Merit-Ranked Class Composition

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

Why There Are So Few Women At West Point

Yesterday we happened on Colonel (Ret) Ellen Haring‘s article “Why Are There So Few Women at West Point? Ask Congress,” in which Haring makes a number of gender-advocacy claims and proposals regarding the number of women in the military. The full referenced report is here. We summarize Col Haring’s major points as: Women are too … 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

Pay for Diversity: Most Black Women Ever Graduate USMA

A record number of African American women recently graduated from West Point, the United States Military Academy in New York. This was lauded as a historical accomplishment in many major news venues: Black women are set to make military history on Saturday, as the West Point military academy graduates its class of 2019 with its highest-ever … Read more

Class Year Data

The previous posts have been most edifying to put together, but we’ve been a bit short on time lately to build on them. There is additional analysis that can be done on activities (in particular, deeper dives into test and GPA by corps squad teams, analyzing the extent of test score advantages for various groups, … Read more

On Conduct Standards

Reminder: LTC Heffington’s letter  and  LTG Caslen’s letter Some of the charges that LTC Heffington made were around the standards for conduct at USMA, and specifically that the Corps: First and foremost, standards at West Point are nonexistent. They exist on paper, but nowhere else. The senior administration at West Point inexplicably refuses to enforce West … Read more

On Diversity as Strength

Reminder: LTC Heffington’s letter  and  Superintendent’s responses: The Academy leadership says, in response to LTC Heffington’s concerns about a degraded Academy, of the cadets: They are the most diverse group in the history of West Point and we are stronger for it. This is something of a non-sequitur to the issues of conduct and performance in … 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

Why We’re Here

In late 2017, LTC (USA, Ret) Robert Heffington, a former professor at the United States Military Academy, wrote an open letter to the Academy community. In it, and stating his loyalty to the ideals of West Point, he proceeded to air a number of grievances against what he perceived the Academy has become, (and partially … Read more