My son was asked variations of this question during his interview with his ALO and during congressional nomination board interviews. Afterwards, in a discussion with his ALO, the ALO mentioned that he asks all his candidates because he wants to find out if its truly the candidate's desire to attend an academy and then serve, or if its the parents who want that and push their son/daughter to attend (even though the candidate isn't sure of the fit). If so, he felt there was an increased chance the person would drop out. Conversely, the ALO felt that if the candidate really wanted to attend/serve but the parents were not supportive or were deadset against it, that also increased the chance that he/she would drop out of the academy when things got tough and couldn't turn to their parents for support. So to me, it really sounded like it was a way for the ALO to find out the sincerity of the candidate's interest in going to an academy. I don't know how much this affected the ALO's ranking of his candidates when he turned in his scores to the Academy.