<p>Congratulations 2011</p>
<p>congrats 2011!!</p>
<p>23 days till parents weekend, cant wait@#@%</p>
<p>congrats. I pinned on two of our fellow CCer's boards and visited another. Congrats, well earned.</p>
<p>Hey all, Just wanted to say, I'm Back! Boy does it feel good to be half-human again..lol. Well I'l love to stay and chat but I've gotta get ready for school manana. :) yippee haha. Ttul</p>
<p>Yay. Shoulder Boards.</p>
<p>Good to see your excited Ryan....Sara is doing OK she had a rough week and had to visit the clinic for strep, coupled with some family issues but she is surviving. So your twin must be somewhere on the hill would have sworn that was you in the picture.</p>
<p>i'm so glad it's over!</p>
<p>Did everybody enjoy class today?</p>
<p>Hey, this is the Cadet Falcons '11, not his mom. Yep, I finally got around to posting something on here again. I mean, it's not like I'm busy or anything... ;)</p>
<p>But yeah, classes are pretty cool. I had only 3 classes yesterday, so it wasn't too bad. And I'm in the Drum & Bugle Corp, so I've got a pretty good way of "getting away" for a little bit. Oh, and I'm in the Phantoms squadron if anyone wants to pay a visit.</p>
<p>yes its over! lol two basics in my cadet squad were featured on edodo, basic sucked, but was fun!</p>
<p>Probably not a happy subject, but does anyone know of the 1300 +/- going into basic training, how many didn't make it to becoming a cadet and starting classes yesterday? </p>
<p>I know there were some who got sent home because of medical reasons, and my prayers are with them for being able to try again next year. Or with them on their other options. Mostly interested in those that either quit or failed and were let go. Wondering what percentage of appointees don't make it to the start of classes. Later... Mike....</p>
<p>I believe the drop-out rate was 60 or so people, so around 5%.</p>
<p>Wow! That's a lot higher than I would have guessed. If that doesn't include those with medical separations, then that's pretty high. But, supposedly by the end of the year or so the graduating class will be approximately 1000; so I guess it's on par for the course. I'm sure it's all figured into their acceptance numbers. I believe they offer up about 1700 appointments; 1300 accept the appointment; 1200-1250 start school; and 1000 graduate. Give or take 1,000,000 either way. </p>
<p>Anyway, thanks for the info. It's definitely better for someone to find out now that this isn't for them than a couple years later. Hopefully those who dropped out had enough time to at least get into their state University or Community College. Pretty much anyone who does get accepted into the academy probably wouldn't have a difficult time getting accepted to most schools. Unfortunately, looking for a school in July and August can be quite difficult. But, they can always take a couple months off and start 2nd semester. Thanks again for the info. Later... Mike....</p>
<p>The graduation limit is 1000 people, and usually the number is much lower.</p>
<p>What do you mean GRADUATION LIMIT is 1000. Sounds like they will ONLY graduate 1000 per year NO MATTER WHAT. I can't honestly believe that if a particular class has a lot of hard working individuals with high integrity, etc... that it's NOT POSSIBLE to graduate 1100-1200.</p>
<p>When I found out that the academy offers approximately 1700 appointments, knowing from the past that only about 1300 will accept the appointment, I asked what happens if 1500 candidates ACCEPT the appointments? Do you change your mind and retract some appointments? They said that if they offer the appointment and it is accepted, then they get it. If after basic and the first year, there are still more than "Normal" and "Planned" that they make corrections in the next year's amount of appointments. later... Mike...</p>
<p>The percentage of applicants who accept offers of admission is called the "yield". Even many elite colleges have a yield of only about 40%. So having 1300 acceptances out of 1700 offers of appointments is a very high yield indeed. Harvard's is higher, but they are pretty much in a league of their own. The class of 2010 had about 1354 show up for I-day and about 1300 at the Acceptance parade. A college that graduates 80% of its incoming freshmen within five years is considered to be doing an outstanding job of retention. I had never heard of the 1000 cap on graduates from USAFA, but that kind of surprises me. However, I doubt that the number of graduates has ever tested that figure. This past year my son told us about a firstie who was dismissed at mid-term for academic reasons only. That's got to have been pretty horrible for him, since he still had a service obligation.
The Air Force does seem to have been paring down some of their officer slots. The "Blue to Green" program offering cross commissioning into the army, and reports that washing out of pilot training gets you discharged from active duty.</p>
<p>I can't imagine a situation where you have 1001 qualified firsties ready, willing and able to graduate and USAFA says...one of you can't. Not to worry.</p>
<p>USAFA can only COMMISSION 1,000 people each year. So hypothetically, you could still graduate from the Academy and just not become a commissioned officer if the graduating class was over 1,000. Because if you meet the graduation requirements, you meet the graduation requirements. It's a done deal. That's what a LtCol told us. But no worries, that's never happened. :)</p>
<p>And as far as the 5% goes, I probably shouldn't have been surprised to see people drop out of basic training, but I was. To work so hard and be so excited about coming, and then decide during the first beating that you don't want to be there... I just can't imagine it. Just a little sidenote, the leadership made it much harder than in previous years for basic cadets to outprocess. One girl I know was on the outprocessing floor for almost 3 weeks before the Commandant signed her Form 34. The idea was to give everyone enough reflection time to make sure they really wanted to leave.</p>
<p>Since USAFA uses rolling admissions, some appointments will be turned down before the last ones go out. </p>
<p>I doubt that any class will cross the 1000 mark in the next few years. There are some people working hard to keep the academy very tough. (Some weird stuff happened after the sexual assualt and religious intolerance scandals.)</p>
<p>can't remember the exact law but the number of students at the academy, graduating per class, is mandated by congress.</p>