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<p>But you’re talking about how connections may help you STAY at the Naval Academy. I thought the original inquiry was whether connections help you get INTO the Naval Academy.</p>
<p>I agree with your point and there is certainly some recent evidence to support it.</p>
<p>I just did a quick Google search on class profiles for the past 10 classes. If you look at the numbers, the class sizes vary only slightly between 1200-1240 during that ten year period. Here’s the site: [USNA-Net</a> - Plebe Parents Corner](<a href=“http://www.usna.org/plebecorner.html]USNA-Net”>http://www.usna.org/plebecorner.html)</p>
<p>While class sizes have not varied much during the past ten years, class makeup has changed significantly in terms of minority enrollment. 2004 was approximately 18% minority while 2013 was nearly twice that at 35%. The Naval Academy has made diversity recruiting an important focus in the past several candidate cycles. Female Midshipmen were 17% in the Class of 2004 and that number has not changed significantly - 20% for 2013. Those are “I-Day” stats. Grad rates for those classes and demographics are not on that website, but I’m sure are available somewhere if I had the time and inclination to search.</p>
<p>I’d love to find the admitted vs. graduated stats for the past fifty years. My recollection is that in “the bad old days” entering class sizes varied a bit more depending on the vacancies created by those who left voluntarily and involuntarily. My own class had about 1240 entrants, and we graduated just over 1000. I recall being told that even though our class was smaller than the typical class on I-Day, we had a higher percentage of graduates. Again, if memory serves, it didn’t used to be that typical for a class to have over 1000 graduates, but I can’t back that up with statistics at this point in time. </p>
<p>So what? As was stated earlier, it used to be a lot tougher to stay in the program than it appears to be now. As WP and Bill0510 said, grad rates are in the mid-80’s, recently. That means that if you want to be there, and you work at it, you will almost certainly graduate. I think attrition rates were higher back then than they are now. That’s not a judgment about the current difficulty of the program - just an observation from an old goat… :)</p>
<p>PS - Just did a little searching of class histories, and the Class of 1969 entered with 1328 and lost 449. That’s an attrition rate of almost 34%, or more than double the attrition rate today.</p>
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<p>More like 25,000 inquiries are received each year. </p>
<p>Completed applications are nowhere near that amount.</p>
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<p>From an unnamed official USNA source.</p>
<p>PS - There were also 6 from the class of 2008 who graduated late, in December of 2008, not on May 23 with the rest of the class. </p>
<p>3 of them were D1 football players, btw.</p>
<p>Do we have any other kind of football player at USNA besides the D1 kind? :)</p>
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<p>You know, I hadn’t thought of that. I always equated one with the other. They always said, “25,000 applicants”.</p>
<p>Hmmmmm… 
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I’ve never seen a statistic on the number of inquiries so I could neither confirm nor deny this 25,000 number. There are normally around 14,000 completed preliminary applications each year of which approximately 80% will meet the requirements for a candidate number. This past year was higher, probably in the 18k/14k range.</p>
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While they are probably available somewhere, I doubt they are anywhere that a civilian could ever access them. Otherwise I believe we would have seen them trotted out to either support or refute Professor Fleming’s allegations.</p>
<p>The attrition rate has decreased due impart to the availablity of visits, summer seminars and other outreaches. Ya, having daddy or mommy with some pull may help but I doubt admissions pays alot of attention to that. They want people who will graduate-that’s the business they’re in. If admissions takes you then you can graduate provided you want it bad enough.</p>
<p>We started at CGA with 355 and graduated 155. The first lecture in Dimmick Hall was given by the Sup who told us to look to the left and then to the right. He stated that those Cadets will not be there in 4 years. We lost 1/3 of our Swab summer platoon and most of the others over Swab year. The majority just didn’t want to deal with the regiment of military life.</p>
<p>BTW, we had several 4.5 yr men who were football players.</p>
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<p>We got the same speech as NAPSter. They were right. The guy to my left didn’t make it. Neither did his roommate.</p>
<p>For that matter, neither did the majority of my NAPS class. We were decimated at USNA due primarily to academics. It was a slaughter. :(</p>
<p>XCI [z]: an interesting issue comes about from your experience.</p>
<p>Many, MANY words have been written about the Academy is lowering its standards, that a dual admission standard exists, etc., etc., etc. </p>
<p>Should there even be a NAPS? In other words, isn’t NAPS an admission that the applicant didn’t have “what it takes” to make it at the Academy? You did, obviously, but by your own admission, you did not have the study habits, the intellectual “heft” to compete for the tops spots upon graduation. Granted, its a big Navy and there was room for you [I might argue there was a NEED for you; not everybody is destined to be an Admiral after all] at the end of the day. You filled a bill for the Navy.</p>
<p>So, what does NAPS accomplish except to try and fit a square [well, maybe oval] peg into the round hole?<br>
The point is, this is just one more example of the Navy’s “diversity” effort; just in this case it is for the intellectually challenged.</p>
<p>Do those who challenge the Navy’s effor to recruit more minorities also challenge the notion of NAPS? after all, NAPSters are taking up a spot that could be offered to one who will “make it” or otherwise has a more stellar academic background.</p>
<p>I will forever be grateful for having been offered NAPS, for whatever reason it was offered.</p>
<p>The primary mission of NAPS has normally been to get prior-enlisted folks who wanted to go to the Academy back up to speed academically before dropping them into the Academy. A noble goal, but one wonders why folks from High School are let in, then?</p>
