Have you ever asked yourself why you want to attend a service academy? If you do not have a clear idea just yet, this is a good chance to brainstorm and discover your intentions. I can guarantee that one of the first questions that you will be asked during a congressional nomination interview is “Why do you want to go to the US (branch of service) Academy?” So, in no particular order, here is a list of reasons to apply to a service academy.

1. A top quality education for free

If you are in it for the bachelor’s degree, each of the service academies offer some of the most competitive undergraduate programs in the United States. The academies are especially renowned for their excellent science and engineering programs. And the best part? You do not pay a dime for an academy degree that is highly demanded in the job market.

2. No one else is doing it

With the highly negative media attention on the war in Iraq, joining the military is not a popular thing to do right now. Show that you are unfazed by selfishness or popular opinion by putting our country and its people before your own interests.

3. You come from a military family

Your great-grandfather fought in the Civil War, your grandfather is a Vietnam War veteran, your father is a colonel in the Army, your uncle is serving in Iraq… You’ve already been set up to choose the path of duty and honor since your childhood. If you’re going to go military, you may as well graduate from one of the service academies to become a well-respected officer.

4. 9/11 Terrorism

“You mess with me, you mess with my country.” Candidates who are currently applying now experience the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks during their early adolescence. To react defensively to such a blatant attack on our country is reasonable for us patriots. Make sure our country is well defended so that something like 9/11 never happens again.

5. Challenge yourself

Do you know the extent of your mental and physical limits? Do you have the courage to push yourself to demand the best out of your performance? If this sounds like your attitude, going to a service academy will be a constant sequence of personal challenges that you will have to overcome. And in the end? You will be able to overcome anything in life with the experiences you take with you after graduation from a service academy.

6. Fly planes, drive tanks, command ships

Experience America’s military might and power from the hot seat. You are in command. Only the best of the best get to handle our military’s costly machinery, and if this has been your childhood dream, the service academies will set you on the right path.

7. Travel the world

As an officer in the US Armed Forces, you will have opportunities to travel and be stationed all over the world. If you like to travel overseas and experience different cultures, let the military pay for your trip expenses.

When you are applying to your congressmen for the required congressional nominations, you will be able to choose an order of preference for service academies of your choice. This is an optional step. When I was applying for West Point, I was so set on the Military Academy that I didn’t want to be appointed to any other service academy. So I did not select backups.

This was a big mistake on my part. In retrospect, if I had applied to West Point and didn’t get in, my dream of defending and serving our nation would have been over as far as attending a service academy goes.

Obviously, West Point is not the only path to duty and honor. And the same applies to the other academies like the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy. Each academy should be interchangeable within the outlook of your goals. Do you want to become a leader in the United States Armed Forces? How bad do you want it? If you were determined enough, you would grasp the opportunity to attend any of the service academies.

Securing a spot on the congressman’s list for a congressional nomination is an extremely competitive event. No matter how confident you are about the caliber of your candidate status, you cannot afford to overlook the order of preference when you apply for the nomination.

A congressional nomination is required by the service academies. You may be qualified from the standpoint of the Admissions office to get into your first choice school, but if your home state has such fierce competition for a certain academy that other candidates beat you out of a nomination, then your journey is over. Instead, if you select a second and third choice school for a nomination, then you will still be in the game even after an unfortunate elimination from the first round.

Can you depend on affirmative action to drag you out of the gutter and blast you into an open seat in a service academy? The service academies have been actively trying to recruit more minorities as part of their admissions policies. This reason for seeking out minority candidates will be explained below. So being classified as a minority can help you get into a service academy, but we have to clarify what this means. By the way, don’t expect a free ride because, despite your minority status, you still need to show Admissions that you have what it takes to succeed as a leader in the US Armed Forces.

Currently, there is a lack of ethnic diversity in the officer ranks in comparison to the enlisted ranks. For instance, in the Navy, 47 percent of the enlisted ranks are minorities while only 17 percent of the officers are minorities. This lack of representation in the officer ranks is a critical matter of national security, because the members of the US Armed Forces should accurately reflect the diversity of the country that they are defending. Morale among the troops and trust in the leadership are key components in how any military functions, while racial differences can lead to low morale and ultimately the breakdown of the system.

