<p>Our son got a rejection letter today. We are mystified. This same kid got a Type 1 Tier 4 AFROTC scholarship. Here are his stats:
SAT - 1370
GPA - 3.84 unweighted
Class Rank - none (homeschooled)
41 hours dual-credit courses at community college and member of jr. college honor society
PAE - excellent scores
Attended summer seminar and his leader promised him a good recommendation
CAP - Mitchell Award, Squadron X-O
Athletics - USS swim team, 2 years - team captain
Toastmasters Bronze Award; served as VP and President of club
Assisted family with establishing choose & cut Christmas tree farm
Started his own exotic wildlife business
Miscellaneous other stuff
Eyesight - navigator qualified (maybe this was one problem?)
Race/Sex - white male</p>
<p>Our son’s nomination was from our congressman, Tom DeLay. DeLay nominated 10 students to the AFA. I don’t know how he was able to nominate 10. Only 1 would be the principal nominee, so I’m guessing the others went into the national pool.</p>
<p>Fortunately, our son had mostly decided that he’d rather attend Texas A&M on the AFROTC scholarship than attend the USAFA. So, this wasn’t a crushing blow for him, but it was certainly disappointing…and humbling. We thought he was a shoo-in. Well, que sera…</p>
<p>timely:
Do you know for a fact that your congressman ranked his nominees? Each MOC is allowed to nominate 10 candidates; some years they can nominate 20. (They are allowed 5 constituents in attendance at one time, thus some years can nominate the additional slate)</p>
<p>If the slate was submitted unranked, then the Academy selects the appointee from the slate. (I suspect that if none of the nominees met AFA qualifications, that none would be appointed. Doc France can clarify this) Even if the candidates are superior, only 1 from the slate will receive the nomination, (unless LOA have been extended) the rest go into the national pool.</p>
<p>It is a great disappointment when one cannot attain one’s goal. It is fortunate that your son had already decided to attend a civilian school. Perhaps this desire/decision was related during his interview and was a selection factor.</p>
<p>Going to AFROTC will give him a opportunity to apply again next year, if that is his desire. He will have an additional recommendation from his unit leader, which I have been led to believe carries a significant weight. </p>
<p>I would also recommend that if he chooses to reapply, that he have someone look over his resume and offer suggestions for rounding it out. The abbreviated version you have offered indicates no involvement in community service. (Unless is is included in “miscellaneous other stuff”) No exending oneself for the good of others or community, no church volunteer work, etc.</p>
<p>I wish him well in his classes next year and hope that he reaches his goals, whatever they may be.
CM</p>
<p>I’m sorry your son wasn’t picked. I know how it feels, since I have one son at USAFA and one son who was declined admission. </p>
<p>Every MOC can have 5 cadets at USAFA at any given time. Depending on graduation, attrition, etc, that means they get to nominate candidates for one, two (or rarely) three slots each year. For every opening, they can nominate 10 candidates. As mentioned here before, there are three ways to designate those nominees: completely unranked (Academy picks whomever they want but must pick one if at least one is qualified); Primary and 9 unranked alternates (USAFA must pick primary if qualified. If not, then they have their pick of the alts); Ranked 1 thru 10 (USAFA must evaluate in order and pick the first one qualified).</p>
<p>Looking at the short resume, I see a few things… First, athletics. I don’t know when your son was on a swim team or how his performance rated/ranked compared to othe HS-age competitors, but it’s hard to compare a club activity with the many cadets who have Varsity level experience in several sports. (This is probably part of the “hard to quantify and compare” nature of home-schooling). The CAP would seem to count as community service, so I don’t see a problem there.</p>
<p>I’m surprised he attended SSS and didn’t get in–that’s usually a near lock. You don’t say anything about the ALO interview. An ALO can’t get you in, but they can certainly keep you out based on interview score/evaluation.</p>
<p>Lastly, you probably just are in a very competitive region and USAFA decided to choose one or more of the others nominated. What gets you in from one district or state, often doesn’t in another. For example, in Colorado, your son’s scores/resume probably wouldn’t get him a nom. From another state, he might’ve been a lock.</p>
<p>Again, I’m sorry he didn’t get picked, but glad he has great options. Good luck at TAM and in his future. Thanks for sharing the info and your thoughts here, too. It helps everyone.</p>
<p>Thanks, DocFrance and CandidateMom for your inputs.</p>
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<p>We were actually present at the ALO interview. The ALO asked us to come. He said he felt it made for a more comfortable environment for the student, and he liked to meet the parents to get some idea of where the student was “coming from”.</p>
