Wentworth Military Academy & Junior College

Unfortunately most of the comments concerning Wentworth Military Academy & College in these reviews are true or could very easily have actually happened. Please note that ?WeWo? is now closed. I will need to say it was a happy day when I heard the news.

My days at ?WeWo? come from the second height of its capabilities, in the 1960?s with 650 students in the Cadet Corps. Basically all the things which were expressed in my visitation of the institution and the recruitment phase were total fabrications and half-truths. The Commandant stressed ?WeWo?s? high academic scholarship and quality instructors. Actually the staff was less qualified than my old public high school, and graded easier, so GPAs came up. The enrichment programs had some good potential, but there was really little chance to take any, even if they were actually offered. Much of the spare time was spent with busy work, i.e. cleaning and polishing. Enforced study halls made the very numerous laggards come up to C / B- averages, which in turn, really made frustrated parents express great satisfaction and happiness. ?WeWo?s? main customer market seemed to be for parents at the end-of-their-rope with ash-pile bound children, and they had the extra price of a new Buick to spend on tuition each year. Addressing the needs of these parents really seemed to be the main purpose of the institution, and the number of students who were not at the academy for this remedial purpose seemed to be in the minority. There was a fairly robust military education system in place, and many students did go on to commissions in the US military, including myself. ?WeWo? also advertised that they were sending numerous graduates on to Harvard, Yale, and similar quality schools, but I never seemed to be able to find them. Most graduates who went on to a 4 year college attended second and third tier local / regional universities. Some others did go on to the University of MO, KS, OK, etc., but these were from the high end of the academic class. Note that about a half dozen students, who did need one year of remedial work before attending the US Air Force Academy were allowed to attend ?WeWo? (and about ten other preps) through an outside funded and administrated program, which to read about it, one would think it belonged solely to ?WeWo?. West Point had a similar program, but ?WeWo? was never able to tap into it, but several other military preps were. That should tell you something. The school did advertise that 94% of its graduates did go on to higher education, but this included learning how to make license plates for the state, and military boot camp. The big problem of attending ?WeWo? was the high percentage of students who really did no give a damn, and some required such things as mandatory monthly drug and pregnancy tests. It was really miserable paying to attend a school and living with "peers" who had these kinds of needs and attitudes.

To be fair to the other writers, ?WeWo? was the state military school for the State of Missouri, with a bit of state funding assistance too, which did commissioned graduates into the state militia and National Guard, but in the late 1890?s to early 1920?s. This program fell to the wayside with the establishment of ROTC, and the state support was discontinued. In the 1910?s and 1920?s the school's honor graduate did receive the chance for an appointment to WestPoint. The school did have some connectivity with admissions into superior up-state Illinois private universities in the 1920?s, but this lapsed, never to return in the 1930?s economic depression. Where could you leverage your degree from ?WeWo? ? Basically nowhere significant, as it did not carry a lot of water.

The big negative of Wentworth Military Academy and College was going to live and study with so many jerks and ass-holes. Many of which went on to an early fate with booze, desease, and drugs. The big positive of Wentworth was learning how, for the rest of your life, to deal with jerks and assholes.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000

I want to start off by saying this: I am a good cadet. In my 3 completed semesters at Wentworth, I've never dropped below a 3.0 GPA. This past semester, with 6 classes, I got a perfect 4.0. I've been promoted three times, and have good relations with many faculty and staff and some cadets. I've done everything I could have to be successful here, and to contribute something positive to Wentworth. Yes. I truly believe I am what you'd call "a good cadet".

But maybe that's just the problem- there's just so few of us left at Wentworth. It's like they're a dying breed.

I achieved cadet NCO and then officer rank in one year, one of only a handful of classmates to do this. I came in full of motivation and ambition, excited to have finally escaped the humdrum life of community college back home and gotten out to military school again. But...

I had a lot of scheduling and planning conflicts this summer, and it took until the last minute- almost literally- to decide that I would be returning to Wentworth after all. I didn't want to. But because I came back late, I missed "cadre training", where they teach you what they think you need to know in order to hold rank as a cadet senior NCO or officer. I did the make-up training, but it didn't matter. Come promotion time I got passed over for everything.

I tried to get past this and volunteered to be a squad leader, normally a job given to 1st years. The fact that the chain of command openly disliked me- carry-over from last year- was a bad start. Worse was Wentworth's decision to abolish RAT (Recruit At Training) Phase, a recruit tradition based vaguely off VMI's Ratline and in place at WMA since the 1890's. So where did I end up? Between a rock and a hard place, essentially, with 1st year cadets who were now allowed- and aware of this- to pretty much do and say what they liked, and 2nd year leadership who did not care.

