NYBear: There are 2 points you've made a couple of times, which defeat your argument.
1) That a MOC nomination DOES NOT necessarily produce the "geographic diversity" you suggest this Nation's tax payers are entitled to and demand.
How can you even claim this, when you're talking about at MINIMUM, 1 appointee from 453 different congressional districts in the country. PLUS, another 2 appointees from each state. You can NOT get more geographically diverse than that. It's not possible.
You also said:
2) CHARACTER and DESIRES are better evaluated by admissions boards, not nominations boards.
Considering that the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of congressmen and senators give a slate of 10 nominees, and ALLOWS THE ADMISSIONS BOARD to decide among the 10 which one is the BEST; your argument is totally flawed.
Now, could the academy simply process all 10,000 - 14,000 applicants individually, and select their appointees from that pool; while maintaining EQUAL GEOGRAPHICAL diversity, like the current MOC nomination process does? Yes, that's possible. But it's more efficient, and more in line with the state's rights, if the academy only has to consider half that amount. (4530 from the representatives and 1000 from the senators).
I think the problem here, is either a) as scout said, you were turned down, and you're bitter; or b) you honestly believe that there is some significant number of appointees/cadets, that you feel do not merit being at the academy. And that someone who has more merit didn't get in.
Well, hate to break it to you, but the academies; ALL OF THEM; want well rounded individuals. I have seen personally, individuals with 3.9-4.0 gpa's and 2100+ SAT's get turned down. It's NOT all about grades. And while we're at it, I also know quite a few 4.0gpa students who filled all the squares, get turned down from Harvard and the other Ivy league schools.
The academies have been admitting appointees to the academies for a lot of years. The air force, the youngest, has been doing it for over 50 years. When the AVERAGE appointee walking in the door, has a 3.86 unweighted GPA; When their ACT/SAT scores are:
Test Mid 50% Range Mean
ACT English 27-31 29
ACT Reading 28-32 30
ACT Math 28-32 30
ACT Science Reasoning 27-31 29
SAT Verbal Aptitude 590-660 629
SAT Math Aptitude 630-690 658
Then I tend to believe that the academies have quite a bit of experience in bringing in appointees; and ARE selecting those who merit being there. Will there be a district that has three 4.0gpa students who all got 2100+ SAT scores, and all had exceptional applications, but NOT all 3 can get an appointment? Yes, that is definitely possible and definitely happens. Is that fair? Yes. Why? Because the military academies are not a public or traditional private school, that can admit 45,000 students like Michigan State. If you threw away all diversity, forgot well rounded, and based the decision solely on academics and test scores, there would still be close to 500 or more with 3.95-4.0 unweighted gpa's that wouldn't receive an appointment. There just isn't that many spots.
You admit that geographical diversity has some merit, YET, you don't believe that an appointee from each of the 453 congressional districts is geographical diversity. How much more DIVERSE, geographically, can you get. Sorry, but your argument is what doesn't have merit
The appointment process is pretty simple. Take all initial applications and eliminate those not qualified. The ones that ARE qualified, have each congressman and senator send you a list of 10, that they think, are the most well rounded and qualified among THEIR PEERS. Then, the academy chooses 1 from each of those lists. That makes up LESS THAN HALF of the allotments. Add a few more from non-MOC type nominations. That's about half done now. The academy then takes the rest of those nominations, (9 from each senator and representative, and the remaining non-moc nominees), and puts them into a big pool. The academies then choose the remaining half of all appointees from this pool. In basically the manner that you are suggesting.
It appears that your problem is if you are the 11th-100th or whatever individual who didn't receive a nomination from your senator or representative. Well, if you think your application is/was better than one of the 10 that did get a nomination from that MOC, then you need to bring that up with your MOC. Not with the academies.