Seniors speak about service academy application experience

David Hagan

While many seniors aim for traditional college plans, a select few take an alternative route—service academies.

Senior Will Ernst opted to apply to West Point, the prestigious United States Military Academy.

“I applied to a service academy partly because it’s the college I’ve had the most experience with,” Ernst said. “I’ve lived on campus at West Point for a few weeks at a time, but also because I like the feeling of being able to serve others and to serve my community and serve and help other people. I know I can continue to get that feeling in the military.”

Ernst explained that his love for helping others came from his time serving as a volunteer firefighter.

“That’s where I kind of learned how much I loved helping others, volunteering, and working with my community,” Ernst said. “That’s kind of what led me down the path of looking at a service academy.” it happen outweighed the amount that people were actually learning from it, or the information that they were taking in.”

The actual application process for service academies is quite different from traditional colleges.

Ray, on the other hand, found value in the student presentations, knowing that the health students were receiving an education directly from queer people.

“[The presentations] gave a spotlight to students who are very often unheard. This gives them an opportunity to help people hear [what] they want them to know,” Ray said. “And it gives people in the audience a face. If you’re not directly friends with queer people, then it’s very easy to just treat them like they’re not like just another student, very easy to dehumanize them.”

According to Prey-Harbaugh, in meetings with the GSA leaders, the health teachers expressed that they think the health students find more value in learning from their peers than teachers, but Prey-Harbaugh disagrees. “I think we are respected way less when we’re standing up in front of them than a teacher is, because it’s the teacher’s job.” he said.

Junior Paige Trout found that the presentations last year expanded her knowledge of the queer community and thinks it did the same for her peers.

“I got to learn about a bunch of other different categories that I didn’t know were a thing before our sixth-grade introduction, but I think it helped strengthen other people’s understanding of the LGBTQ community. Not necessarily of the sex ed part,” she said.

This year, current sophomores did not learn about LGBTQ+ topics directly from GSA members, but a version of the packet that GSA developed was assigned to students.

“It was fill in the blanks, like, answer these questions,” sophomore Kelly Montague said. “You basically had to just provide definitions.”

Although they did not return to present, GSA leaders hope to maintain a relationship with the health department.

“GSA is willing to look over what the teachers have, but also we can’t present,” Sharif said. “That should not be our responsibility.”*

ARMY: United States Military Academy difficult,” Ernst said. “But also, I found that to be my favorite part of the admissions process.”

Senior Owen Brennan will attend the Air Force Academy next year.

“It’s a lot of work just to apply because you have to do so many interviews and a lot of essays. You have to mentally and physically prepare for everything, look nice and stuff like that. It’s just a lot. It’s a tedious process.”

“I’m doing it not necessarily just because I have a love for country, but I want to help other people. And I feel like this is one of the best ways I can do that.”

Will Ernst ’23

Applicant to United States Military Academy

The application process entails sending in transcripts, acquiring nomination letters from state representatives, and a physical examination.

“I’d say it’s like applying to multiple colleges at once,” Ernst said. “You have to fill out a bunch of information, you have to get your transcripts and so on for state representatives for Senators so you can get nomination, then you also have to send all that into your military academy.”

“And then you also have to do a fitness component, which is completely different from any other college, which is extremely

To the average college applicant, the service academy process can be very discouraging.

“Basically, it really restricts a lot of people who really want to go to these schools from actually going there,” Ernst said. “Like, people who are very qualified to go, [if] they have some small medical problem, they’re not going to go.”

Students stress that some stereotypes of service academies are not very representative of applicants.

“I’m doing it not necessarily just because I have a love for country, but I want to help other people. And I feel like this is one of the best ways I can do that,” Ernst said.

Senior Aimar Ng is a second-generation student at Haven who applied to all four service academies, gaining admission to all of them. He also shared his thoughts on this stereotype.

“A lot of people think the stereotype I think would be that you have come from military background. You know, you’ve been military like your whole life, your parents, blah blah. But a lot of people don’t realize that it’s a very diverse group of people. A lot of people are international, first-generation Americans.”*

West Point, NY usma.org

NAVY: United States Naval Academy

Annapolis, MD usna.org

AIR FORCE: United States Air Force Academy Colorado Springs, CO usafa.af.mil

COAST GUARD: United States Coast Guard Academy New London, CT uscga.edu

MERCHANT MARINE: United States Merchant Marine Academy Kings Point, NY usmma.edu

Speak with your counselor if you are interested in the admission process to the military service academies.