Sleep deprivation at USNA

I recently went on a candidate visit weekend and noticed that many midshipmen appear to be sleep deprived and was wondering how they manage it during the academic year. It seemed that plebes were able to get the most sleep at about 6.5-7 hours a night while some upperclassmen claimed to get as little as 4 hours of sleep a night. To me, this seems terribly inefficient as many mids were falling asleep during class. College students are recommended to get at least 7 hours of sleep a night, so I want to know if being so sleep deprived is something midshipmen get used to.

You should post this at serviceacademyforums.com, as you’ll likely get a better and more accurate range or responses.

And how was your candidate visit weekend? Did it make your more likely or less likely to attend?

Thanks, I will post it on the other site. (I’m new to these forums.)

I thought the visit was great! I received an offer of appointment to the class of 2021 and now after visiting, I plan accepting the offer soon.

I was just curious about the sleeping habits and whether or not it is something I should try to prepare for.

Congratulations on your appointment and best of luck. Unless you’re bashful, you should post some basic stats so others on this site can see what a winning application looks like.

lol. Welcome to college life. Sleep is very low on the list for students during the college years. At least the military academies make productive time out of the awake hours by requiring morning exercise/drills, etc. I would suspect that the hours you cite are typical for a normal student at a non-military college.

Caffeine is your friend.

Good luck.