There was a dispute over much of this failure-to-lead on the part of the company leadership, with two squad leaders- myself being one- being the voices of opposition. After being confronted before the entire company by the CO, both of us told our platoon leader we were resigning. The company XO, who just sort of let whatever happened happen, treated the two of us *very* differently. The other squad leader he tried to butter up, saying "we still need you" and all that bollocks. But me? Take a number, buddy, and get in line. We got plenty of guys to replace you.

I accepted that challenge. They haven't replaced me yet.
Last year we had *some* tension between non-ROTC and ROTC college cadets. Some. All freshmen are required to take Military Science I 1st and 2nd semester, but do not have to contract. This year is very different. We have dozens of athletes- where admissions found these idiots I can only imagine- who despise the military and pretty much do whatever they want. ROTC vs athletes has become a public war on campus at times- we actually had a civil war in the main college company one afternoon. I stood up on the hill and watched, laughing a little. What else was there to do?

Oh, we got our speeches about "unity in the Corps" and this, that and the other thing from so many out-of-touch white guys who, if they went here at all, graduated approximately 10,000 years ago. But you know what happened? They divided the main college company. ROTC on one floor, athletes on the other. Even the SCHOOL is simply surrendering to the inevitable- that their own idiotic admissions department has irreparably doomed unity in the Corps of Cadets. Maybe just for this year, but possibly forever.

Me? As a college cadet who left ROTC after year one- didn't like Army ROTC; looking at a different service now- I was like those poor suckers left on the embassy roof in Saigon in that picture of the last helicopter leaving the American embassy in 1975. No room on the chopper for you, buddy; gonna have to stay behind. So I was abandoned on a floor full of jocks, many of whom were black and- entirely on their own initiative- had adopted a bit of a "black power" mentality. When my roommate and I were told we were being 'evicted', one of them gloated "the niggas are taking over this floor!" It took an hour and a half for the platoon leader, also evacuating with ROTC, to convince us to stop barricading the door and go ahead with the move. Some idiot forgot to check if the occupants of all the rooms were there that night, so as over two dozen room transfers were taking place, I had to sit outside my new room for 2 and a half hours.

2 and a half hours. "I'm a 2nd year cadet, I have a 4.0 GPA, I've held rank 3 times, I'm paying $30,000 to go here... and I can't even get in my room." That's what I sat there thinking. When I went down to the TAC office to complain, the two Army Reserve privates they found to be TAC officers not only refused to do anything about it, but essentially made the whole issue my fault and threatened to make me march the quad all night if I bothered them like that again. I was so mad I nearly dared them to do it. Next semester if it happens again, I just might.

The bullying, favouritism, and negativity in the Corps is unreal- the cameras have no night vision and the school admits this, and the most recent renovation of Sellers and East Barracks was done before Adolf Hitler breathed his last. Upkeep in the barracks is terrible- last year, Charlie Company froze in their rooms for 2 weeks at the worst of a bad Missouri winter because the boiler-thing failed. It took them nearly a month to fix it. Our TAC officer refused to leave his apartment on the floor for the comfort of his own home, and at the end of the year they fired him. Those two things are not related at all, but still. Think of the wacky message it sends. Boilers fail, water pumps fail- you can't ask for reliable electricity, water, internet, or heat. The internet censorship here is insane- I have even been told they actually DO use a "guilty until proven innocent" policy and pretty much just block everything they don't recognise.

And it breaks ALL the time, because the school buys the cheapest of everything.
Extracurricular activities? Don't even ask. WHAT activities? Besides bus trips to this game in Kansas City or that ice-skating thingy, there's nothing. Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, PA offers fencing, flying lessons, SCUBA diving, lifeguard classes, driving lessons, piano lessons, horseback riding (D Troop) and paintball. Wentworth has NONE of that. I worked hard last year emailing and calling paintball places in the area; I located two within 45 minutes of Lexington, MO that, if we had at least 20 cadets sign up to go, would cost about $20 per cadet for 2-3 games.

Last year the activities director, also the volleyball coach, ignored my reports all through the season, obsessed with her team. This year, the NEW activities director ignored me even more. When I told her of my research last year, she got annoyed and said "there's no way we'd find 20 cadets who could afford that." She was sitting in a $30,000 a year boarding school telling me a bunch of cadets could not possibly come up with $20 to play paintball. What do we have for that instead? The school doing EXACTLY what I recommended against, which is doing it all itself. Less than 20 paintball guns, a tiny course, and a constant need to buy CO2 and paintballs. Out of over 200 cadets, less than 20 EVER make it onto the signup sheet to play. And I SAW how many tried. Each time, it was more than 20, and I asked many cadets who told me, without a doubt, that they could and would find a way to pay $20 to play games of paintball off campus.

