Army Athletics Got A COVID Emergency Loan–Then Did Not Pay It Back

Back in January we wrote about the Army West Point Athletic Association’s (AWPAA) finances and business model. In this we noted that the AWPAA, while receiving massive government grants and other various subsidies and advantages of being at West Point, got a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan by July, 2020. The auditor reported that AWPAA … Read more

John T Reed Says Nice Things

We saw a while ago that John T Reed gave us a nice mention on his military articles blog. High Praise – Thanks John! I just learned of an important blog about my undergraduate alma mater West Point. It is called https://usmadata.com/..A more complete title might be.• The Unofficial Web Site of the United States Military … Read more

Resource Update – Center for Military Readiness

A reader sent us links to a recent Center for Military Readiness article “Army Scraps Gender-Neutral Standards Pushed by Discredited Social Engineers.” While our subject matter does not usually include the universe of topics related to the Army as a whole, we appreciate CMR’s similar theme that the Army’s focus should be on building a … Read more

Being Smart Hurts Your Army Career

Score one for the skeptics. In our previous posts we’ve used aptitude testing as a proxy for performance and the gold standard of what West Point recruiting efforts ought to be focused on. As it turns out, military scores matter more for “succeeding” in today’s Army. But is that a good thing? Our opinion is … Read more

Admissions Stats Updates

Late last year, and again in January, we requested additional information from the USMA admissions office. This was to update the site with admissions information for classes of 2021-23, and to understand graduation outcomes for the classes of ’19 and ’20. We went to the FOIA office email address used before, and then another address … Read more

Mailbag: Are we doing this right?

Recently we got a comment on our post on the most Black women ever to graduate USMA: Thank you for sharing your analysis. From one academic to another, I would recommend that you add a section discussing the strengths and weaknesses of your research method and design. There are a couple of weaknesses with your … Read more

On Academic Standards

LTC Heffington claimed that Academic standards are also nonexistent. I believe this trend started approximately ten years ago, and it has continued to get worse. West Point has stated standards for academic expectations and performance, but they are ignored. He notes that: [emphasis added] West Point has stated standards for academic expectations and performance, but they are ignored. Cadets … Read more

Corps Squad Athletes and Test Scores

Reminder: LTC Heffington’s letter  and  LTG Caslen’s letters LTC Heffington made a specific, and fortunately for us, easily and empirically test-able claim that: Every fall, the Superintendent addresses the staff and faculty and lies. He repeatedly states that “We are going to have winning sports teams without compromising our standards,” and everyone in Robinson Auditorium knows … Read more

STAP Claim

LTC Heffington claimed, as in the first post of this series, that STAP (Summer Term Academic Program) is also now an accepted summer detail assignment, so retaking a course during the summer translates into even more summer leave for the deficient cadet. This (“also now an accepted…”) implies that it has become commonplace where before … Read more