not use the Primary designator). My question is do candidates receive an actual letter when they are put on the NWL? We are patiently waiting to here where she stands.
 
My daughter received her qualification and nomination letters over the past month. We do not know if her MOC labeled her as his Primary or if the MOC uses the Primary (USMA website says some MOCs may not use the Primary designator). My question is do candidates receive an actual letter when they are put on the NWL? We are patiently waiting to here where she stands.

Yes, candidates who are put on the NWL do receive a letter.
 
My daughter received her qualification and nomination letters over the past month. We do not know if her MOC labeled her as his Primary or if the MOC uses the Primary (USMA website says some MOCs may not use the Primary designator). My question is do candidates receive an actual letter when they are put on the NWL? We are patiently waiting to here where she stands.

'Usually', MOCs will state in their letter if you are the Principal nom on their slate if they use that type of slate. Reread the nom letter and see if you see the word, 'Principal' or 'competitive' .
Sometimes in the excitement of the news, these key words can be overlooked.
 
Thanks

Her nomination letter does not specify...so we assume she either did not receive the Principal nomination or the MOC did not designate one (leaving it up to West Point). She has not received a NWL letter yet so she is in limbo. She will try emailing her RC this week to see if she can get an idea where she is at.
 
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