<p>Hi - I just have a few questions on the Candidate Fitness Assessment. I’ve found the information on the different academy websites, and the maximum scores, and the averages. However, the USAFA website says “Although the CFA is Pass-Fail, it is imperative that you perform to the best of your ability on each event.”</p>
<p>Is this true? I thought I’d read that each test was scaled up to 100 points. Is there a minimum for each test itself or just an overall minimum (pass)? Does a higher overall score help you with admissions (I can’t believe it wouldn’t)? </p>
<p>My son has been working on the different tests, and although he is a good runner, and at least above average on the basketball throw and situps, is struggling with the pushups and pullups. I’m hoping that just working out for the next few months (he’s a junior) will help at least with the pushups. I’m just concerned about the pullups, and would like to know if there’s a minimum he must do. I know the goal would be at least 10, but now he’s at about 3. If he gets his other scores high enough, can they help compensate for this or will he fail entirely if he can’t do a certain number?</p>
<p>Also - is this like the ACT where he can take it as many times as he wants and they’ll take his best score? I know he’ll take it at some of the summer seminars this summer (it’s listed on West Point’s at least and I thought I’d seen some mention of it here on the boards at USAFA’s as well). Can he then keep working out over the summer and have his gym teacher administer it in the fall? How does he submit the scores?</p>
<p>I know that they probably will NOT combine your scores from different tests together. This test is meant to be an endurance test and therefore you can only submit the scores once.</p>
<p>You submit the scores through the online application. You must have your coach/whoever sign the paper as proof that he actually did the test, but you send in your own scores online through the CFA form.</p>
USAFA website says "Although the CFA is Pass-Fail, it is imperative that you perform to the best of your ability on each event."</p>
<p>Is this true? I thought I'd read that each test was scaled up to 100 points. Is there a minimum for each test itself or just an overall minimum (pass)? Does a higher overall score help you with admissions (I can't believe it wouldn't)?
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<p>CFA is pass-fail... Although, I do believe that it has a point value attached to it. Basically what I think the "pass-fail" means is that you can do the bare minimum (which the academies don't post as you found out. Possibly to prevent candidates from shooting for the minimums rather than the maximums), and still qualify physically for the academy. The better you do obviously will help you. Kinda like bonus points towards your application :D</p>
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If he gets his other scores high enough, can they help compensate for this or will he fail entirely if he can't do a certain number?
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<p>Yes, I think that this is true. There are minimums that an individual must meet. If the CFA is submitted to the AFA and they are not satisfied with the score, and your son is otherwise competitive, the AFA will ask for a re-take. For your son though, those pullups are killers (they were for me!), but he's only a Junior so if he gets on those now he will be able to easily overcome the averages for the CFA.</p>
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Can he then keep working out over the summer and have his gym teacher administer it in the fall? How does he submit the scores?
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<p>For some academies they do allow you to retake the CFA as many times as you please (I'm certain USNA does this), the AFA does not allow you to retake unless they require it. He will submit the scores online via his application after a teacher or ALO administers it. EDIT: Downfall beat me to it :)</p>
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For some academies they do allow you to retake the CFA as many times as you please (I'm certain USNA does this), the AFA does not allow you to retake unless they require it.
