Congressional District Competition?

USNA1985
Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:13:15 +0000

Theoretically, all congressional districts should be about the same because of roughly approximate number of constituents. (I realize that is not always true though.)



No, it’s really not for two reasons. First, some districts have a lot more students interested in pursuing a military career, often because they are districts with a military base and thus have lots of military brats or just kids who grew up seeing a lot of military. Second, some districts are simply more academically competitive than others. The combination, such as in the greater DC area, can make things very difficult for even strong candidates. However, these very competitive areas typically send a very large number of students to the SAs. So, it generally works out in the end for most candidates.