<p>My sonwanted USAFA since he was in grade school: his Dad USAF C5 Galaxy, my Dad was a USN aviator - flight records to Antarctica and what my Dad did, landing an engineless plane in SFBay in the 60’s after flying from Hawaii makes that Scully guy pale. Thus, everything my son did up to 11th grade was toward that goal: left highshool I.B. after 10th for fulltime dual credit home school at the university of Nevada to be able to take Mandarin instead of Spanish - U.S. military academies give preference to second language Mandarin, Swahili,Russian, Farsi, Arabic. My sonthought he died and went to heaven seeing all he could choose from in a college catalogue versus public high school. He loved his programming versus the idiot computer class the county demanded for word,files, email, etc and his Philosophy course and an auto class that brought his AP Physics C alive: one of three top facilities west of Mississippi. This experience propelled him to an invite from T.A.S.P. - well mostly thehigh PSAT: I’d madehim take it as an 8th grader and prep for 9th. This parleyed to admission to Stanford U EPGY OHS. suddenly a whole nother educational world opened up to him, far beyond his original ideas of USAFA or UNR. He was doing Stanford level writing and math in high school. then he and I looked more closely at the education at USAFA. </p>
<p>It’s not West Point: lots of notches below, and likewise Navy. And lots of upset grads who don’t get flight slots. Engineering, avaition, go Navy or West Point if you’re doing military. do what we did: research. After you see the credentials of USAFA profs, admin compared to Navy and W.P. you’ll understand why it’s great school for B+ students - maybe more picky nowadays…The academies forsake a few GPA points and rigor to get the supermen: jocks with smarts. The top 10% finishers at any academy are a parents’ dream come true for a spouse for their offspring. They are not graded on GPA. These graduates from our military academies get an OPA: their academics, their physical/sports prowess in intramurals or other, and their military acumen (marching around/orienteering, etc). My son’s an Eagle Scout and could have been one at 13, but we had him hold off to 16. Everything he did up to 11th was to go USAFA or West Point. After Stanford high he started discovering more about his talents and what’s out there for him and he thought, ‘why fly the planes, when i can be the guy to tell them where and when to fly…’ At the moment he’s headed for frosh UCBerkeley, but not too late for West Point: already he’s able to secure Congressional nominations and Presidential due to active duty Dad. Oh, and at Boys state he was voted #1 Lobbyist. all stuff no one values more than the military academies.</p>
<p>I think my son’s gone soft this past two years: only teaching skiing and coaching youth soccer - not doing his big work-outs. Last fall he did the frosh Army ROTC at UNR and whined. and that was nothing compared to what he’d do USAFA. I wish he’d do a year at CAL and then go to West Point. They have the pipeline to what he wants to be and do,but it’s not my life, and he’s set on civilian DC for now.</p>
<p>You never see kids at the military academies drinking themselves to death, and their graduates 20 years later are still fit - very few obese military academy grads 10, 20, 30,40, or 50 years later. It’s a way of life, love of country, love of oneself and one’s team. it’s the boy scout motto come to life: physically fit, morally straight, mentally alert. Wow, the more I type the sadder i am my son’ going to CAL instead of West Point. oh well. By the way, you might do better for what you want at Harvey Mudd SoCal, if you’re thinking transfer - better school for what you want than Cornell. employers line up 5 deep for their grads.</p>