My son received an MOC & Pres nom. So according to this website (uses West Point data), assuming all things equal, should he see a similar odd of getting an appointment (55%)? He is fully qualified and his application is complete.
BTW, I think this story is bogus and we did NOT contribute to their campaign LOL.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/09/15/service-academies-congress-nomination-army-navy/15452669/
A nomination (any type, none have more weight than another) is required, but all competitive candidates must also be physically, medically, and academically qualified (“3Q”). Candidates who have a nomination and are deemed 3Q have about a 50% chance of appointment.
In the four years I’ve been on this ride and hanging on the serviceacademyforums.com board, I’ve never heard of any candidate from any district interacting with a MOC directly as part of the nomination process. I’ve also never heard of a MOC in any state/district directly making nomination decisions; nomination apps are read by each MOC’s nominations panel, and it’s the panel that does the screening, sets up the interviews, and does the interviewing. After the nomination decisions are made, some MOCs will call the candidates to congratulate them on the nomination and wish them well in the admissions process, but that’s about it. If you have any serious concerns about this, do some research on the serviceacademyforums.com board then, if you still have questions or concerns, open a thread there.
FWIW, our son, who is currently a Firstie at West Point, received five nominations in a competitive district and did not hear from a single MOC personally. We’ve also never donated to any of them. And we were not in favor of him applying to academies or joining the military. None of this mattered.
Thank you for the information! This is great news since my son is “3Q’d” and received the MOC nom from a very competitive district in CA.
I think 55% is a bit simplistic. By simply dividing the number of appointments by the number of people nominated by MOCs, it paints an overly optimistic picture. In reality a person with a nomination is competing against the other 9 people on the MOC slate. Where they rank on that slate is more important than anything.
Ah, okay. So there were 10 total candidates receiving noms from our district. However, the coordinator wouldn’t give out how many actually received the nom for USNA alone. So the odds I guess depends on the subset of the total that received the noms for USNA. There’s also the factor of how many will actually graduate, opening a x# slot(s) since each MOC is authorized 5 at any given time. I also understand that none of the 10 may receive appointments. Regardless, it’s all just a waiting game now…
@sawdeeka: If I read your post correctly, your 3Q son already has a nom to USNA, so you are done worrying about other applicants in your district. Your son is past that gate. Now his application goes to the academy admissions team to be evaluated against all of those 3Q nominees from across the country vying for the various diversity buckets the academy is trying to fill. Here is an example of class composition for the USNA class of 2022:
https://www.usna.edu/Admissions/_files/documents/ClassPortrait.pdf
Navy doesn’t publish the nominee-to-appointee breakdown the way Army does:
https://www.usma.edu/admissions/SitePages/Class%20Profiles.aspx
but those on the SA forum boards say they are very similar at a roughly 50% acceptance rate for 3Q nominees.
As for how many spots are open for each of your MOCs for the next incoming class, if appointed, your son will never know to which nominating source his appointment was charged. If the academy wants him badly enough, it can charge him to any open source; it is not not limited to the MOCs from your state/district. Some district’s slots go unfilled due to either no applicants or no qualified applicants and those are free for the academy to charge to. Also, the academy itself has a number of nominations (like the Superintendent’s noms at WP) that it can use for a candidate it wants but who did not win a MOC slate.
Do not waste time trying to figure out percentages and “chances” – that’s futile as you aren’t equipped with perfect (or even reasonable) knowledge of his competition or the available nomination sources. Enjoy this time with your son. If he IS appointed, his life will change drastically in a few months, and you can never get this time back. Good luck to him.