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Just to add to this, the USMA must also request for you to retake it for you to be able to do it again. Or at least, that's what they did with me. :)</p>
<p>Also, for the pull-ups, I think your son will be surprised at how much he'll improve as he just keeps doing them. And I know there are those on here who could probably tell you different sets and such he could practice to do better. For me, I was able to get a pull-up bar and work on an assisted pull-up machine at our gym and went from 1 to 5 in about 4 months...and that was with taking a short break over the holidays.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies and help! He has been improving some - when we started 2 weeks ago he couldn't do a single pullup, and has done 3 the last couple attempts. We also have an assisted pullup machine at the Y, and he's been trying to do 10 each time on that as well, while reducing the weight. </p>
<p>For clarification on submitting the scores, though: I understand that it sounds like he can only submit the scores once (at least for USAFA, which he's the most concerned about). Are the summer seminar scores (either from there or USMA) official? Can he then not resubmit? Or are those "practice" as I thought someone had said about USAFA? It really sounds like from the schedule of events from USMA that it was an official test. It also says if you've submitted them for one academy, you don't need to resubmit. So I guess my questions is, does he have to be completely ready to take it for real when he goes to the summer seminars in June, or would those be practice and he work out the rest of the summer as well and take it when he returned to school in September? As I read it, he really doesn't need the scores in before then, does he?</p>
<p>At USNA Summer Seminar the CFA test taken there was official (our squad leader submit them to our file), but since you can retake the CFA for USNA it isn't that big of a deal when you take it at SS.</p>
<p>For the AFA they constantly reminded us that this was just a [practice test. Since they only allow you to submit it once they wanted to make sure you did your best, and being above 7000 ft doesn't help anybody's scores (maybe the basketball throw? Dry and thinner air? I digress).</p>
<p>Oh, and you decide what academies you want to have your CFA scores. They do not share application information unless you ask one academy to send CFA scores to another academy. For example, when I took my CFA in December and submitted them to AFA, I asked if they could fax/email my scores to USNA to overwrite my scores that I had from USNA summer seminar.</p>
<p>Hope that helps!</p>
<p>And for pullups (for the record, I give full credit to pima for suggesting this), install a pullup bar somewhere in the house that is easily accessible. Doing pullups every time your son passes by will greatly increase his pullups. It sure helped me!</p>
<p>From what i've experienced just doing lat pulldowns aswell as other back excercises has helped my pullups tremendously. Same thing goes for basketball throw and pushups, just lifting consistently (shoulders, chest, back, arms) will help everything go up. I used to only be able to do about 8 then then as i've been lifting i can do about 20 now.</p>
<p>I know for a fact that USAFA only has a practice CFA and it is not offical. For USMA i would also think the same, but im not positive. You would think the SA's would want to give us the most time possible to prepare to the best we can on the CFA.</p>
<p>A few years ago my D did the CFA at USMA Summer Seminar and they sent her scores to USAFA for her (she had to call and ask, which they gladly did). USAFA accepted them - though I understand USAFA does not accept their own SS CFA scores. D only took the CFA once, at USMA Summer Seminar.</p>
<p>i have an appointment to usafa and a year ago i could not do a single pull up. i could maybe do a few chin-ups. around march or april last year i bought a pull-up bar to put in my bedroom door, and did as many as i could almost every night before i went to bed. by the time june rolled around i was up to 8. I went down to 5 for my cfa because stupidly i didnt do many during the summer when i was busy on mission trips and other stuff or during cross country season, but i'm up to 10 now. You just have to work on em daily. try doing some ladder pull-ups. do 3, then 2,1,2,3. or 5,3,1,3,5 when you get to be that strong.</p>
<p>This may sound stupid, but do most kids do better on the CFA's administered by their gym teachers? Having gone to USMA (and always doing PT tests on clickerboards) and frequently having many of my pushups not counted for various reasons, I'm just thinking it will be a real advantage doing it at school (where the gym teacher knows him and really doesn't care how perfect his pushup is) versus at one of the summer seminars, where they know exactly what they're looking for and have no qualms about discounting them. </p>
<p>So it sounds like USMA gives a "real" CFA at their summer seminar. I guess we'll see if he takes one in the fall to send to USAFA, if they would then take that one. </p>
<p>Thanks again everyone! I guess we need to go out and get him a pullup bar. We had one in the kitchen doorway in our old house, but took it down when we sold the house 3 years ago. I think we got rid of it then - definitely should have kept it!</p>
<p>marciemi, your son's situation sounds similar to mine, so I will add my thoughts... First, I am a 2013 candidate, no appointment, but here are some of my experiences.</p>
