<p>OP - if it’s relevant and appropriate, you might mention it in your interview with your BGO.</p>
<p>One of the things they told us in BGO training was that the number #1 reason kids quit is because they are at USNA because mom or dad wanted them to go, but they themselves did not. Bear with me while I string this point to the next…</p>
<p>Kids from families who have experienced military life understand the hardship of deployments, family separation, moving every few years, and all the things that go along with life in the military.</p>
<p>If those kids see all that and still desire to pursue USNA (or any military academy), they have a higher graduation rate and predilection toward sticking out a 20+ year career. In fact, as I think back on the guys from my company whose dads were career Navy, every one of them has followed in their father’s footsteps and been career Navy as well. None of those guys’ dads were USNA grads.</p>
<p>Typically, there are 65-85 kids (+/-) in each class whose parent(s) were USNA grads, and I am always surprised the number is not higher. That’s about 6%-8% of a class. So, it’s not as if legacy kids are a big number at USNA, or are taking places of “more deserving” kids because they are legacies.</p>
<p>Of the 31 guys I graduated with from my company, I am the only one with children who are at USNA. One other career guy (Navy Captain) has a son who will be applying in a couple years.</p>
<p>If I read the OP correctly, his parents are not military their closest military connection is a grandparent.</p>
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<p>You are correct, but let’s accept that USMA and AFA use the exact same breakdown, don’t you think that the USNA is in the same ball park? BTW it is not only the WP, but it is the AFA breakdown.</p>
<p>I have to ask why USNA has such secrecy around their WCS, when the other SAs are open? The AFA even acknowledges the bare bones for SAT/ACT to be deemed competitive for eligibilty.</p>
<p>Mombee we all know you are a BGO, so fess up, help these kids with a realistic look regarding how a WCS is determined. You don’t have to say 60/20/20 like WP and AFA, but you could give them a reality shot by saying PAR is the bulk of your WCS.</p>
<p>These kids are looking to have answers that they cannot find on the SA web sites, we as Americans only get the best officers by giving them a view of the inner workings.</p>
<p>I will tell you honestly that I tried to ask that very question at BGO training in 2005 about five different ways, and all I got were very vague answers. Not sure why we don’t share the numbers or the formula, but I suspect it’s because we don’t want candidates trying to game the system.</p>
<p>I don’t understand how they could game the system. By the time candidates start the process they are entering their SR yr., their GPA/SAT would be set regarding PAR. They can’t make teachers give them better grades. In the AFA process, the ALO (BGO equiv) has a voice because they write a rec. that is added into the WCS, is that not true for BGO’s?</p>
<p>I would suspect that it is not about gaming, but the allure of the USNA appointment process.</p>
<p>Either way at the end of the day, USNA, USMA, USAFA, and USCGA are all the same highest WCS on the slate wins the appointment!</p>
<p>For the OP, that is what is important…your legacy will not help you as much as your WCS score regarding an appt since their legacy is NOT a HOOK.</p>
<p>After all, it was the parent that risked life and limb (and perhaps died in the process) to win the MOH. The child didn’t do jack squat.</p>
<p>If they want to use the parent’s heroism as a tie-breaker, I’d still be expecting data such as that dealing with “regular” military parents.</p>
<p>Sorry, but I don’t believe in freebies for anyone. Real life doesn’t work that way, and to try and depend solely upon such shenanigans to move up doesn’t speak well to the character of the person.</p>
<p>Since there have been only 8 MOH’s awarded in recent conflicts, i.e. Mogadishu (2), Iraq (4) and Afghanistan (2), and all the Iraq/Afghanistan awards have been posthumous, I’m not sure this is something anyone really needs to worry about…just sayin’.</p>
<p>It’s a pretty small token of gratitude a nation can offer the children of a soldier/sailor/Marine/airman, and more to the point, it’s the law at the moment.</p>
<p>Agreed. It’s the law. And like many many laws these days, I don’t agree with it. We don’t owe the children a damned thing. Let them earn their own way.</p>
<p>I do agree, however, that it doesn’t exactly skew the numbers all that much.</p>
<p>The below seem so small for what was sacrificed:
Special entitlements for recipients of the Medal of Honor include:</p>
<p>(1) Each Medal of Honor awardee may have his name entered on the Medal of Honor Roll (38 USC 560). Each person whose name is placed on the Medal of Honor Roll is certified to the Department of Veterans Affairs as being entitled to receive the special pension of $1069.00 per month.</p>
<p>(2) Enlisted recipients of the Medal of Honor are entitled to a supplemental uniform allowance. </p>
<p>(3) Special entitlements to air transportation under the provisions of DOD Regulation 4515.13-R.</p>
<p>(4) Identification card, commissary and exchange privileges for Medal of Honor recipients and their eligible dependents.</p>
<p>(5) Children of recipients are eligible for admission to the U.S. Service Academies without regard to the quota requirements.</p>
<p>(6) Ten percent increase in retired pay under Title 10, USC 3991, subject to the 75% limit on total retired pay.</p>
Very few, if any, receive appointments to USNA based solely on a Presidential nomination. They actually probably help more non-Presidential MOC nominations than they do sons and daughters of career military. Admissions tasking is to select the best possible class and with very very few exceptions, the top 1500 qualified candidates are offered appointments. The lone definite exception being those few congressional districts where they might be required to dip a bit lower to offer an appointment.</p>
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Should you not also label your two above sentences Assumption 3 and Assumption 4? My understanding is that currently a 2.0 combined with satisfactory military performance is a relative guarantee of an appointment. Anything less is not necessarily a deal breaker, simply the requirement for an academic or performance board. I would almost guarantee you that there are NAPS grads in every class who are neither Senators sons nor varsity football players who had less than 2.0 at NAPS. Would you not agree that someone with all Ds the first semester and all Bs the second, taking one single credit hour more the first than the second, and ending up with a 1.9 GPA would be an acceptable candidate?</p>
