Does anyone have a list of national or state awards that meet the “quadruple participation or honors
and awards on selected extracurricular activities (each worth 600 or more
points).”? Is this Boys/Girls state only, or does it include any club awards. Example: Academic All-State for Student Athlete, does that count? How about FFA state award?
Are you referring to a quote from a post on the serviceacademyforms board referencing an old RAND study?
You will never know your WCS and should not waste time trying to figure it out. The USMA website and class profiles tell you what you need to know to be competitive. Quality over quantity should be your mantra, so you should pursue to your fullest those activities and awards that are of interest to you. Our son who is a Firstie at USMA had only two (deep) ECs, a very short resume in that department.
You will get the best answers to these type of questions from your Field Force Representative after your candidate profile is open. This person will guide you through the application process, will have some insight into how you compare to the competition in your district in the year you apply, and will point out areas you need to work on.
Good luck!
Thanks for the reply, just trying to understand every angle so we can support our child as he pursues his dream (not necessarily ours). As a business professional that builds complex statistical models this is like having a Ferrari without gas and the keys. Linear regression without data is useless and frustrating.
Your son can get the answers to all of his questions from his FFR. You really don’t need to be involved at this level. I was a data analyst for most of my career; there is nothing useful to analyze in this process. All your son needs to do is look at the most recent class profile and make sure he is at or above each metric, for example:
https://www.usma.edu/oir/Class%20profiles/Class%20of%202020.pdf
Then secure a nomination, put together the best application he can, and let the chips fall where they may. That’s all he or any candidate can do. There is no “chancing” (analyzing) in this process due to the vagaries of the nomination process. He will never know his WCS and, if appointed, he will not even know to which MOC his appointment was charged as the academies play musical noms behind the curtain.
He needs to focus his energies on securing a nomination as that is the gating factor (and he is only competing against others in your congressional district at this stage). Without a nomination, the application dies. Once he secures a nomination, he then needs to be deemed “3Q” by the academy – qualified academically, physically and medically. Nominees who are 3Q have about a 50% chance of appointment (there’s a stat for you!) as you can see from the Volume of Applicants table at the top of the profile link.
The awards and qualifications USMA values most are listed on that table. I can tell you that Eagle Scout/Gold Award and varsity team captain are valued very highly (wink). 99% of the class of 2020, for example, comprises varsity athletes and 88% of those have varsity letters. The academies see fitness, teamwork, and leadership in sports prowess, so that area is heavily scrutinized but not necessary for awards as much as for an indication of how well prepared the applicant is to withstand the rigors of the academy and military life.
Also, it might be tempting as a parent to get involved in this process but the nomination panels and admissions want to see the candidate handle this himself. There are many moving parts, for sure, but your son is able to drive this on his own and needs to show that he is doing so.
Good luck to him.
There is a book that you can buy on Amazon called “The West Point Candidate Book.” That explains how the WCS is calculated and what kinds of activities get extra points such as Boys/Girls State, Eagle Scout, and other national level awards, etc.