West Point Admissions & Data Insights
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
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
“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
We received a contact-form message from West Point’s Intellectual Property Attorney informing us that our use of the West Point Crest on this website is (now “was”, as we have modified our site) unlawful. Excellent work making the correction! We applaud the Army’s scrupulous protection of our rule of law by spending the time and … Read more
We recently found some interesting discussions on the Service Academy Forums [Link]. The topics discussed were about whether being a White applicant puts one at a disadvantage and why some of the West Point classes had SAT scores under 500. Well, these topics have been addressed extensively and quantitatively on these pages ( spoiler: 1) … Read more
West Point has launched some new data offerings on their site. These exceed the previous “class profiles” that passed as the best readily-available public information. Now there are newer, better datasets available at the G5 page. We get comprehensive class characteristics on all the application elements — test scores, qualifications, race, athletics, prior service… We … Read more
“This commitment to excellence must permeate everything we do. I will not compromise my decision to advocate winning in accordance with our values of duty, honor and country…. I have great concern being called a liar after more than 42 years of honorable service to our Nation and many years serving here at West Point.” … Read more
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
Another year, another graduating class, another record level of Diversity. West Point now celebrates an even larger number of Black Female graduates. This year, it’s 38. We look forward to 2021’s achievements. As we previously educed, this ‘achievement’ comes at significant though unacknowledged cost to separated cadets, taxpayers, soldiers, and warfighting capability. If past trends … Read more
The post on Why There Are So Few Women at West Point raised our interest in a topic: What would the composition of West Point look like if candidates were admitted and attended based on rank order of candidate scores? Given our previous findings, they would almost certainly look very different than they do now. … Read more