USMA Acceptance Rates: Who Didn’t Make It

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

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

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

On Admissions Excellence

Let’s talk about West Point admissions standards. 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 … Read more