<p>All that aside, you bring up a valid point: If one doesn’t make the cut for a USNA class, should there be a Prep School at all? My fiscally-conservative side says no. You either make it or you don’t, and if you don’t then you can reapply next year. Kinda like life when you’re applying for that dream job; they don’t put you in a prep program at their expense. If it were limited to prior-enlisted, I would be more forgiving.</p>
<p>Of course, I also have opinions whether USNA should only admit prior-enlisted personnel and be turned into a mini War College, but that’s a discussion for a different thread.</p>
<p>As for me, I went in with the full intent of making a career out of it. I wanted subs, but stupidly daydreamed about them more than studied in order to ensure I got them. My experiences as a SWO weren’t that great, and I decided I wanted a normal life after all. </p>
<p>Was it the right choice? Who knows? But I am happy, proud, and grateful to be able to say that I did graduate USNA, that I served as best I could at the time, and that I fulfilled my complete commitment. I still wear my ring daily and love my Alma Mater. I owe it a lot and do the best I can to carry its torch to the next generation of starry-eyed Midshipmen wanna-bes. Sometimes I do well, sometimes not. Oh, well. If I were perfect I’d have been nailed to a tree by now… ;)</p>
<p>Regarding diversity, I have always said that applicants should be rated strictly upon their ability to complete USNA and become the best officers possible, and that the determination should be based on academics, leadership demonstration, etc. Race, color, creed, sex, etc., should not factor into it at all, nor should one group be approached more often than another. The Academy is not a secret. If one wants to go, they can apply and let the chips fall. If they don’t apply, it’s their problem. If one class is 99% white male, so what, provided that the statistic was a fluke rather than purposeful? I wouldn’t care if one class turned out to be 99% females of Elbonian descent; if they were the pick of the litter that year, so be it! </p>
<p>What passes for “efforts to expand diversity” these days was once called “racism” and/or “sexism” by the people now getting the benefits of the “efforts”. If a person can’t stand on their own merits without using their race, creed, color, or sex as a crutch, then I for one don’t want them anywhere near me or in any position where they have to lead others, especially in combat. If you want to expand that to academics (for non pror-enlisted) for the purpose of the Academies, then I wouldn’t be all that opposed to it, either.</p>
<p>^^^
The number of Napster grads that also graduate from the the USNA four years later is probably another of those statistics that the supporters of the current enrollment practices can’t find.</p>
<p>I can’t speak for other classes, but if I remember correctly, my NAPS class broke down roughly as follows:</p>
<p>We started NAPS with about 300 Midshipman Candidates.</p>
<p>We graduated about 200.</p>
<p>Of those, about 75 went to USCGA. I have no follow-up data on them.</p>
<p>Of the 125 that made it to USNA, I’d guess about half graduated. </p>
<p>Like I said, it was a slaughter. In my company alone we lost at least five; one of them was a roommate of mine who had been in my platoon at NAPS. Two of the others were also in my NAPS platoon.</p>
<p>I have no idea if this is anything remotely common among other classes.</p>
<p>Well, none of us do and it doesn’t really matter. I would fall on the side o fguessing there are distinguished veterans who started at NAPS.<br>
Just as, I am sure, there are distinguished veterans who might not have been admitted had it not been for affirmative action.</p>
<p>That’s the point, if you make it through–even based on familhy connections–then you deserve to wear the ring and you deserve to prove yourself in the fleet.<br>
However y ou get in, however you make it through, you deserve to be called Ensign if you walk across that stage. [I’ll even go so far as to say that however you get there, whether it was based on political connections, ability, or pure-ass luck, if you get the star, you deserve to be called Admiral. At the end of the day, y ou have put up w/ a lot of BS one way or the other to endure 25+ years.] YOu and I disagree a bit on whether “diversity” factors sh/ count, but they do and that’s that.</p>
<p>All the other chatter about dual admission, diversity, and “family connecitons” is nothing more than talk-radio blather by a bunch of nothing-else-to-do blowhards.</p>
<p>OH, to answer the question: Family connections ALONE will not get you into the Academy</p>
<p>It’s tempting to concur with your pragmatic view of the outcome of graduating/commissioning being the common leveler.</p>
<p>But the problem are the notions of principles, honor, merit, fair shots, and more moral and ethical issues that USNA proclaims as her foundation pillars. In the end, it doesn’t play without being tainted.</p>
<p>No, those cannot be dismissed or abandoned. The slope gets slippery and steep.</p>
<p>C.S.Lewis made the point well in talking of his revised view of Scripture and picking and choosing the parts to follow and those to abandon. And the issues were the same as the USNA experience.</p>
<p>He noted, we have to accept and take it all …or none of it matters. And that’s the problem with your contention. The process, including the way one gets there, matters. </p>
<p>Or none of it does. Only function.</p>
<p>Prince Machiavelli’s approach …the ends justifies the means. </p>
<p>And on a more practical point …I continue to contend that THE central issue remains, as stats validate collectively if not indvidually, appointment. It’s a virtual guarantee, by doing what you’re told once you get there, you will graduate and get the commission.</p>
<p>Conversely, that is now no longer the case in the appointment process. For we see that more and more “lesser” candidates are now not only being appointed, but they are also consuming the spots that would otherwise be utilized for those who have done what they were told …to no avail. </p>
<p>So, while I value your opinions nearly always, not nearly on this one.</p>
<p>Not to play both ends against the middle, but the biggest challenge in all of this is the inability to accurately determine what percentage of a candidate’s acceptance or Midshipman’s graduation is due to political pull, affirmative action, hard work, or just dumb luck.</p>
<p>I can assure you that dumb luck played a role in MY graduation, believe me!</p>
<p>So, unless someone can show me where, say, naked political pull got them something they wouldn’t have otherwise deserved, then I err on the side that they earned it fair and square. It is why I find so distressing the stories of McCain’s son and some of the recent football players who would have been gone had they been anyone else, yet remained.</p>