Service Academies Should Judge Students Based on Their Performance in School, .
Recently, when I was filling out my application to United States Air Force Academy, I came across a section in the application that requested for my SAT scores. Next to it, was a graph determining how much consideration was given to the standardized test. It read twenty percent, and at that moment, I felt my heart rapidly pound as if it was the end of the world because I knew that a 1090 on the SAT's was not up to par to the Air Force standard of 1250. I began to think to myself if the admissions committee could only take into consideration the tremendous change I made as a student-athlete from my freshman year to my senior year, and my progress as a college student. I went from being an average football player with a 2.3 GPA during the first half of my high school career to being one of the most highly recruited quarterbacks in the Tri-State region with a 3.7 GPA. As a college student, I currently have a 3.88 GPA. I believe that a test should not determine the collegiate potential of an individual. College students aspiring to attend a service academy should not be judged by their scores on the SAT in determining their collegiate potential; instead, students should be judged by their performance in at least three semesters of college. .
The purpose of writing this argument is to convince the people in charge of admissions at the United States Air Force Academy, United States Naval Academy, and United States Military Academy that a student's high school and collegiate performance should decide whether he/she is capable of performing at the expected level according to any one of the academies. The standardized tests should not determine the potential of a student in an academic environment at the college level. A test should not determine whether a student is qualified to attend an academy because there are many factors that ensure a student's success in college.
