West Point Admissions & Data Insights
In our recent post “Call for Sunlight…”, we outlined which groups went into which Army branches to put context around USMA’s stated need for preferences in admissions. Finding that certain minority groups were less represented in non-combat arms than in combat arms, we also speculated that one driver of the low number of minorities in … Read more
“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” Brandeis, L. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously wrote in his 1913 article “What Publicity Can Do” that “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants,” discussed here and often cited by proponents of transparency in government. He was referring, apparently, to “the wickedness of people shielding … Read more
Let’s conduct a thought experiment on the West Point acceptance rate. The question West Point is considering admitting two groups of candidates. Both groups contain 178 candidates and have been deemed 100% “qualified”. You get to decide which group is offered admission. Keep in mind, 178 candidates is about 15% of an entering class. Keep … Read more
We’re far from the only ones to note that West Point has lowered its entry standards and that this isn’t good for the Army. A group of authors studying officer accessions standards (Arthur Coumbe, Steven Condly, and William Skimmyhorn, two of whom are at West Point now) from the War College wrote in 2017 in … Read more
In yesterday’s post we saw that 6 cadets were involved in the Florida cocaine/fentanyl event. This got us wondering. How likely was it that the football players “just happened to be involved” in the issue? In other words, how what was the probability that this was an event with randomly selected cadets? Method To this … Read more
On March 11, several cadets were involved in a party where they ingested cocaine laced with fentanyl. Several of the cadets ended up in the hospital. The Superintendent, Darryl Williams, sent this out on March 14th: March 14, 2022 Members of the Long Gray Line, As many of you know, the United States Military Academy … Read more
West Point, now and again, publishes annual reports to the Board of Visitors. Those that have been published recently- after they have “been acted upon by the President of the United States” — can be found here. If you’re interested in history, you can find the 1891 report here. In this post, we find confirmation … Read more