Help! Princeton vs USNA

My daughter was in a similar postion last year. She was accepted to MIT ea, received her nomination to the usna and then her nrotc scholarship. It was an agonizing 3 months. Her first choice was always usna, until the pie in the sky MIT acceptance came it. (Honestly, we assumed she was going to Villanova with a nrotc scholarship.) When going through the process, she just was curious if she could get in to MIT. She knew both schools were long shots. After visiting MIT for their big weekend and usna for cvw, it was still tough but, for her the choice became clear.

She choose MIT. The biggest reason was probably the breadth of academic majors. She is also interested in chemical engineering…the academy does not have that option. She is loving MIT and her nrotc experience. She has so many options she is like a kid in a candy store. (She is also able to do varsity swim there as well as a business club.)

It needs to be his decision. My husband jokes that he may have been the only parent a bit sad about his child choosing MIT. It’s the right place for her.

Note…there are 3 students last spring who had her decision, all three choose MIT. Also two other students in her high school received nominations to the academy, accepted them and are very happy.

Good luck. Have your son contact usna admissions, there are overnights in March and April. He should be prioritized for one of those.

How ironic that you bring up MIT. My son’s classmate was in almost the exact position. He received an appointment to to USNA and was accepted to MIT with a AFROTC scholarship. He chose USNA but still questions rather he made the right choice.

@C1nj That’s very common. Heck the Governor of Massachusetts ,Charlie Baker just had an article wittten in the Globe about a physiological and sociological exam he recently completed .

His biggest regret came up in the answers —- choosing to go to Harvard over Wesleyan.

Everyone can second guess.

Cadets and midshipmen have very good options for graduate programs while serving. Our son was sponsored for a Draper fellowship to MIT Lincoln Labs upon graduation, but he was selected to serve in the Cyber Corp at Branch Night in November, and Cyber changed the rules just weeks prior. It now requires an additional service year (six instead of five), and all Cyber officers must attend graduate school sometime during their service stint but, for our son, not right out of the academy. As of now, it looks like the degree he will complete is at Carnegie Mellon, but that could change. In any case, our son did not regret passing up his other (better academic) undergraduate options as he would have the opportunity for grad school later on. His goal was always, first and foremost, to be an Army or Navy officer, and he wanted the 24x7 military immersion and leadership training at an academy. Different strokes.

I will say, though, and I’ve posted elsewhere that, until he was fully into his major, our son found the academics at West Point underwhelming. The brain trust is there, but cadets (and mids at Navy) sometimes have to seek it out. The academies’ goal is to get everyone to graduation which is sometimes at odds with the academic experience–and, only about 1/3 of any incoming class is chosen for academic chops as the military values brains and brawn somewhat equally. However, you can’t beat the academies for small class sizes (sometimes fewer than ten, no more than twenty), direct access to that brain trust, incredible facilities, and hands-on leadership and strategy experience. From the vantage point of senior year, our son has been challenged immensely both academically and physically and does not feel he passed anything up.

As an incoming first year cadet, was his high school academic preparation on the high end of academic strength compared to that of other incoming first year cadets?

I think that was Hamilton, not Wesleyan.

*Gov. Charlie Baker addressed graduating college students at a commencement Sunday, but not in the actual state he governs.

Rather, Baker gave the commencement speech for Hamilton College.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why the governor of Massachusetts was selected to be your commencement speaker,” he told the students of the small liberal arts school in upstate New York.

In 2014, then-candidate Baker was asked by The Boston Globe what was his greatest regret. His response: “Not going to Hamilton College.”*

https://www.boston.com/news/education/2017/05/23/charlie-baker-still-regrets-going-to-harvard

To be honest with you. My son’s friend at USNA said he was disappointed in the caliber of students at USNA as well.
Remember though, they admit students according to the WCS which is 60/30/10 in addition to a nomination and a clear medical history.

My only issue is the nomination part. By pursuing that nomination, some other hopeful was denied the chance to attend the USNA. They’re not unlimited; there are only so many to go around.

So it seems to me that no one should apply unless he or she is firm in their desire to attend.

A friend who is my age, so not a recent grad, found the USNA education to be "not intellectual ". That doesn’t mean bad, but that intellectual curiosity was not really encouraged nor valued. This might matter less in certain fields, but when we were talking about it, his description of the academic experience sounded consistent with an institution that requires conformity and obedience to command to function. He also noted that a high percentage of classmates dropped out, which suggests that they didn’t fully appreciate what they were getting into or their ability to function in that setting. He graduated, did his service, and left the military.

It sounds like you have a great kid and he is committed to the military. He should definitely think about the kind of academic experience he wants. Based on the kids I have seen who have gotten into those 2 schools (not enough to know the whole class), the Princeton admits were much much stronger students. Those getting into service academies were good students but not at the same level.

I was concerned about “stealing” a nomination as well. According to his West Point liaison if my son declines his appointment another student on the slate will receive the appointment. Each congressional slate has 10 nominees for one appointment. My son never waivered on his commitment to attend a service academy until he was accepted to Princeton. The reality is he never thought he had a chance to be accepted to Princeton.

Also, every year competitive candidates receive multiple appointments to different service academies and can choose only one.

