<p>I will preface by saying I am a parent of a son interested in going to a service academy, in case you have not read my posts in other forums.</p>
<p>My son had talked to his ALO about 8 days prior, he called on his own and out of the blue. I was surprised when I arrived home and my wife told me what he was doing. Anyway he arranged for a meeting with us last night at the local Border’s. He was an Academy graduate who earned his wings and I beleive decided to leave after his obligation was fulfilled for attending flight school. The ALO said he wished more students that had interest would contact him early on like this. Provides him the chance to get to know the candidate better. The entire meeting was done with all of us present, which I thought was odd, but it did allow for my wife and I to ask questions to calm her fears and possibly that my son would not ask. We made it clear near the end of the meeting that in the future that mom and dad would be less visible.</p>
<p>With my son being too young to apply yet, he has to wait until January. The core of the discussion was how to make him more competitive. His GPA was a concern currently a hair below 3.0, though with his course load by the end of the semester he will be a 3.1 and end of year a 3.4, providing he continues to earn A’s. All this he knew going into the meeting, his goal is to be competitive on the SAT’s, with pre test scores of 790 & 800 on math his weakness is the verbal but he is taking prep to help with that. It was mentioned that some outside influences may have had a bearing on his grades in 9th & 10th grade which the ALO said should be documented when he starts the application process.</p>
<p>Discussing EC’s he thought his plate was adequate with Church Youth Group, Physics club officer, soccer team - past JV capt., involvement with SGA, and playing club soccer year round. The key thing he suggested was even if not elected to a post try to get appointed to head committees for these groups. It goes back to the past points of quality not quantity.</p>
<p>On a physical side my son shared that he is training for the sole purpose of the CFE. He said make sure to point this out on the application and interviews in the future as it shows a desire to attend.</p>
<p>An extra bonus for him was planning to fly in for a cadet escort the end of Oct. </p>
<p>The ALO strongly suggested to my son to apply to summer seminar, which he was already planning. Also since the ALO is also involved with AFROTC and my son is interested in a aero/astro eng. major to complete both applications at the same time, if he was interested.</p>
<p>My son did make it clear that USAFA was his first choice in schools, even though he was visiting other service academies right now. But when asked about why the academy and why the Air Force and nice canned response. “The Air Force has a great engineering program that I am interested in. But I also feel like I owe should give something back to my country.” I hope the ALO realized there was a little anxiety in that response, but as the meeting progressed the exchanges were on a more comfortable level.</p>
<p>So if you have interest in attending the Air Force, from the advice of my sons ALO get started early and get to know them. It will make the process of applying much easier down the road.</p>