Do I Have Any Chance At West Point

What did you do to get into West Point?

I enlisted in the US Army.I had applied my senior year of High School, but was slightly above average academically and had not participated in any physical activities or sports since Freshman Year. The rest were leadership positions or other organizations, which meant I was not very well-rounded. Plus, I slacked on the application and did not turn it in until last minute. Unsurprisingly, within a week I received my rejection letter.Luckily for me, I already knew my chances were low, so I had already enlisted during the Christmas holiday in 2011.After Basic Training, I went to Advanced Individual Training (AIT) at Ft. Eustis, Virginia, and there my company commander (a WP graduate) learned that I had wanted to go to West Point through one of my platoon sergeants. He encouraged me to reapply, I did, and here I am about 90 days away from graduating.I did not ever expect to go to West Point after being rejected. While I was a soldier, I learned that every year, West Point reserves slots for the Active Army and Reserve/National Guard, and they don’t always fill these slots. So your chances are greatly increased by being a soldier. As the person previous to me said, when he went to take the exam, he was the only one interested. That is pretty much how it is - either soldiers don’t care or they don’t know, so there’s an opportunity there.Anyways, long story short, I would not be here if it were not for enlisting initially in the US Army.Best of luck!

I’m a freshman in high school and I want to go to West Point. I’m very scared because I got all Fs in the first quarter but all As now. Do I have any chance of attending West Point or any good university in the future (father is West Pointer)?

Lets just say, you are not off to good start. I was in a similar situation when I was your age. Dad was a West Pointer. His Dad had flunked out of West Point and was commissioned after flight school. Dad sent me to summer school for Math and Spanish. Grades improved in high school but were never great. I applied for an appointment through my congressman and was second alternate for the one appointment he had that year. I was offered the opportunity to go to West Point Preparatory School. I had to enlist in the Army, go to basic training and to the Prep School. There were more appointments available and after a year of constant supervision, the Commandant’s recommendation made the difference in getting an appointment or not. I was appointed by my congressman that year. So getting in is tough. Staying in is tougher. It was day to day struggle to balance the academic demands. But I studied and graduated on time with my class and never had to go to summer school.Many semesters it was a near thing. So my advice to you is get some tutors and get serious about your studies or you won’t be able to tell this same story to a youngster with aspirations to join the Long Gray Line. Good luck to you!

How can I get into West Point with an average GPA around 2.0? If I can’t what are other options to be an officer in the United States Army or Marines?

You absolutely can get into West Point or any other service Academy despite your GPA, if that is your highest goal. I had very high SAT/ACT scores and a high gpa in high school, and I eventually made it to the US Naval Academy. I failed out 8 days before commissioning. I knew other midshipmen who did poorly in high school, and are now commissioned officers.With your high school gpa, the following ways are the best chance you have to get accepted into a service Academy:Enlist in the branch of the service Academy that you wish to attend. If you want West Point, enlist in the Army. Prior service personnel have a different pipeline than civilians. Every year, each service has about 50 slots for enlisted to attend their Academy. Most years, most of those slots are not filled because it isn’t common knowledge that enlisted can get accepted. I once heard that service Academy’s are the easiest commissioning programs for enlisted to get accepted into because no one knows the slots exist. That being said, this route isn’t guaranteed. While enlisted don’t need to be nominated by their congressman, they do need approval from their chain of command. If you are a dirt bag with no leadership potential, you won’t get that approval. If you do get approved, you will be sent to the year long prep school, and (assuming you do well) you will be accepted to the service Academy.The second route is to attend a community college, and take the same classes that one would take as a plebe. If you do well in this environment, you can get accepted. The only caveat is that you have to do 4 years at the Academy regardless of how much college you’ve already completed.My story has a happy ending. After failing out of the Naval Academy, the Navy allowed me to enlist in the army to pay back my time at the Academy (3 years enlisted). I am currently an NCO infantry paratrooper. I love my job, and I would highly recommend going the enlisted route to get to the Academy. Heck! You may realize that the enlisted side is far more rewarding

If I go to West Point, do I have to serve on the front lines after graduation?

Interesting question that implies you don't desire to serve on “the front lines” (whatever or wherever they are). Let's start by saying that it is a rare soldier that wants to serve in a combat zone. General MacArthur said, “The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war”. That said, there are many “jobs” an officer can have following graduation from West Point. Not all of them are directly combat related. I would find it hard to believe, however, after successfully navigating four years with your classmates at West Point, that anybody would actively and willingly seek to avoid serving anywhere, anytime that they are called. More words from MacArthur will help to illustrate my point:“DUTY, HONOR, COUNTRYThose three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn…But these are some of the things they do: They build your basic character. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation's defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid. They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for actions, not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm but to have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future yet never neglect the past; to be serious yet never to take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength. They give you a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of an appetite for adventure over love of ease. They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what next, and the joy and inspiration of life. They teach you in this way to be an officer and a gentleman.”