<p>This thread is not about politics or any war we are involved in.<br>
This is about The United States Military Academy at West Point - the undergraduate institution.<br>
Some comments on here demonstrate how little many Americans know about West Point, their curriculum and the quality of education they offer.
Some of you are surprised and even shocked - fact is US News ranks West Point pretty high as a Liberal Arts college. They are also in the top 5 for engineering schools that award only bachelor’s degrees. The thing is, Forbes ranking isn’t as much a stretch as some folks give it.</p>
<p>I personally have more respect for West Point students than any other college students.</p>
<p>tarunseam that’s just great for your daughter isn’t it. Relevance to this thread?..</p>
<p>I too have more respect for a West Pointer than any other college student.</p>
<p>I have a little different perspective on this than what seems to have been represented so far. I have a '09 graduate from an Ivy and a current Academy student. I saw the results from Forbes when they were initially released and immediately looked to see what the criteria were that were measured. I would think that this would be what anyone who intended to use/rely on them would do. Were the measured criteria meaningful to the applicant and to the applicant’s decision? If the criteria are not meaningful, then the rankings would have very little relevancy and perhaps the applicant would look to another publication or conduct additional research? Another publication may measure and rank more heavily those criteria that are more meaningful to an applicant.</p>
<p>Personally, the factor of “debt after graduation” was important to me when the '09 graduate was looking at colleges because my goal was to try to get her out of school with no student loan debt. As it turned out, that happened, but not because of what the school would have anyone believe, as she received no financial assistance from the school. I believe that she received an excellent education and was afforded many opportunities through the school that were unimagined when she enrolled. She received a great education that suited her needs.</p>
<p>My Academy student has been well challenged and has benefited from the type of teaching that the Academy offers. There were many choices available to him when he was selecting a college and the Academy won out for very personal reasons, none of which are addressed in the Forbes survey. However, the Forbes survey seems to reflect accurately what I know about the Academy and the Ivy as well.</p>
<p>It would seem to me that relying on a single survey or ranking to make a college decision would be extremely unwise. If the survey measures factors that the applicant considers to be important then the applicant should give the survey weight. If not then the applicant should look elsewhere for information. Is the survey “right”? I suppose that it is, if it measures what the applicant considers to be important in making a decision. The survey could be one factor in the applicant’s decision but by no means should it be the factor that makes the decision for the applicant.</p>
<p>I think raises a slight red flag when you have Kalamazoo ranked ahead of Brown, Dartmouth, Georgetown, UPenn, and Duke.</p>
<p>What needs to be understood is that Forbes isn’t ranking these colleges as academic institutions but rather as investments.</p>
<p>Middle 50% of First-Year Students
SAT Critical Reading: 560 - 670
SAT Math: 590 - 680
ACT Composite: 25 - 30</p>
<p>Um, so much for academic selectivity. An institution which openly considers race a criterion and limits age, marital status, and the ability to have children should hardly even make it onto any sort of top list.</p>
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<p>You can’t base selectivity solely on standardized test scores. And besides, those middle 50% numbers are still higher than a lot other colleges, it is certainly not abysmal. </p>
<p>Honestly, I’d rather go to a school where not only would I graduate without debt but also graduate as a more focused, more disciplined leader with a guaranteed job. I know too many people from my school (a top tier school) who couldn’t even find jobs after graduating.</p>
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<p>I beg to differ. They can, and are, used in part to compare schools’ academic selectivity; that’s why they exist. I agree that West Point’s scores aren’t abysmal, not at all, but they also aren’t nearly as impressive as those colleges which Forbes deemed to be of lower quality. </p>
<p>Honestly, I’d rather go to a school based not on its tuition and costs, and instead the quality of the university itself. Forbes, being that its about the market and finances, would obviously praise West Point solely for its nonexistent tuition - and it’s foolish for them to say that it scored so high for any other concrete reasoning. Its curriculum just does not compare to many other schools’, by the sole definition of its being: it’s more a place for vocational education than it is a scholarly institute. That’s why it was established in the first place.</p>
<p>^
Another poster who knows nothing about West Point and is making assumptions that are not true.
Fact is a large group of entering freshmen come from prior service and/or the prep school. These are enlisted soldiers and a few other high school students who were specifically chosen to attend West Point based on their leadership and athletics.<br>
A high school student generally can’t even be considered for a direct appointment with an SAT under 1200 (CR & M).
Also don’t forget, West Point is required to abide by the Congressional Nomination process. Each Congressional district is entitled to enroll qualified students. Admissions can’t pick a class solely from NoVa or prestigious prep schools.</p>
<p>The enlisted soldiers who are admitted every year, as a group (with some notable exceptions) do bring the SAT average down each year.
here is the class profile for Class of 2012:
[United</a> States Military Academy at West Point](<a href=“http://www.usma.edu/Class/2012/profile.asp]United”>http://www.usma.edu/Class/2012/profile.asp)
Upon careful examination you will note that 102/1292 graduated either first or second in their high school class.</p>
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This may be why it was established but not how it has evolved. If West Point’s curriculum doesn’t compare to other schools then that is because it is far more comprehensive than other colleges and it is indeed a scholarly institution.
