Military Academies Face Drop in Applications

Fox News ^ | August 23, 2005 | Molly Bernhart

[Little_shoe]

As the newest students at the nation’s four U.S. service academies start their classes this month, they may not realize they had a slight advantage — they benefited from a shrinking pool of applicants. All of the schools saw a drop in prospective students, with the Air Force Academy (search) experiencing the most drastic change — a 23 percent decline from last year. The U.S. Military Academy at West Point (search) fared the best with a 9 percent drop in applicants, according to figures provided by the academy. The declines are notable because, with the exception of the Coast Guard Academy (search), the schools all experienced a jump in applications following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The numbers remained high during the U.S. military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. And they come at a time when some branches of the military are experiencing their own manpower problems.

[Little_shoe]

As a Navy Alumni I find this very interesting. There will always be people to apply to these schools because they are a great place to be from. However what most people dont know is the navy is turning academy grads loose after only a year of service. I just got my separation papers last week with 5 classmates. Its possible we could loose 3-4% our class before the 5 year point due to the excess number of officers.

[Tax-chick]

Ping ... an advantageous situation for our (er) moderately-motivated offspring, perhaps.

[Graymatter]

This was posted a few days ago. On which thread, the consensus was that the article was misleading and it's as hard as ever, maybe harder, to get accepted.

[clawrence3]

I hadn't heard that - I'm surprised ANY branch of the Armed Forces is turning ANYONE loose these days.

[sure_fine]

prolly cuz dat gubmant skoolin

[RedBeaconNY]

I was always wondering how hard it'd be to get into the (military) school of my choice...

[RedBeaconNY]

Do you have the link handy? I'd like to read through it.

[buwaya]

Navy and Air Force sure are. I know a friends kid who was basically let go from the AF, and not for cause either.

[leadpenny]

Maybe you could get an inter-service transfer to the Army or Marine Corps?

[PeteB570]

For shame on Fox News.

Very scary until you realize that there are still many, many more applications then there are slots. Nowhere do you find and numbers as to how many apply for how many slots.

If they did we would see that there is no problem.

No seat is unfilled at the service academies when the year starts.

[ex-snook]

US Naval Academy Class of 2009 Applicants and Nominees Applicants (includes nominees) 11,259 Number of applicants with an official nomination 4,320 Nominees qualified scholastically, medically and in physical aptitude 1,812 Offers of admission 1,503 Admitted 1,220
==============

About 10+% admitted. Not too shabby.

[leadpenny]

I think the bigger story here is what Little Shoe is talking about. The Navy is allowing, voluntary I assume, separations after serving just a year or so on active duty. I'm sure that is not happening for the USMA grads.

[clawrence3]

Well then, what was the big deal about falling short of recruitment goals, lower re-inlistments, and all???

[leadpenny]

Apples and oranges.

[clawrence3]

The Navy has been cited repeatedly as not meeting recruitment goals - perhaps the difference is what was pointed out: too many officers?

[ex-snook]

"I think the bigger story here is what Little Shoe is talking about. The Navy is allowing, voluntary I assume, separations after serving just a year or so on active duty. I'm sure that is not happening for the USMA grads."

Maybe not the Marines either probably for the same reason.

[leadpenny]

That's what it looks like - at least at the lower grades. But, I can assure you that is not the case in the Army. So many Captains are leaving that the last Majors promotion board was almost a sure thing for those in the zone. Ideally, the Army would like to have about a 70% selection rate to 04 for qualitative management.

[leadpenny]

Yeah, I'll bet those Marines who have gone to the Naval Academy are having no problem staying in.

[Little_shoe]

The navy is authorizing both voluntary and Involutary Separations for officers. Ive had classmates get voluntarly released from Active duty, while in my case I am being INVOLUNTARYLY SEPARATED. Its a heck of a birthday present because the next day after the effective date is my birthday.

Yeah I could go into the Army but I really dont want to, and the marines already had there shot a me. I would consider the Coast Guard however they dont take interservice transfers.

[BlueNgold]

The main thing that they don't mention is that the acceptance rate at the academies is extremely low. My class at Annapolis took less than 1 of every 16 applicants. A drop in applicants is not going to hurt these schools significantly. Of course, leave it to the media to portray it as some sort of crisis.