Hi, my name is Jacob, I'm 15 years old, and a sophomore in high school. I currently play for my school's football team, i'll be wrestling in the winter, and then I'll be on the track team in spring. I'm the senior patrol leader in my boy scout troop, and am going to be receiving my eagle scout shortly. I also make A-B grades. (where i live, B's are 84-92,so i'd have a higher gpa somewhere else) I'm interested in getting my pilots license, and am a frequent target shooter, and have been on my gun range's trap team. Ever since i was a child, i've been raised knowing that i was goign to be a great military leader. I would like to get advice from anyone on what steps i need to take to get into a service academy. i'm 6'1, and am probobly not growing anymore, so i think i'd make cockpit requirements. Pretty much, every service (except west point) seems appealing to me...not that i have anything against the army, i've just been raised by jar-heads and squids.
any advice?

“Cross your T's, and dot your I's”. They will be looking at your grammar, and spelling so do some catching up on that. Other than that I would contact a military school, and get the ball rolling. Make sure you keep your nose clean enough to eat out of it, too. That means don't do drugs, don't smoke, don't commit ANY crimes, don’t get any tattoos, or pricings, and no cutting yourself. Be careful with your wrestling as you can get hurt enough to never be able to serve. In general keep up the studies, and good luck! OORAW!

My advice is to look into this forum topic for the other threads that involve getting into military academies. A lot of them have me as the last poster. You'll find a good dozen of us have answered many people's questions and given advice as far as entering military academies.


USNA '05

I just went back and looked at similar posts as mine, and alot of what i see are JROTC kids. I'm not sure if my high school offers it. is it completely necessary? How hard would it be to join? i'd appreciate any foresight on this.

Necessary? I didn't do JROTC. I still got in.

Hey I'm a senior in high school and I've just recently completed everything I need for a Military Academy so I know how the process goes. One thing I will say though is that I've applied to West Point and not any other academies that you're considering. However, the process is pretty much exactly the same for all the academies. You're a sophomore so you still have sometime and the best thing you can do is keep your grades up and score well on the SAT and ACT. Mid-December of your junior year you'll have the opportunity to apply to the various service academies for something called Summer Leader's Seminar(SLS) and I would highly suggest applying to it. A lot of the candidates who I went to SLS with at West Point made their decisions that week of whether or not a service academy was the right fit for them. There you'll also learn a lot about the very (insanely) long and complex application process.

From what I can tell your grades seem pretty much on track and being an Eagle Scout and Senior Patrol Leader looks good as well. I'm an Eagle Scout and was my troops SPL for 2 years. The sports your doing sound good for getting you ready for the Candidate Fitness Assessment(CFA) but try not to bulk up too much because there is a mile run. If you go to one of the service academies websites you can find more about the particulars of the CFA and what all is required. Anyway I hope all this helped. If you have anymore questions about the process or how to prepare feel free to ask.

All very good advice above. I only add that it is a good idea to get some communication classes in (learn how to talk and express yourself in public) perhaps even some acting classes. They will definitely help because you will be interviewed many times and not all is filling out sheets of paper or forms.

Yeah you will have alot of interviews and communications classes will be very helpful. However, I would say careful with the acting classes though, because if you have to act during the interview then you probably don't have any business being there. Just be yourself and be respectful and you should be fine.

By the acting classes I didn't mean to display a false picture of yourself or fake your feelings, because acting classes also teach self confidence and keeping your emotions under control (or exaggerate them) as well as displaying your thoughts with more expression. As an example: Imagine an NCO who gives a class on firing a rifle. He can do it with a pointing stick in his hand, a monotone voice and send everybody to sleep. But the other NCO who had some insight into acting knows to keep his voice exciting, introduce mindful pictures of how a bullet flies and so on. That's what I meant by acting.

Oh ok I wasn't sure so I thought I should make sure. Thanks for clarifying.