All that “vocational training” - athletics and military training is packed on top of the required academics.
I tell you what - pick a school, any school - Harvard, Princeton, Penn State whatever…
Go look at their curriculum that is required for graduation and compare that to West Point’s curriculum. Get back to me.</p>
<p>As much as I don’t agree with these rankings, I’ll never quite understand some of the responders in this thread have for the military in general. They can’t see any of the merits the military and it’s academies, and(more importantly) can’t even appreciate how the military has gotten us to where we are today as a nation. </p>
<p>They seem to spit on servicemen with zero appreciation. I’ll never understand it, I really won’t.</p>
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<p>well don’t forget that the service academies are public schools. look at top state schools like UVa and umich; they accept around fifty percent of in-state students and consequently the sat ranges are much lower.</p>
<p>elses - admission requirements to USMA are mandated by federal law. Title 10 of the US code is specific in its requirements.</p>
<p>West Point is so different from other colleges that it is rather pointless to compare on conventional measures. It is not a conventional college, and people who go there are not seeking a conventional experience or education. At least, they had better not be.</p>
<p>Very few colleges send you upon graduation into a job where you stand a substantial chance of being captured and tortured, maimed or killed as part of your duties. People may complain about the workload on engineers, but they stand little chance of being shot or blown up on the job. Few college grads are sent out to, upon a lawful command, kill other people. </p>
<p>Very few high school students are looking for the kind of work that one will have once graduated from West Point. The institution is there to train Army officers. Along the way they get some aspects of a conventional college education, but the overall deal is so vastly different that it is not even a consideration for a huge number of students.</p>
<p>For those who do want to be Army officers, then it is a good deal. Tuition is covered and you get paid. If you are ok with the uniforms, the discipline, the loss of the many freedoms that other Americans take for granted, the danger of the training, let alone the danger of the job, the “no way out” nature of the commitment, and a bunch of other issues I have not mentioned, then it is a good choice.</p>
<p>Perhaps “West Point, the top college for future Army officers?”</p>
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Most people in the military don’t ever see combat</p>
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Also the danger of being killed in the military is lower than in most major American Cities. And I wonder if the bolded part has anything to do with the incredible number of corrupt politicians we have in this country.</p>
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<p>I don’t see any such spitting and zero appreciating going on. We don’t need to put the military on a pedestal, and we don’t have to believe that West Point is the best college in the US.</p>
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<p>Actually, I do not think any of what I said was assumption. It would be impossible for West Point to not be considered vocational education, and for them to still guarantee job opportunities for students (oh, wait, they aren’t students - they go by ‘cadets’) afterward. That’s why universities have career centers and internships, they themselves are not designed to employee their students, they’re designed to develop the students in understanding for what it is they want to do, and then to prepare them for that path. </p>
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<p>I’m not arguing that. I agree that they have high statistics. All I am saying is that they, by far, do not have the statistics to compare to certain other universities. They are surely still applicable for the definition of a ‘top school’, but they don’t go so far to embody it as others.</p>
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<p>Do I have even need to justify this with a response? Just because they’ve undergone a procedure that makes them a good soldier, or what have you, by no means does that make them better than a graduate who did not. If we really are going to get into a discussion on the best results post-graduate, compare West Point’s alumni to Harvard’s and get back to me.</p>
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<p>Most overused phrase, ever. Just because someone does not step into enemy lines with a rifle does not mean they don’t play a combative part.</p>
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This is where you are oh so very wrong. Cadets at West Point go to college and earn a degree in a number of majors (about 46) just like those at every other college. They have a variety of choices from Civil Engineering to Sociology.
They train for their “job” as an Officer in the US Army outside of class, during the summer and occassionally during the school year.
I am quite sure that “Vocational Education” didn’t qualify 13 grads to prestigious graduate scholarships - including Rhodes, Truman, Gates and Marshall as well as several others to medical school.
Perhaps Forbes is trying to say that simply by admitting high school students with the best “stats” does not the best college make.</p>
<p>Oh and do you really want to get into “Notable Alumni”?</p>
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<p>There was indeed evidence that in Iraq War #1, more deaths would have resulted if that number and socioeconomic profile of people had spent the same time in the US as they did in the Gulf. But that was because of calculations about high inner-city death rates and the extremely low US casualties during that war.</p>
<p>I very much doubt if Army officers commissioned during the period of Iraq War #2 have enjoyed the same protective benefits of reduced mortality. For one thing, they represent a socioeconomic group (and geographical distribution) that has very low death rate within the US, and for another, the casualty rate in #2 is far higher than in #1.</p>
<p>If anyone has some data, please post it …</p>