7 Comments

Affirmative Action, while perhaps a noble gesture, doesn't produce excellence. It creates a whole gamut of human jealousies and emotions and perpetuates divisiveness plaguing America . The military shouldn't be a social experiment if we are to put the very best in charge of winning wars. Want to do that in GM? Google? or Microsoft? Fine. Not the military, thank you.

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One aspect unaddressed is that (in most cases), applicants to the service academies require a congressional appointment before consideration by admissions. Source of appointment would aid understanding of the inner workings and complex mechanisms of the data.

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If you want to improve "diversity" you should find a way for the underrepresented to meet the standards instead of creating a separate standard for admission. Isn't that what preparatory schools are for?

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I think an active recruiting effort to find minorities that are competitive is needed. Outreach targeting former minority military retirees could help for example, if they are not already doing it. The wording of such overtures needs to be careful. Maybe say something like, "we are contacting military retirees to advocate for consideration of the xxx academy as an option for their young people if they can meet the standards. Our goal is to maintain a force that reflects America while keeping standards as high as possible."

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I don't know precisely how to phrase this, but I believe that "Asians" are in a lower percentage of the general population than the applicants who have come to be called "minority candidates"

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My son's application to USNA went in yesterday. Average 1250 SAT and stellar everywhere else. Will let you know what happens. I'm good either way but that thing about killing the dreams of teenagers, I think that is real. Maybe it is the dreams of Dads full disclosure but that's another story. We need to get back to meritocracy as best we can.

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I appreciate your unrelenting attention to exposing the damages from these policies. Thank you!

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