Academics aren't challenging at WMAC. Standards vary too much between teachers; while college professors should certainly have a right to run classes their way, this IS a military college. The WMAC standard should be clear, always. Some professors are good- I have learned a lot from a handful. The good ones have proper Master's or Doctorate's degrees- many don't- and are knowledgeable in their field as well as open-minded. Too many are not. The German program at Wentworth is a joke- the high school teacher can never get enough students, and the college teacher, simply put, does not know enough German to be qualified to even teach the course.

Are there some good teachers at Wentworth? Yes. Are there some great ones? Absolutely, though only a few. Are there mediocre and outright bad ones? I'm afraid so. The good college professors here will become known to you if you go here, and their courses *are* interesting and challenging. But they are the exception, not the rule, and their way is not policy here.

The honour code is a joke. For decades it's been VMI's, which in turn is originally based of West Point's. The classic line: "A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, nor tolerate those who do." I've seen dozens of cadets, college and high school, do all of those things AND get caught. The school does nothing about it. The new college baseball team, by the way, is failing so bad in class that one professor told me- on the quiet- that there may not BE a baseball team for the spring semester, because too many are failing WAY too many classes.

I got passed over for promotion yet again at the end of this semester. Why? I quit as a squad leader, remember? Oh, THAT'S done it. Nevermind my 4.0 GPA, three previous ranks or overall a visibly GOOD record overall. I quit once in a situation that was arguably needlessly hard and unfair! Clearly the only reasonable response to such insolence is to never promote that cadet again.

The high schoolers feel unwanted, the college cadets resent the high schoolers and one another in a very juvenile, clique-based way. Promotions are visibly based on an arbitrary favouritism-before-merit system. In the midst of it all, we have useless PFC's posing as TAC officers, wailing about how they are powerless to do ANYTHING about chaos in the barracks, and how we have to "use your chain of command". Too often this year has that line been used to *really* say "I don't care; go away and don't bother me again."

You know what the worst part of this is? The "good cadet", the one who has the right stuff to make it at The Citadel, VMI, or West Point? Well, he's unwanted here these days. Not just by most cadets- the school itself seems repulsed by a young man- or woman- who wants to go to a military school just to BE at one. I've talked to at LEAST half a dozen cadets whose stories will about break your heart. They volunteered, you see. They ASKED to go to Wentworth. They WANTED to be cadets. And the school did nothing but make them regret it. To a man, every one of that group I know has been busted down in rank and left behind come promotion day, always in favour of some other guy the school likes better. We're ALL slated to walk out of here as C-2 Privates.

Ralph Nader once said of General Motors: "This is a company that doesn't like its cars, doesn't like its customers, doesn't like its workers, and doesn't like itself." Swap out a couple of words and that applies to Wentworth Military Academy & College perfectly. What's funny is I'm getting a Wentworth diploma and I drive a GM car...

I am a member of the WMC class of 2013, and I will almost definitely graduate with one of the highest GPA's in my class. I'll be getting an Associate's of Arts, since Wentworth only does 2-year degrees. We have Park University and Missouri Valley classes on campus, but only commuting civilians- who these days outnumber the cadets as Wentworth also acts as a civilian junior college - can take them.

Would I return to Wentworth next year? Absolutely not. I've had it, and so has every Old Boy I know in the Corps who ever wanted to make this a better school. We've been rejected at every turn, and the irony is that the cadets this school needs the most are, more and more, realising they aren't wanted and turning away. Would I do it all again, if I could? I don't know. Wentworth has disappointed and even infuriated me countless times. In May 2013 I'll walk out of Wentworth with a diploma, a duffel bag, and a lot of memories. Many good, some bad. I wouldn't trade them for anything.

My advice? If you want a REAL military college, look at the 4-year schools like VMI and The Citadel. 2-year? Look at Valley Forge or Marion Military Institute. The happiest students here are the civilians with Wentworth College, and even THEY know this school could be WAY better than it is. The tuition, no matter how you look at it, is TOO HIGH for what cadets receive in return. If you DO go here- whatever happens, just remember that I warned you. And never give up. Never, ever give the school an excuse to make it all YOUR fault by failing classes. Be the best cadet you can be if you DO show up... it's gonna drive 'em crazy.Wentworth is not devoid of merit. There's a lot of good cadets and staff, and this school is not yet entirely beyond fixing. I could, if I wanted, name more than 15 good, solid, respectable people who work there and TRULY want to make the school better for everyone. What's sad is that mentality, that professionalism, is shared by pretty much NONE of the top brass. The Board of Trustees, I noticed once, is entirely composed of silly old businessmen who graduated from Wentworth 50 years ago. The alumni come back once or twice a year and complain, blaming us, the current cadets, for everything. They refuse to do anything to take charge of the school's destiny, and at the end of the day that's true of pretty much everyone who has the power to do it.

2nd Year Male -- Class 2013

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