<p>To me, it seemed that the interview went just fine. The ALO wanted to talk about our son’s leadership on his swim team as team captain. In reality, that has provided the least amount of leadership experience of any of his activities. He got a lot more leadership experience in CAP and in his Toastmasters club. Our son didn’t indicate that the swim team was more minor, though; I thought he did a great job explaining the leadership responsibilities of the position. Our son is personable and “looks like the type” to attend an Academy. He says “yes, sir” a lot, too. :-)</p>
<p>Maybe the ALO had a problem with him being homeschooled, but he didn’t indicate it in the interview. You can usually tell when people have a problem with it, because they’ll ask a lot of stuff about “how in the world have you had interaction with other young people?!!”</p>
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<p>No, it wasn’t. I think the ALO asked about our son’s “back up plan” and our son told him he’d applied for AFROTC scholarship and A&M, but at the time of the interview, he still wanted USAFA very much.</p>
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<p>Well, let me put it this way. NASA’s Johnson Space Center is in our district. How many astronauts do you think are military academy grads? How many of their kids do you think want to attend academies? Yep. Lots. Not only that, but there are lots of former military people (like my husband) employed by NASA and its contractors. Some of their kids want to attend too. My husband has had several discussions with coworkers (usually pilots) whose kids are attending academies or who applied, were accepted, and decided not to go, etc.</p>
<p>As an aside, one of our son’s letters of recommendation was from an astronaut who is a West Point graduate (and former instructor there) and is a family friend. As you would imagine, he knows how to write a good letter of recommendation.</p>
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<p>He does have some of that that he put on his application…2 mission trips to Mexico, teaching children in the Character First program at church, participating in a father-son program where they did community service projects, particularly working on widow’s houses, youth group, etc. I did think that was an overall weakness in his application, though, since he didn’t have a significant, ongoing community service activity. Our younger son is a freshman, and we are encouraging him to work more on these things. </p>
<p>I agree, DocFrance, that CAP is community service, but I wonder if it is seen that way. Our younger son is more interested in the Emergency Services side of CAP, so that will be more easily seen as community service, I think.</p>
<p>The other miscellaneous thing I left out was that our son attended CAP’s summer flight academy and earned his solo wings. I’d have thought that would be a big plus.</p>
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<p>You are probably right about this. Now I should add that the USS (now known as USA) clubs are the system by which the Olympic competitors are chosen. You qualify at district, go to sectionals, go to jr. nationals, etc. Swimming is all about times, rather than being so much about “winning state” like a football team. If a swimmer is evaluating an application, he/she can look at the times and evaluate how good a swimmer the kid is. A non-swimmer won’t have a clue. Our son is a good swimmer, not great. Really though, I would think being in a team sport where you swim for an hour and a half a day (2 1/2 hours in the summer), compete in meets, and serve as team captain should be adequate, whether you are one of the best athletes in your sport or not. He had <em>very</em> high scores on the PAE, so he’s obviously physically fit. He had the experience of competing with a team, too (though one can argue that swimming isn’t much of a team sport, really).</p>
<p>One weakness was probably his graded essay, and that’s my fault. Our son is homeschooled and though he’s taken lots of outside classes, he’s never taken an outside English class. Now don’t get me wrong, he is an excellent writer! He always gets high scores on essays he turns in for his community college courses. But, I think he didn’t choose the best essay he had done to submit. He liked the particular one he chose, so I didn’t argue with him. It was short, though. The assignment was to write about “A New Birth of Freedom” in exactly 262 words (I think that’s the right number) which is the number of words in the Gettysburg Address. It was well-written but not a traditional 5-paragraph essay. We discussed endlessly who we should have grade his essay, since we don’t really know any English teachers. He ended up deciding that since I had been his only English teacher, I should grade it. I did, but I think maybe my remarks weren’t what a “real” English teacher would have written. So, that’s probably not a huge thing, but its a thing.</p>
<p>I’m glad to discuss all of this here, as I hope it will give insight to those who are earlier in the process. I guess I would especially encourage all of you to have a good, solid back-up plan and to realize that getting into the Academy is as much an art as a science. There are no guarantees that you’ll get in, even if you dot all your i’s and cross all your t’s.</p>
<p>I doubt our son will try to apply again, candidatemom, but that is a good thing to remind him of in case he changes his mind.</p>
<p>In all actuality, it’s usually not just one thing that will disqualify someone unless it involves not meeting the minimums. Another exception would be if two applications were identical besides one extra thing on one. </p>
