Hello.
I just received news today that I was rejected from West Point. This came as a shock to me as not only was I 3Q and my congressman’s principal nomination, but also West Point has been a dream of mine for quite some time. I would like to know if anyone has any advice for me on why this decision was made and what I should do going forward in regards to reapplying or ROTC. Thanks for your advice it’s much appreciated.
You haven’t really given much information about yourself (academic record etc.). Maybe your grades or test scores were slacking off. Either way, there is nothing to do but move on. You will probably never find out the definitive reason you were rejected. No use worrying about what has already happened.
As for ROTC, since West Point has been a dream of yours (so I assume you want the culture), I would suggest a SMC. Nothing wrong with the Citadel, Norwich, VMI, A&M etc.
Thanks for your response. Academically my GPA is about 3.6 taking with all classes being taught at an AP/honors pace (my school doesn’t weight GPA). As for standardized testing, I scored a 1450 on the new sat and a 33 on the ACT. I also have two varsity letters in track and baseball. However, like you said there’s no use in dwelling on their decision. Thanks for your help!
It seems as though you have pretty good academic scores, though your GPA could be higher. What you may be lacking in is community service and leadership positions, which are important parts of your application. IN addition, I didn’t see any non-sport extracurricular. Remember, West Point looks for the whole person.
Thanks for your response I guess I should’ve put my whole profile up. Besides sports I’ve worked for the past three summers as a camp counselor. I’m a Eucharistic minister at my church, I’ve been a retreat leader on multiple retreats and I volunteer in a community outreach program as a mentor to younger kids looking to gain admission to top high schools in my area. Thanks again for your response
@Catcher36: The application process to service academies is fairly transparent as is it based on the quantitative WCS (Whole Candidate Score). In general, the reason anyone is rejected is because their WCS is not as high as others in the same “bucket” (male/female, slate/state, etc.) that they are competing against.
Though you will never know exactly why you, in particular, were not chosen this round, your Field Force Rep (FFR) and your WP regional admissions officer will be able to tell you what you need to do to strengthen your application should you decide to re-apply. In the meantime, if you are curious how you look on paper compared to current cadets, you can check out a current class profile:
http://www.usma.edu/admissions/SitePages/Class%20Profiles.aspx
Here is another really helpful link, which goes in depth with WCS scores.
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR700/RR723/RAND_RR723.pdf
Go for ROTC. Best of luck.
Did you only apply to WP? Did you not consider applying to other Senior Military Colleges? Did you apply to ROTC already or were all your eggs in the West Point bucket? West Point has a single digit acceptance rate, so surely you knew that the odds of getting accepted were not in your favor.
That said, go to your plan B college and take a challenging course load that would mimic the classes you’d have at WP and then reapply. Many accepted WP cadets are reapplicants.
This is quite unusual. Are you certain you were 3Q or are you simply assuming you were? Are you positive you had a true Principal nomination? I’ve never seen somebody who was 3Q with a Principal nomination NOT get into West Point, unless there were other issues, like an arrest record, issue that occurred at school, failing a class fall semester of Senior year, etc. I would imagine you should be able to get an answer on this from your RC so that you are not left wondering.