Has your son explored the very, very different experiences of serving as an Army officer v. serving as a Navy officer? The services have very different missions, and offer very different opportunities/responsibilities.

He attended admissions events at USNA, USCGA, and West Point. He spoke at length with his uncle who is a deployed Navy Officer, my best friend who attended USNA and just retired from the Navy, and a family member who went to West Point and also served in the Air National Guard. He also spoke to a Navy Chaplain, an Army General and three midshipmen from our area attending USNA.

I have posted previously that the rubric used to determine academy appointments, by design, does not value academics the same way civilian colleges weight them. Evaluating the academies against civilian universities is an apples to oranges comparison. The SAs value a combination of brains, brawn, and leadership–as they must. When our son discussed the general academic rigor at West Point with his department head, the LTC explained to him that only about one third of the incoming class is selected for academics; the other 2/3rds are chosen for other equally shiny traits. All are academically capable, all pass the academic bar, but only that third is what you might label “scholarly.” Our son has learned to value those other critical equally shiny traits in his band of brothers very highly. The corps needs a balance of all of them in a way civilian colleges do not as their missions differ vastly. The Army puts it this way (as inscribed in stone at West Point):

The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools. -Thucydides-

The service academies are looking to produce capable officers for each branch of our armed services. It takes a certain kind of kid to go this route, and those kids don’t always look like the applicants to the usual civilian suspects. If academics rather than service is the main concern of any applicant’s college evaluation, then the SAs probably aren’t for them, not because that applicant can’t be academically satisfied (s/he can) but because getting through a SA and the years of service that follow takes a gut commitment to something else.

(And, yes, @ucbalumnus, our son’s high school academic preparation was “on the high end of academic strength compared to that of other incoming first year cadets,” so he is one of those students considered scholarly and is one of a pool of cadets who can assure others like the OP’s son that they will find their intellectual peers at an academy.)

As with any college, each accepted/nominated student has earned the right to determine whether to accept or reject that admission/nomination but, as pointed out upthread, no congressional nominations go unused, they continue to fall down each congressional slate until all slots are filled. Appointments work in a similar way.

One thing I failed to mention is that he required a medical waiver. USMA, USAFA, and AFROTC declined to issue him a medical waiver. USCGA is still pending and AROTC and USNA issued him a waiver. I don’t think he will have a problem at the academy but if his issue ever resurfaces he could be discharged. When we started this process the normal military recruiters at the high school said he didn’t have much of a chance receiving a waiver.
I guess this boils down to a bird-in-hand situation vs a leap of faith.
His appointment showed up in his portal today. I promise it’s his decision but it’s hard not living vicariously through him. I wanted to serve at his age. I tried joining the Coast Guard Reserve but they wouldn’t accept me!

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Since the first and part of the second year at the USMA is core curriculum, could his less satisfying academic experience then (before getting into his major) have been due to the core curriculum having to be suitable for incoming cadets with a wide range of high school academic preparation? I.e. if he was an outlier at the top end of high school academic preparation, he may have found the core curriculum aimed at the average (for the USMA) incoming cadets to be too low level. Of course, that could also mean that outliers at the bottom end of high school academic preparation would find the core curriculum too difficult.

At other colleges, being an outlier in high school academic preparation may be less of an issue, due to a wider range of first year options in terms of academic rigor.

Not sure what you mean by all or nothing…after two years at USNA you have the decision to commit or leave. You are allowed to leave with no further monetary obligations at that point. If you commit you have to serve for 5 years. If you commit, and don’t graduate, you are responsible for service or paying back the tuition/room/board.

For NROTC you have a 5 year commitment as well if you take the scholarship.
https://www.nrotc.navy.mil/military_requirements.html

Understand in both cases what the obligations are if you don’t finish school. Understand what the obligations are if you do finish school.

It’s a good thing he has attended those events/spoken with those individuals, but it’s also a personal thing. There’s a big difference between being stationed at Ft Huachuca or serving in a destroyer in the North Atlantic in January.

And I’d suggest reviewing the provisions of the service academy waiver carefully. I know a person who enlisted in the military with a waiver, was sent to language school in CA, then after 8 months medically discharged. The person didn’t want to leave, told me the medical condition hadn’t changed, but that a decision had been made that his type of language specialist was no longer needed so was discharged; claimed it was all budgetary. And I attended a medical school student welcoming ceremony where several applicants who applied for and very much wanted the military medical scholarships were initially granted waivers and then those waivers were pulled at the last minute(thereby cancelling those scholarships). One parent told me that the waiver was for well-controlled seasonal allergies(hay fever) and the student was floored(and left scrambling for private loans) a short time school began. Admittedly, this is all anecdotal information. The concern is arbitrary application of standards after the fact.
But it’s my understanding that if a person is granted a medical waiver for ROTC and then is discharged for medical reasons, there is no service obligation and no obligation to pay the scholarship back. Is that correct? If so, perhaps Princeton is the better bet.

Also get input from the serviceacademyforums dot com. It will probably be more pro-USNA, but you can get input there.

Would be prefer: "mainly college with a little military thrown in” vs. “mainly military with a little college thrown in”