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When you get right down to it, everything evaluated beyond a solid academic foundation and acceptable SAT/ACTs is nothing but ‘tie-breakers’. But all these little things do add up. Extra RABs offered by the Board in this area fall under the ‘familiarity with the Academy and military life’ category. A non-military candidate can do the same by dazzling his BGO with his knowledge of the Academy, career opportunities, etc. and by visiting the CGO and applying to/attending NASS and CVW. They will then probably end up with the same number of WPS points.</p>
<p>As an aside, do you think that there has ever been a military junior whose WPS was enhanced by the fact that he had to move a half dozen times during his lifetime? Before someone mentions the fact that offspring of IBM employees probably fall in the same category, I would say that, without whining, this subject should be a part of their essay. They will then probably end up with the same number of WPS points.</p>
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<p>I was incorrect. WP is 70/30/10. And 60/20/20 seems kind of skewed for AFA. Do you not think WP would place more emphasis on the CFA than the other two? After being around USNA Admissions for almost 20 years in one form or another, I dont think USNA is either of the above. However, since they do not wish the numbers published, I do not feel that it is my position to speculate. </p>
<p>USNA84 is correct in that USNA does not publish these percentages because they do not want candidates gaming the system. This would not happen their senior year necessarily but when they first became aware of the priorities. Heck I have known parents who would have commenced gaming in kindergarten. </p>
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Amen. And as any successful CEO knows, any benefit that gives the impression of a magnanimous benevolent organization and actually costs very little, is a success.</p>
<p>My daughter received both Presidential and MOC nominations. Her appointment was Presidential; my understanding is that this option is available not to give military children a free pass, but to provide an opportunity for applicants who may be living overseas or going through a move, making it difficult to obtain a nomination from their MOC. It is also one of the few tangible means of recognizing the sacrifices made by the children of career military personnel. Most military families live in areas with a high concentration of service academy applicants, making the competition for nominatons even tougher. </p>
<p>The nomination source does not influence the admissions process. She still had to qualify academically, physically and medically. Like everyone else, we sweated out the wait to learn if she was receiving an appointment. Fortunately, her application was successful and she will be graduating with the class of 2010.</p>
<p>^^^^^^ beachmom, I agree totally with your post with perhaps the following exception which bears noting:
One of the few perks of a Presidential is that it allows Admissions to go ahead and offer appointments to exceptional candidates prior to the completion of the MOC process. They may go back and change it later. Then, after the dust settles, sometime in the fall, I think, they owe all the MOCs a rendering of who was charged to whom. Sometimes the final determination is not made until this timeframe. Someone near and dear to me who was recruited as an athlete was appointed under a Presidential nomination. After graduation, when he received his academic transcript, he was listed as a MOC appointment. Interestingly, the district was one that we had never lived in. We were one of 20 or so households in the city that were gerrymandered into another district and had never, anywhere in the past, been a part of the distict from which he had been appointed. So, throughout his entire mandatory commissioned service, every time things didn’t go as he wished, he avowed that he was going to resign his commission since it had been illegally obtained anyway. Just a sea story with probably very little relevance.</p>
<p>Mombee, sometimes politicians do not give out all of their appointments and the extras are shifted to someone else. This may be what happened to the young person you are discussing.</p>
<p>I also think Beachmom makes some great points. My DH is an academy grad (though not the one discussed here) and I know that even with the Presidential nomination an academy would be interested in only one of my children, and she wasn’t interested–for long.</p>
Urban legend is that this did indeed, in the past, happen. And since it is prohibited now, since the mid '70s, by federal law, perhaps it did. All MOC appointees must legally reside in the district from which they are appointed. Unused MOC slots are reallocated to the national pool. All three academies. Not real sure how MMA works.</p>
<p>I was in attendance at an Admissions briefing and the current h.s. juniors that were there were told by a regional admissions officer from USNA to apply for a nomination from each and every source possible. Most certainly, to apply to all available MOC’s, if you can, to seek VP, Presidential and SECNAV noms as well. His reasoning? It gives USNA the broadest set of possibilities in obtaining their choices of applicants. (If MOC Yada has 10 nominees, and USNA can only select, say, 4 of those 10, and those 4 have a LOA, then when stellar candidate #5 comes along and this is their only nom source, then it’s SOL for Candidate #5 AND USNA. No other route to get them in. BUT, if candidate #5 has applied to all possible nom sources and received multiple noms, then USNA has a broader ability to give that stellar #5 an offer. However, on the MOC portion of it, some states have MOCs that work together on giving out NOMS (Maine is one of those). Regardless how many noms you get, only one will be used to get you in the doors. But, why take the chance that the one (and only one) you seek, is the one you get. Do yourself, and USNA a favor, and apply to all possibles. Then leave it up to the Nominators and USNA to get the right mix in the doors. It is an amazingly complex process that is used, but, for the vast majority and great percentage, it works. Trust that the USNA system will get you in if you belong there, and if you’re 3Q’d. (And, for the most part, they are very keen at discerning who belongs there… They have a pretty good understanding of the mix of J.O’s they’re looking to send to the Fleet in your graduating year at USNA… This isn’t just about who should get in, but who should be a J.O. five years from now…)</p>