<p>The vast majority of people here did earn a varsity letter in high school, but it’s not a prerequisite; not everyone did so. The eyesight, as long as it was within the allowable range, shouldn’t have even been considered.</p>
<p>As you said, he’d probably already decided to go elsewhere, so I wouldn’t dwell on this too much. Besides, sometimes it’s a good thing to experience failure in life, and learning humbleness through this is a great lesson.</p>
<p>Timely, do not feel bad. My friend who got rejected last year had lower stats then your son but then the Academy changed minds and finally accepted him. Dont be surprised if you get a letter saying your son has been accepted to USAFA. My friend is in the class of '08.</p>
<p>yah my element leader at the AFA summer seminar got a phone call in the middle of june saying </p>
<p>" I have good news and I have bad news… the bad news is that your summer vacation has been cut short, but the good news is that you’ve recieved an appointment to the AFA academy" </p>
<p>He recieved a rejection letter in May with an ACT score of 33</p>
<p>I know the feeling, personally, I’m still waiting for the AFA’s decision, but for WP, I received an appointment to their civil prep program. Even though I’ve been receiving letters from the commadont at WP, and I also received a leadership award at WP, it all looked very promising. still have faith, if the AF is really for your son, then reapplying next year, with a year of college/ROTC under his belt should get him in. And refer to my story in the previous post. I thought all was over for my AFA pursuit untill just a few days ago I received a nomination from the VP (even though my congressmen and senators didn’t nominate me) so have faith. </p>
<p>Admissions at the service academies mroe than civilian schools (and ever the CGA) is a number game. A MOC can only have 5 pp at a service academy at once. They also have certain quotas they have to meet, it’s really tricky, my RD+LOA tried explaining it to me trying to justify why I received a prep school appointment but it was really tricky.</p>
<p>well, the academys say that 33% of thier incomming freshmen have atleast 1 year of college education under thier belt. So if youk now the AFA is for you, join ROTC and you’ll have a better shot next year</p>
<p>famous people such as McArthur and Eisenhower weren’t accepted to military academies untill they were 19 and 21. </p>
<p>so re-evaluate your priorities. If you know that you’re ment for the AFA, the 1 year delay should be worth it, and should be nothing</p>
<p>You’re right, the year delay is worth it. Thus, I was willing to go to the prep school.
I’m going to Cal Poly SLO next year…and I don’t know reputable their ROTC program is. Damn I should’ve applied Texas A&M.</p>
<p>alexk330,
I know the service academy application process is like having a part-time job, so it must be incredibly frustrating not to receive an appointment after jumping through all of the hoops. However, Cal Poly SLO is extremely difficult to get accepted to–isn’t it even more competitive than some UCs? Central coast of California–sounds wonderful! Good Luck! :)</p>
<p>I did not get accepted the first time I applied either. Well, I got accepted, then got denied because of a medical issue, and I didn’t find out until a week before the start of BCT that I was officially disqualified. I went to a community college for the next year while going through the application process all over again. At the time, such news was horrible to me, but now I’m glad things transpired as they did.</p>
<p>Also on the topic of reapplying… It makes you really reconsider what you want. If you really want to be here, then you will deem it worth your effort and time to go through the long and tedious application process all over again. However, you may decide it’s not worth it to you, in which case you have plenty of other options open to you and it’s not the end of the world.</p>
<p>It’s a long story, but it was an ongoing battle with the medical people. I was accepted, conditional on the medical results from DODMERB. I even had my actual appointment certificate for the class of '05 (still do… right next to my '06 one at home, haha). I was disqualified, I applied for a waiver, it was denied, it was rebutted, and then I got final word that I wouldn’t be in the class of 05 so close to when I would have inprocessed. What happened the second time with it? They easily gave me a waiver. It’s funny how things work sometimes. As I mentioned before, at the time, it seemed like a HUGE setback; however, I really wanted to be here so I reapplied and got in. Looking back, I wouldn’t change it, as I enjoyed my extra year in California and I love the class I’m in now. I can’t imagine things being any different.</p>
<p>As I mentioned in a previous post, I went to community college for that year. There weren’t really any other options after having applied to nowhere else, not have any money (besides a $1000 scholarship I got for a standardized test, which ended up being VERY useful), and finding out so late.</p>
You do have to wonder if part of it was that all-important varsity word…</p>
As I mentioned before, at the time, it seemed like a HUGE setback; however, I really wanted to be here so I reapplied and got in. Looking back, I wouldn’t change it, as I enjoyed my extra year in California and I love the class I’m in now. I can’t imagine things being any different.</p>