West Point Admissions & Data Insights
The document “Amicus brief in opposition by USMA graduates” [ link ] from the previous post caught the eye of the estimable John T Reed. Excerpt from his whole comment [link]: It is also an effort where the soldiers and civilian employees of the Defense department including the soldiers and civilian employees of the U.S. … Read more
The Supreme court succinctly denied the Students For Fair Admissions (SFFA) request for an injunction to stop West Point’s race-based admissions practices while the lower court handles the case with this order (and see the Reuters write-up here: link). FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2024 23A696 STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS V. USMA AT WEST POINT, ET AL. … Read more
The report “Return On Investment in Graduates of the DOD Service Academies: Assessment and Improvements ” [Local copy link] published in July 2023 by the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) is an excellent piece of research with very interesting information and insights on officer retention. We recommend reading it. Below we offer a brief summary … Read more
It sounds like the military academies may get their chance to justify their race-based admissions practices. From Reuters: Aug 3 (Reuters) – The group that took its case against affirmative action in college admissions to the U.S. Supreme Court and won is seeking to end an exemption for military schools, the founder of Students for … Read more
We’ve been quite busy and other things have taken priority on posting. However, there have been a few events worth noting: New Data Request We filed another FOIA request last year with the West Point office. It included requests for meaningful data for applicants and classes of 2020-2026, including, among some other helpful information, demographic, … 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
In our recent post “Call for Sunlight…”, we outlined West Point branch selection and which groups went into which Army branches to put context around USMA’s stated need for preferences in admissions. We speculated that cadet branching preferences are one driver of the low number of minorities in combat arms. In this post, we find … 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
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
We’re far from the only ones to note that West Point has lowered its entry standards and that this isn’t good for the Army. A group of authors studying officer accessions standards (Arthur Coumbe, Steven Condly, and William Skimmyhorn, two of whom are at West Point now) from the War College wrote in 2017 in … Read more