<p>'tisthetruth:</p>
<p>No, I am not agreeing with your statement that Ivy students are more cultured and less indoctrinated. In the cultural aspect, I have no solid evidence one way or another. By indoctinated, it depends on what you mean. Yes, I now have a habit of doing certain things in a military way. When I iron my clothes, they always come out a certain way, for example. However, I have seen a few Ivy students who are heavily indoctrinated in a political sense.</p>
<p>I believe that confidence, poise and charisma are closely linked. I do not know of charismatic people without confidence. The academies try to produce leaders with knowledge and confidence; which I would argue are often leaders with charisma. With regards to confidence, you will see very few timid cadets. Fear is something the academies work hard to overcome.</p>
<p>Fitness tests are a minimum way to measure performance. There are, of course, less than fit cadets. By no means are all cadets some sort of perfect physical specimen. However, they are required to be generally fit.</p>
<p>Well, I’m not sure how learning to march stifles creativity, but there are some very creative cadets around the academies. </p>
<p>When you say the army and navy should cooperate, you are correct. Please realize that they DO cooperate. However, when you start talking about the service academies, each academy would rather see their own teams win. </p>
<p>“On the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds, that on other days and other fields will bear the fruits of victory.” is a view widely accepted at the academies. While sports is obviously not combat, we try to play like we fight–to win.</p>
<p>We ARE training the people who will go to war. Each cadet will serve in the military-that is why the academies exist.</p>
<p>Alas, we are far off topic. While the academies may not equal MIT in stressful academics, I think they are overall more stressful and have very high academic standards.</p>
<p>'tisthetruth, if you want to continue our discussion, let us continue someplace where we are not merely interruptions to an ongoing topic. Could you please say “does not equal” rather than =!. I know we like to use logical operators, but let’s keep it at an english level rather than at a programming language.</p>