Air Force Academy Question

[dragontamer]

Some good advice above. My son is a freshman at USAFA. serviceacademyforums.com was a huge help on the heinous process of applying and all questions about the academies.

 

[Scrapdog]

Gold will shine in 99!

 

[airplane wizard]

Some good advice above. My son is a freshman at USAFA. serviceacademyforums.com was a huge help on the heinous process of applying and all questions about the academies.

Do you "pick a major" at the academies, or do they train you in what they need at the time?

 

[OrionFE]

Naval Academy

I am a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer (22 yrs) and I just took my youngest son to tour the Naval Academy this past week. What an awesome experience. He wants to be a Marine very badley and has been in the Young Marines for about 2 years now. He is a sophmore in HS and that tour of the Naval Academy really sparked his motivation. He is interested in the Aviation career field. I hope to see him as a Midshipman in a couple of years.

ADC (ret)

 

[Andy]

Let me toss in another route to an Academy appointment ... the service academy prep schools. All three Academies have prep schools. The AFA and West Point prep schools are located on Academy grounds; the Naval Academy prep school is located in Newport, RI.

I was prior enlisted and spent a year at the AFA prep school for my AFA appointment. Well worth the year spent.
Northwestern Prepatory School in CA (and I'm sure there are others) is specifically designed to get their grads into service academies, so that's another option. Tuition is just under $9k.

I've never been an ALO; you might want to ask the ALO if prep school is a possibility if it doesn't look like your nephew won't get a direct appointment.

 

[Falconjet]

I would like to point out that there are 4 service academies.

FJ

 

[Andy]

I would like to point out that there are 4 service academies.

FJ

Not to be picky, but there are 5.
West Point
Naval Academy
Air Force Academy
Coast Guard Academy
Merchant Marine Academy

 

[Falconjet]

Well if you count Kings Point, you are heading into the private, have to pay your own way arena, a slightly different animal, and might need to add the Citadel as well (and probably some others). But again, we don't want to pick nits.

Hope you are well Andy. Its been a long 5 years.

FJ

 

[Andy]

FJ, the MMA is paid for by the Federal Govt and you get there through a Congressional nomination. Same process as the other service academies.

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Merchant_Marine_Academy

On a personal note, I've had a few setbacks but it is what it is. Hope all is well with you.

 

[C-17 Driver]

There are also scholarships provided by the Falcon Foundation which is sponsored by a bunch of retired generals. These scholarships are offered to those applicants that just missed the cutoff for appointments. The recipients can go to one of several military schools around the nation to include Valley Forge, Northwestern, Marion Military Institute.

When I applied in 1991, I had all the boxes checked (Eagle Scout, varsity athletics, strong SAT score, National Honor Society, congressional nomination, etc), but I still did not receive an appointment. I had all but given up because I was also turned down for AFROTC, NROTC, and the Coast Guard Academy. Being a white male in 1991 during the post cold war drawdown may have had some disadvantages.

I got the Falcon Foundation information in the mail and just threw it in the trash. My dad (a retired AF Lt Col Vietnam Vet) saw the USAFA logo on the brochure and fished it out of the trash, read it and asked if I had read it. I replied that I hadn't and he strongly recommended I read it. I made a phone call to the Valley Forge Military College admissions department and they invited me for a visit. I reluctantly accepted with the idea that I would only visit the school to appease my dad. I was pretty beat down from the multiple rejections.

Well, the visit was going well and I was still not convinced until I sat down with the admissions department and they said their record of USAFA appointments from those who attended under the Falcon Foundation scholarship was 99%! That statistic was enough to give me the motivation to give it one more try.

It was a grueling year. Things were different 20 years ago and there was not much "adult supervision" after work hours and the upperclassmen or "Old Men" were not limited to the types of "military training" they could subject us to. Needless to say, I grew up a lot that year. However, it was worth it when I, along with my 15 plebe brothers were all offered appointments to the class of 1996.

Yes, it still stings a little bit from being rejected from USAFA/AFROTC/NROTC/USCGA because to this day, I do not know why I was not considered. Other than my attendance at Valley Forge for a year, my record was not much different. However, I have no regrets. It gave me an additional year to "grow up" that I needed. It gave me 15 close friends that I went through hell with that I could lean on during my time at USAFA.

So, if there is a takeaway from my experience, is to not give up. There are many paths to a Service Academy. Some paths are more rugged than others, but the destination is the same.

To this day, I still thank my dad for eyeing that brochure in the trash and demanding I take a look at it.

Here is the link to the Falcon Foundation: http://www.usafa.org/falconfoundation

Good luck. I hope my experience can help.