COL Jones Letter From USMA
The following is a letter sent out by COL Michael Jones, the current Director of Admissions at USMA. It provides some interesting news items of interest to those helping with our admissions efforts in SW Oklahoma. Letter follows:
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 10:40:16 -0500
From: "Jones, M. COL DAD"
Subject: Directors Update
To: ADMISSIONS-FF@ORATOR.USMA.EDU
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 04 10:45
From: michael.jones@usma.edu
Subject: Admissions Update
To: Admissions-FF@orator.usma.edu
Admissions Teammates:
I want to welcome the Presidents of our West Point Societies and West Point Parents Clubs to this mailing list. I know that the DAD Field Force works with you in many parts of the country and have included them on this list in order to encourage further cooperation. Additionally, as we continue to work the reorganization to Congressional district management, I hope that we'll find more volunteers to assist in our recruiting mission from these outfits.
Away Football Updates. Next, a hearty THANK YOU! for those of you who set-up and executed great candidate Command Group information sessions at our away football games this season. The DAD teams who made our events happen with the Superintendent and his crew at Houston, UConn, South Florida, East Carolina, and Tulane did a great job. These events went well and were well received by all. For those of you who didn't know, we used a new mailing system to mail the notifications for the Tulane game that included freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors in high school. This new system resulted in the highest turnout ever for that event so will probably incorporate this in future football and other events. The beauty of this mailing was USPS executed it. We provide all information to their website, they print, stuff, apply postage and mail, all within 48 hours. It requires some advanced planning and specificity on our parts, but it makes everyone's life a lot easier. I expect to use this for our Spring By-Invites for USMA 2010. Needless to say, as soon as we have the 2005 football schedule, we will begin planning the next round of Command Group Candidate sessions.
Interviews. Keep the interviews coming. We are dropping the WCS level to include candidates who may be competitive from the waiting list as the cycle progresses. This will require more "interview required" notations to appear for your candidates. Remember we want to interview candidates who are most likely to be offered direct admission to USMA or one of our two preparatory programs. As we progress in the admissions cycle, and more candidates begin to win Congressional vacancies, we will have a method to update "interview required" to you before an offer of admission is mailed.
IAW becomes SLS After three decades, we have changed the name of the Invitational Academic Workshop to the Summer Leaders Seminar. This captures what has always been the case of the summer experience-a total view of the West Point experience covering academic, moral-ethical, physical and military aspects of life as a cadet along with exposure to the great officers and soldiers of the Army Task Force that provides support for our cadet summer training. We will run two SLS again and for the first time, all cadets in the cadre will receive detail credit. Encourage all interested juniors to go to our website and register to receive an application automatically. We will be mailing information packets and applications to you and interested students before Christmas. Remember this program is structured to provide potential admissible candidates a sample of life at USMA.
Nominations. Congressional nominations are coming in now. For those who work closely with the Congressional staffers in your local area another big THANK YOU! As always, it's our desire to have you involved directly in the nomination process if your Member of Congress is amenable. You typically have much more contact with candidates and can present a better assessment of admissions potential and in many cases, motivation to attend USMA and become an Army officer to the members of the local nomination selection committee. Next summer, as we refine our Area Management Review by Congressional District, your Regional Commanders will be able to supply data that will help us better focus resources in Districts that don't nominate ten candidates per vacancy, nominate no qualified candidates or don't nominate at all.
IT Update. We have seen a fairly significant increase in the number of Field Force (FF) members experiencing difficulty logging into the Field Force website. The majority of those members were denied access because their computer systems were not properly protected against viruses and other malicious threats. In order to ensure you can access the FF website, we recommend you protect your computer against the rapidly growing number of threats. If you have a computer and access the Internet, you should be using a firewall and anti-virus software.
A firewall is your first line of defense. Without getting too technical, a firewall helps protect your computer by preventing unauthorized Internet users from accessing your computer. It essentially "hides" your computer when you are online. Without a firewall, a hacker can access your computer - often without your knowledge - and do a variety of "bad" things.
In addition to a firewall, we also strongly recommend you use anti-virus software. Anti-virus software helps protect your computer against viruses, worms, Trojan Horses, and other threats, which can infect your computer. If they are not detected, these threats can perform malicious acts, access personal or sensitive data, or even use your computer to attack other systems. It is also critical to keep your anti-virus software current because of the frequency new viruses and threats are released (new updates are available from the different anti-virus software manufacturers).
Finally, if you use a Windows operating system, please ensure you have the latest Windows Updates (www.microsoft.com
Rapid Fire:
Congressional District Management - we're working on the system to allow those of you with candidates living in your area, but claiming a Congressional District in another state to have visibility for purposes of interviews, candidate meetings, etc. Thought this was fixed. Will make it a top priority so that both the Congressional District Commander and the local area folks have total visibility.
Candidate Fitness Assessment(CFA) - six event physical assessment that will replace the PAE for the Class of 2010. Events will be cadenced pull-up; 40-yard shuttle run; abdominal crunches; kneeling basketball throw; push-ups and a one-mile run. Will still be a mail out to be administered by PE teacher or Field Force; will be used and accepted by USMA, USNA, and USAFA. Much more to follow!
New SAT - beginning this spring, the SAT will include a writing section that will require students to write an essay during the administration of the test. We are excited about this as it will provide another reference point for the Admissions Committee to use during the candidate qualification process. What you need to know during this transition year is that the SAT Math and Verbal sub scores remain the same. For a couple of years we'll have candidates with both versions of the SAT in their files. We will continue to use the highest Verbal and Math scores regardless of which version of the test they come from. More to follow!
Body Fat Letter - this cycle DODMERB is not chasing overweight candidates as a medical condition. The philosophy is that it's a command issue as it is in the services. Consequently, we are re-instituting a letter to candidates affected in order to ensure body fat standards are met before R-Day.
Recruited Athletes - when we list "do not interview" that's what we mean. It is so easy to compromise USMA with perceived or actual violations of NCAA recruiting policies. Let our coaches do their work in this area.
For those of you who supported us through that 37 month leukemia ordeal with our son Austin. He will graduate as a DMG from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Civil Engineering. He did very well on the EFT, will be commissioned in the Infantry and move immediately to active duty status in May 2005. Our miracle child who benefited from the thoughts and prayers of so many of you through the years, Irma and I are forever grateful to you.
Finally, your West Point DAD family wishes you the best during this holiday season and sends our hopes that you and yours will have a healthy, prosperous and peaceful New Year. Go Army!
MLJ
COL US Army
Director of Admissions
