It sounds like he got an offer of help from people who could assure that he would get in, not to mention that he probably would have been able to get in on his own, considering his record.
It’s like those kids who are legacies: they have not yet applied, but they have an assurance of acceptance.
Think about it: he was 18 years old, the first in his family to go to college, and back then, they were not as crazy as they are now about how people apply, get in, etc. I got into college by dropping in, filling out a one-page form, and the next week got the acceptance letter. Obviously nowhere near as prestigious as West Point or Yale, but the timing suggests that they didn’t do a lot of checking of my records, either. When one of my children looked into the same school, it was Common Apps and the whole drill all the way, and the school does NOT accept everyone.
Or. It never happened.
I think it would be a normal thing for an advocate for West Point to explain going there as a scholarship. It’s language a kid would understand. I’m betting they still do the same.
They actually use that terminology for ROTC. It is not a ‘scholarship’ as if from the university. It is money from the military via ROTC that pays for tuition, board, and supplies for a specified period.
But it isn’t the university doing so. It’s just convenient language.