The Naval Academy Dean of Admissions in 2003 said, “Everybody that receives an offer to the academy has to be fully qualified, but beyond that, we want a brigade that reflects our country, geographically diverse, we want it to be diverse in other regards, too.” Hence, the service academies will not lower their standards of admission for the sake of minority candidates. That would be asking for major trouble in the future when incompetent officers manage to slip through into the service.

As I mentioned in the beginning of the article, being a minority does not guarantee you a spot in the academy in the traditional sense of affirmative action. Instead, each of the service academies seems to pay special attention to qualified minority candidates. This results in an increase in the number of minority applicants because the service academies actively seek them out. And, naturally, the number of minorities who are accepted into the service academies will continue to increase with continued efforts by the respective admissions departments.

If you are a minority candidate, don’t think that you have an unfair advantage over non-minority candidates in the applicant pool. But what you should consider is this. America needs you in the Armed Forces to provide leadership for this diverse nation.

Here are the newly updated 2007-2008 figures for the value of education at the US Military Academy, the US Naval Academy and the US Air Force Academy.

What are the factors that are used to assess these numbers? Some of the major factors that influence the figures are the number of graduates, the number of employees, the size and cost of the facilities, and the equipment and materials used to train and develop officers at the respective service academies.

One thing to keep in mind is that a higher value of education does not make one service academy better than another. The scope of each of the academies differs greatly, and the necessary facilities and equipment needed to reach those goals vary accordingly. You will find that the US Department of Defense generously spends as much as is needed for each of these academies to train and develop the best possible leaders for our Armed Forces.

So here are the updated numbers. They reflect the total cost to get the cadets and the midshipmen through four years at the academies.

USMA: $441,000
USNA: $351,800
USAFA: $400,000

The point of this article is to point out the exorbitantly high cost of education at the service academies in comparison to civilian colleges and universities. The best part about this is that the cadets and midshipmen do not need to pay a penny from their own pockets, as noted by David — Air Force Academy candidate — on Get Into Academy N. This is a small and reasonable price that the citizens of our country must pay to live in the United States of America as we know it now.

DODMERB is an acronym for Department of Defense Medical Examination Review Board, which you will complete during your senior year in high school. The DODMERB is required to get into the Military Academy at West Point, the Naval Academy, the Air Force Academy, the Coast Guard Academy, and the Merchant Marine Academy.

At this point in the application, you are only one of two things in the eyes of the service academies: medically qualified or medically disqualified. Most candidates are not perfect humans and they were injured or sick at one point in their lives. Therefore, do not be surprised when you get the ominous disqualification letter from DODMERB. It’s okay because many medical issues can be bypassed with waivers.

The following are three tips to maximize your success rate with the DODMERB. One thing to mention before we go on is to never lie on the DODMERB. All of the service academies take pride in their honor codes, and you automatically void your qualification as an officer by lying during the admissions process before you even get in.

You Can Be Rationally Discrete

The DODMERB application is so painstakingly exact that it asks you about every possible medical issue that you may have had since your birth. For the sake of practicality, avoid mentioning the following:

• A medical condition that has not affected you in recent years (as in, when you were 5 years old).
• A minor condition that you diagnosed on your own but did not seek medical attention for because it was not serious.

If you use your common sense with this, you will figure out how to be discrete while not lying to DODMERB. And no, this is not the same thing as flirting with other girls and then “being discrete” by not telling your girlfriend about it (if you’re a guy).

If You Lie, Is It Worth The Risk?

No. Do not intentionally lie about any medical conditions that you may have had. This is the government that you are dealing with, and they can and will find out about every written record in your medical history, and you be assured that they do better detective work than a jealous girlfriend going through your cell phone. There may be leftover records in your high school transcript, and DODMERB requests your full medical records for confirmation for every minor issue.

It is better to be truthful on the DODMERB and risk the disqualification, which can be fixed with a waiver, rather than lie and risk being banned from the service academy admissions process altogether.

The Medical Waiver Is Your Savior

Waivers are a realistic possibility.

In my case, I fainted after sitting in a fire ant nest in 8th grade. The heavy dosage of poison caused an allergic reaction and my friend’s mom hauled me to the emergency room. I had to mention this on the DODMERB, and they disqualified me for it. But after filing for a waiver and making multiple calls to the Air Force Academy (where DODMERB is located), it went through and I passed the medical examination portion of admissions.

If you are taking the DODMERB medical exam, I congratulate you on making it this far in the admissions process.