<p>I am applying to the Air Force Academy and do not play any varsity sports. A friend gave me the idea of training to run a half-marathon or full marathon to be able to put on my application. Does anybody have any input or ideas? Thank you in advance.</p>
<p>It certainly can’t hurt. That being said, Admissions also likes to see varsity sports as an indicator of leadership and teamwork.</p>
<p>Do you do any club sports or organized athletics? One of the older posters here was heavily involved in martial arts, which probably helped.</p>
<p>Are you talking about hornetguy? and yeah I don’t play any sports because I’m not really good enough to make any teams (My graduating class has 1400 people.) I’m not in martial arts or anything either. I did, however, play football at my high school my freshman year but that’s it. I really want to put something athletic on my application because my grades, test scores, and extracurriculars are pretty good. Oh, and one more question: does the CFT make up for any lack of varsity sports? I think that my CFA scores will at least be above the average. Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>as Petko said, it will help proof that you are physical able to meet standards. what it can’t replace however is the leadership and teamwork that you get from Varsity sports. that being said, there are a decent number of cadets admitted each year who have not lettered. don’t quote me, but i feel it was something around 12% of cadets never lettered.</p>
<p>For teamwork, I will have played violin in my school’s varsity orchestra for two years (1400 student graduating class). I know, wrong kind of varsity. And for leadership, I founded an organization called “Teens4Troops” at my school. It is an organization that sends care packages to deployed soldiers, greets them at airports, and stuff like that. I am both the president and the founder. Do you think that will suffice when paired with decent scores on the CFA?</p>
<p>Athletics means a lot to the AFA. </p>
<p>Hornet did do martial arts, but the thing about him was that he competed on a state and national champ level, it was not something he just did for fun after school. Competitive TKD requires not only you attending classes for your belt, but also training to compete on top of that AND it is a yr round training.</p>
<p>Our DS was not only a State Champ, but National, and he trained at least 20 hrs week yr round just for competition, plus the 6 needed to progress in belts. From there add in the competitions on top of that which are held monthly across the state/nation and you can see TKD is something that demands dedication.</p>
<p>I would suggest contact your local Y and get your lifeguard certification. From there parlay that into your part time job. The AFA will look at that differently than working at Target or running a marathon 1x a yr., because the requirement for the job is a physical fitness aspect.</p>
<p>The AFA is really concerned about fitness compared to the other SA’s because the altitude of where the school resides. You need to show them that you are physically fit.</p>
<p>If you have no athletics at all, a decent CFA will not do. You will need to max it out to get them past that fear.</p>
<p>and as a disclaimer, everything we’re saying are suggestions based on our experiences and not official. In other words, you could get accepted with what you have now and not doing anything. You could also get rejected even after a marathon and life-guarding. Now, obviously having more will only help and not hurt, but don’t do something with your only goal being “to help me get into USAFA”. In other words, if you despise running, the marathon wouldn’t be a good choice. If you don’t enjoy swimming (or rather sitting in a chair watching others swim) then don’t go lifeguard route.</p>
<p>The bottom line is USAFA will take the applicants they feel are most qualified all around. So do what you can, we’ll help with recommendations we feel will help, but in the end none of us can know for sure.</p>
<p>As a homeschooled student, our son was not allowed by the state athletic association to play on the high school sports teams. Therefore, he had no opportunity to “be on a varsity team.” Instead he joined a local fencing club, learned how to fence, and competed in state and national competitions. In addition to fencing he trained and competed in bicycle road racing. He did well on the fitness test.
For leadership experience he was quite active in CAP and with the youth group at our church.
So it’s possible to get into AFA without “traveling” the conventional route and being on a varsity team.</p>
<p>Is it bad that i’m already in my second semester of my junior year? I could join the jv cross country team but I don’t foresee myself being able to achieve a decent level of skill in a martial arts program or something like that. I don’t think being a lifeguard would be the best choice for me either.</p>