Class Composition Goals

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

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

West Point Is Not Selective

“Wow, it must have been hard to get in there.” We’ve gotten that a lot when acquaintances find out that we attended USMA. Other grads probably get it too. West Point is often described as “highly selective.” But how hard was it? How selective–or perhaps “elite” is a better word — is West Point? Falsely … Read more

On Admissions Excellence

Reminder: LTC Heffington’s letter  and  Supe’s letter LTC Heffington says that The Superintendent refuses to enforce admissions standards or the cadet Honor Code, while the Academy responds Our current Corps of Cadets is comprised of the finest young men and women we have ever gathered here at the Academy as evidenced by their performance in the … Read more