<p>I am also a runner, so my mile time is excellent and my sit-ups were also good. Like your son, pushups and pull-ups are my weak spot. At this time last year (as a junior), I could maybe do 2 pull-ups. The key to improving those is simply practice. I can now do 8-9. Had I been a little more diligent in getting to pull-up bar, I likely would have added a few more. The key to pushups is probably the same, practice, but admittedly, I am having a lot more trouble improving in that area. That is sightly worrisome since I want to get that CFA in asap.</p>
<p>You asked about minimum scores. I can tell you there are none. I took and submitted my CFA in early December. A few weeks ago I received a letter from the Academy asking me to retake the test. The letter said something to the effect that while there are no minimum scores, my scores indicate I will have trouble completing the physical requirements. So key is, do good in everything. My scores were alright to good, with the exception of pushups...</p>
<p>Also, remember that you can take the CFA as many times as you would like. If you don't like the scores, simply do not submit them. If needed, do a trial run or two through the test.</p>
<p>the cfa is a way to test overall fitness. The academy knows people have different physical strengths. Some bodies are made for running, others for lifting huge amounts of weight. That being said, you can take your body a lot further than you'd think. I definitely have more of a runners build, but I went from being able to do 8 pullups to 20. As long as you don't fail miserbly in one category and do well in the others you will be fine. One last thing, after your son has finished doing the cfa, have him start practicing the pft (the physical fitness test you do here at the academy). A lot of people have a hard time with it and ending up on recondo your freshmen year will not be fun.</p>
<p>MomofHopeful2011 - do you recall if when your daughter took the CFA at the USMA SLS if it was submitted automatically (thus making it the official/only one for USMA) or if she was given the information/forms to submit it online herself? I'm still trying to clarify if that will be his one chance to take it, or if as Iceman09 says, he could wait and later submit his best score. Either way, I won't have the one from USMA sent anywhere else and have him take the rest of the summer to train. </p>
<p>Had him do some ladder pullups today and ordered a pullup bar from ebay! We sat down today and worked out a workout schedule for him - alternating between CFA work and more endurance-type work. Hopefully he can spend the next 2-3 months training and focusing on just these things before soccer (and lots of practices) kick in come April!</p>
<p>Wildblue - we already discussed today that if he does find out next year that he has an appointment, that he will run track in the spring of his junior year. He had always run it until a couple years ago, when he decided to focus on travel soccer (same timeframe) instead. But if he's heading off to an academy in late June, he couldn't really play soccer that season anyways since the season runs through July. He usually ran the mile or two mile, so I think regular training for those (even if he didn't get a letter or excel on the team) would certainly help him at any academy! And that's a good point - that just because he finishes the CFA that he shouldn't then immediately stop doing pullups, pushups, etc.!</p>
<p>She took it at USMA SLS. It was several weeks later that she called USMA and asked them to send results to USAFA. She did not self report those scores, they were faxed from USMA. I do not know if she could have taken it again if she had wanted. Certainly she did not have to submit the USMA scores to USAFA. She could have done it again and submitted those scores, if she wanted to.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply. So where did she end up going? I'm guessing USAFA since you're on this forum, but just curious. Did she do both summer seminars? What did she think of them? My son really wants to do USAFA (both for real and for the summer seminar) and wants to do the Navy summer seminar since he's never been there (he's been to USMA and USAFA for their summer soccer camps). Since dad and I are USMA'ers, we're kind of coercing him to go to USMA to check it out as well. He's not opposed to going there, but it would be his third choice (at least at this point). Just wondering what steered her to one or the other!</p>
<p>Maybe I can give a little hint to how the pass/fail works for the CFA based on how it is done here at the P school.</p>
<p>First of all, it is pass/fail so do your best. The minimums are hidden for a reason, however us Cadet Candidates have to know what they are because we are required to pass them before we can get an appointment to the academy.</p>
<p>The "Big Four" as we call them - push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, and the run - are all scored individually for us and if we fail in any one of those categories we fail the whole thing. The minimums are different for guys and girls, for instance girls are not required to actually do a pull-up, if they can do well enough on the dead-hang, and guys need to be able to do a few. I would still recommend aiming for 7 or greater for guys and at least 3 for girls based on our point scale.</p>
<p>Try to get about a 7 minute mile, at LEAST 50 sit-ups, and at least 35 push-ups. These are not the actual minimums but realistically if you do much worse than this, either sex, you may not make enough points overall to pass.</p>