re: How difficult is it to get your kid into a military service academy

TBH, I'm not. That's what someone who was in at the time told me. They seemed sure of it, but who knows. I'm sure it's online somewhere but I'm too lazy to look it up.

My childhood friend was an expat when he applied to the AF academy. He didn’t have state elected officials to write recommendations so he wrote letters to Clinton and Gore. The last time I looked, he was a Lt Col.

There is some good and some very bad info in this thread.

Yes, you need a “congressional nomination” from a member of Congress in whose district you reside [so you can apply to both louisiana senators if that is the state you are in, and your representative]. You can also apply to the Vice President who gives out very few nominations [like 10] and to the president if you are a child of a military officer.

Each MOC has 5 slots at each military academy at any given time [not 5 per class — 5 total]. Once one of his/her nominated students graduates or drops out, he/she has another spot to fill and can nominate. They can nominate up to 10 students, and they have the option of ranking them 1 to 10, not ranking at all, or not ranking but designating who their “number one” is out of the 10.

To get the MOC nomination, you have to fill out a very lengthy application with lots of essays [each MOC has a different application] and submit a resume and multiple letters of recommendation and test scores. Then, you go through a series of interviews with a nominating panel for each MOC.

IF you get a nomination from a MOC [remember they can nominate only 10], you STILL HAVE TO GET ACCEPTED by the military academy which comes in the form on an “appointment” to that Academy. There are multiple steps to this.

You have to pass the DOBMERB physical [surprisingly lots of kids don’t make it — something as simple as eczema can keep you out]. You have to train for and have high scores in the candidate fitness assessment. You have to fill out an extremely long and detailed application with multiple essays and required letters of rec.

Traditionally, if you are the MOC’s number one nominee you will get the appointment from the Academy, but this isn’t always true or guaranteed. So, basically, as a general rule, the remaining 9 nominated students do NOT get an appointment, although there are some exceptions.

I may have my numbers slightly off but I believe there are only 12 graduating seniors from Louisiana who received and accepted appointments to USNA for this coming year.

The two that I know have perfect and almost perfect ACT scores, multiple leadership positions in several high school clubs, received numerous awards at the HS level each year and had 4.0s in honors classes.

If you are a recruited athlete, as with any other college, your stats don’t need to be as high.

If you know someone who is interested, my best advice is to get them The Naval Academy Candidate Book off amazon, give it to them, and let them do all the work themselves so they “own” the decision and can’t blame it on you when the going gets tough.

In fall of your junior year, go to the Military Academy Day put on by your local congressmen to get general info and to start planning. Go online to the schools’ websites and indicate your interest. If you are lucky, they will get invited to a candidate visit weekend. Apply to Summer Seminar which is held during the summer before your senior year. During June before your senior year, start working on your application.

Just send your kid to LSU so he can get in the lazy river and learn about diversity

Some previously mentioned/ some helpful things:

Start early
Boost leadership experience of any kind
Play sports, even if not good, join as statistician and add it to resume as team member
Join clubs
Do scouts
List a church and be actually involved
Join multiple service clubs
List family who has attended or served

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I may have my numbers slightly off but I believe there are only 12 graduating seniors from Louisiana who received and accepted appointments to USNA for this coming year.

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That's probably not as bad as it sounds. I know the service academies always talk about their sub 10% acceptance rates but I'm sure its no different now than when I applied to the Air Force Academy where they received like 12,000 application for around 1000 seats...but only around 2000 of the applicants end up being eligible (ie passing physical, getting nomination, scheduling and passing the Admissions Liaison Officer interview, etc.).

So basically if you jump through all the hoops (which 75% or so of the people who start the application do not), you have a 50% chance of getting in.

My high school graduated around 350 kids, 4 of us were accepted of the 4 of us who applied (2 AFA, 1 WP, 1 NA). Our congressional district had 5-6 appointments to the various academies that year and everyone that got the congressional nomination was accepted, everyone but me ended up attending. I had around a 3.8 GPA (there was no 5.0 scale so 4.0 was the highest) and a 1460 on my SAT, but I was getting pushed through by the football staff. The others were not being recruited in any way by an athletic team. It's not nearly as difficult as they made it sound...at least in my experience

Based on your post history there’s no way your kid makes it into any military academy. Just get him a thermos and a welding hat.

Which Academy are you interested in? I would recommend applying for each of the five academies that your child would be willing to serve in the respective branch of service.

The biggest hurdle is getting accepted by the academy not getting the congressional nomination. Once you get the appointment from the Academy the nominations tend to work itself out. I’m not sure what the statistics are today but in the 90’s WP would state that 1 out of 14 qualified applicants received an appointment.

I have been told that the admissions boards of each academy has an algorithm that helps them decide which applications are most likely to succeed. I would imagine this algorithm will take into account the statistics that each academy brags about for each class such as number of cadets/midshipmen were team captains, class presidents, valedictorians, etc. I would imagine the applicants that checks off more boxes will be considered the better qualified candidates.

I would also recommend getting your application in sooner rather than later. The admissions boards will meet in fall throughout the school year. If I were a qualified applicant I would rather have my application reviewed when the ratio of applications to remaining appointments is the smallest.

You do not have to be politically connected to get the nomination or an appointment. Obviously there are a few kids that get in that are politically connected but they are few and far between. The politically connected cadets/midshipmen are typically just as qualified as the rest of the class.

If you are considering the Naval Academy it is my understanding that they have a summer program that you can attend summer before your junior or senior year in high school. I’m not sure which year. I would highly recommend attending since your performance at this camp will be considered as part of your application. A good review from this “camp” could be the difference between your child getting the appointment over the other 13 “qualified” applications.

I would be happy to answer any specific questions that you have about WP. I would also encourage you to reach out to the local parents club and alumni society and visit with them at their events. If you are truly interested in attending an Academy networking at these events can help in deciding if the academy is a good fit for you.

Nothing worse than seeing the “qualified” candidates that quit within fist six months of arriving.

I played in early 90’s for a couple of years. We didn’t have success against AF when I was there but Beat Navy all four years which is all that mattered!

From my experience, the best officers were the ones that were prior enlisted. My last CO started out enlisted.

If the service academy falls through for them you could always have them enlist in the reserves first, let them pay for school, then apply for OCS later on.