<p>…don’t put all your eggs in the AFA basket. My son had better stats than many of those listed here who got appointments. One of his friends was a nominee from the same congressman, and the friend just got an appointment packet and our son did not. Since this kid is our son’s friend, we know all about his qualifications, too. Our son’s SAT’s are a lot higher, lots more dual-credit courses (with excellent grades), <em>lots</em> more sports, Mitchell award in CAP while the friend was in CAP but no Mitchell award, son has solo wings plus some additional flight hours and friend has none, son went to SS (with good rec) and friend didn’t. You get the idea. The only thing the friend has that our son doesn’t is that he is pilot qualified and our son is only nav qualified due to eyesight.</p>
<p>I am assuming he got a good ALO recommendation because the ALO said he could find no reason that son did not get an appointment. He also said that he had learned over the years that there is no predicting who will get the appointments and who won’t. He said that he’s always surprised. He was very encouraging to our son and wanted to come and present son’s ROTC scholarship to him at his high school graduation.</p>
<p>Maybe there was a mistake made somewhere. I guess we’ll never know.</p>
<p>So, do your best and give the application process everything you’ve got. Just be sure to have a “Plan B”. Our son did…he applied for and received an ROTC scholarship and is very happy and excited about the university he will be attending. He knows he could reapply for the AFA and have a good chance of getting in, especially if his college grades are good this year, but he has turned his heart away from attending there. In fact, he was already leaning towards the ROTC scholarship before he got the rejection letter from the AFA. I am thankful for that, because it was still very disappointing not to receive something that you’ve worked so hard for.</p>