United States Military Academy

USMA recruits high ability high school children to make up for the active duty soldiers it lets in. Oh, and it will bend every rule to make sure that any active duty cadets make it. If you are 17, join the army and then attend USMA. The "hazing" is reserved for anyone fresh out of high school. If you have prior service, you get a pass. Those lieutenants least likely to become career officers come out of USMA. If you want to be an officer, go ROTC. If you want to work on Wall Street but can't get into a real Ivy, or want a career with a defense contractor, etc., the USMA is the place for you. USMA asserts that it has a 10% acceptance rate. Privately, they will tell you it is more like 50%. They tend to count letters from 7th graders, etc., who are not really applying. What is very interesting is that there is a ton of physical screening, evaluation of grades and test scores, but no psychological testing...one would expect that if the Army is really looking for officers, they would try to evaluate applicants.

The instruction is TERRIBLE. None of my "professors" had earned a PhD The difference between a civilian professor, with a PhD or Masters, and a USMA "professor" is this: to get a Masters degree, a civilian typically has to do a lot of teaching to earn a fee waiver at a civilian school. The USMA professor studied full time and never taught until he got to USMA. Further, while earning a PhD, most candidates are required to teach for another three years. That's five years of teaching experience before they even start on a trial basis as an instructor. Anyone who has taken a course at USMA and at a civilian school could tell the there is a world of difference in the quality of instruction. The USMA professors are out of their depth.

Now the counter argument would be that USMA's mission is to develop leaders, not educate students. In that case, why is there so little military training, almost exclusively crammed into the summer recess? That also bothered me- during the academic year, you almost never get outside.The problem I have with USMA is that probably 99% of cadets come in full of desire to serve their country in a military career. 10% leave who probably would have excelled in ROTC. At least VMI will tell you up from that the "rat line" nonsense is not military training. USMA likes to hide the reality of the daily abuse of plebes from applicants until they have already signed on the dotted line.

1st Year Female -- Class 1995

Collaboration/Competitive: A+, Education Quality: F