<p>I thought I would take this opportunity to gather some collective wisdom...</p>
<p>Our son has been asked by his Congresswoman to give a 5-7 minute presentation at her annual service academy information night, to be held in a couple of weeks. (This is for prospective candidates - you've all probably been to a few!) He is on the agenda after the Congresswoman and representatives from each of the five service academies. The MOC's office asked him to speak about his experience in the admissions process. He is the only appointee on the agenda.</p>
<p>He is quite prepared to talk about his experience, but I thought it might be useful for him to hear from other parents (and others) any suggestions they might have for information to consider also including. If you went to one of these, I'm sure there were things you or your son/daughter might have wanted to know from a kid who had just been through the process. So...put yourself in the shoes of a parent or high school student who has shown up at this event to find out more about the service academies and the appointment process...and think about what you would want to hear from a kid that has just successfully gotten through it.</p>
<p>Ideas? Suggestions? I'd love to hear them - and I will pass them along to him for consideration.</p>
<p>At our Congresswoman's Academy night each year she has the kids who have been appointed that year there to talk to the porspective competitiors and she selects one of them to speak to the audience. Last year (it seems longer ago than that) my son was chosen to speak. </p>
<p>He thanked her for nominating him and thanked the nomination board for their work. He spoke about how honored he was to be going to Kings Point and talked about its history. He then talked about his thoughts as he approached the application process, what the process entailed and what the interviews were like. He then thanked the Congresswoman again.</p>
<p>Pretty short and sweet. He used a lot of stuff from his essay to organize his thoughts.</p>
<p>Only suggestion, make sure you thank everybody who should be thanked.</p>
<p>Tell that that the first step is to buy a copier... ;-)</p>
<p>Isn't that the truth! Paper, paper everywhere.</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions...pulling out the essay again was a good idea and he liked it. And thanks also for the reminder to use this as a thank-you opportunity. That's one thing I think this process really drills into them, saying thank you, and writing thank you notes to all the people who gave them a hand up along the way. It's a good lesson to learn at their age.</p>
<p>Any more ideas? Keep 'em coming!</p>
<p>One thing that helped my son was he was told the process can be a "test of intestinal fortitude. If a prospective candidate is really serious about attending a service academy
DO NOT give up, hang in there through all the things that come up (Dodmerb comes to mind immediately :(). I think part of the reason he was offered civil prep is his determination to succeed. </p>
<p>The other bit of important advice is turn in everything early, do not wait until right before a deadline. As we were told: Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable!</p>
<p>I'd add that if there are freshmen and sophomores in the audience, he may want to point them to the academy websites for research. Also, he should mention the summer programs as a way to learn more about the academies first-hand. However, for any rising seniors who are not going to any of the summer programs, they also need to understand that it will not hurt them.</p>
<p>I also think he may want to mention that this should be the candidate's process, not their parents'.</p>