Washington Monthly - September/October 2023 - 49

civilian colleges have expanded on the success of the summer
school preparatory model and developed a full-year
program like USMAPS.
That's because ordinary colleges don't have the same incentives
as the military to invest in their students' success. " A
normal college, when they bring somebody in, they're thinking
at best it's a graduate that leaves and they don't have to worry
about again, but we are obligated to have our graduates go into
the Army and lead, " Wojtaszek said. " We can't have failure on
the human capital side, because that person is going into our
ranks and will lead 39 sons and daughters. Just getting him
across the stage isn't enough. "
Another crucial difference is that, unlike summer students
at civilian colleges, USMAPS students don't automatically
get into West Point. At the end of the year, they reapply
for the academy. About 83 percent get in. This gives wouldbe
cadets a clear goal: gaining entry. " This aligns the incentives, "
Wojtaszek and his collaborators pointed out in their
study, which was published this spring.
That incentive structure helped Marisa Reyes, a 2018 West
Point graduate and former prepster, find motivation to succeed.
Growing up in Brownsville, Texas, Reyes lacked a sense
of purpose and struggled to keep up with her high-achieving
sisters in high school. " There was an honors breakfast where
both my sisters were getting recognized for being A-plus students, "
she says. Her dad turned to her. " He asked me, 'Don't
you want to be up there someday?' " After her older sister was
accepted to the Naval Academy, Reyes applied to all three service
academies and was rejected. But West Point offered her a
spot in the preparatory program. There, for the first time, she
found purpose: getting in. " The saying was, 'Getting you ready
to go down the hill,' " Reyes told me. " That was constantly referenced. "
Now that she was surrounding herself " with people
that were always motivated, " she said, she thrived.
It's a winning formula. USMAPS students who are admitted
to West Point increase their SAT scores, on average, from
1099 to 1164 over the course of the preparatory year. That figure
is within the normal range for directly admitted West Point
first-year students and only 122 points shy of the 1286 mean
score for direct-admits. West Point assesses applicants with its
College Entrance Examination Rank (CEER), an academic ability
metric based on a student's high school class rank (adjusted
for school quality) and SAT scores. According to Wojtaszek's
study, Black prepsters who were accepted to West Point after
completing USMAPS saw a 29-point gain on CEER's 800-point
scale, and Hispanic prepsters saw a 36-point gain. These improvements
mean that Black and Hispanic prepsters accepted
to West Point upon reapplying have academic credentials
equivalent to those of lower-performing applicants who are
admitted directly to the academy.
But academics are only one measure used at West Point.
Admission is determined by the Whole Candidate Score (WCS),
a comprehensive measure of abilities, 60 percent of which is
based on CEER. A candidate's leadership potential, which is
calculated based on high school faculty recommendations and
extracurricular achievements, is another 30 percent, and the
final 10 percent is a physical fitness test. Over the course of
USMAPS, Black prepsters who were accepted to West Point improved
their leadership score by 24 points and physical score by
6 points on an 800-point scale.
Just as impressively, since 1951, USMAPS graduates have
made up 11 percent of the student body, yet they have held
a quarter of the student leadership positions at West Point.
Since West Point's goal is to prepare future leaders, not future
academics, this figure is an especially encouraging indicator
of USMAPS's effectiveness and of the wisdom of allowing its
graduates into West Point ahead of some other students with
higher SAT scores.
USMAPS also helps students with the cultural acclimation
necessary to succeed at a rigorous college. Reyes, the 2018
West Point graduate, described the proactive academic mindset
she learned at the prep school. " USMAPS did a good job
of teaching you [to] always ask for help, " she said. That conPrestigious
colleges and
universities certainly can
come up with the money to
run high-quality preparatory
academies. They haven't
because they haven't
needed to: Until now, they
could meet their diversity
goals simply by lowering
admission standards and
recruiting better-prepared
minority students from
affluent families.
fidence and sense of belonging is critical at a prestigious college
like West Point. Despite the academy's strides on diversity,
the school is still culturally dominated by white legacy students.
" This place is way outside the norm of what I'm used
to in California, " Fonoti told me this spring while we walked
across the vast central quad, a group of mostly white cadets
playing volleyball nearby. " There are a lot of kids here with,
like, really oddly important parents, " he added. " They all went
to private schools. " That's not true for many former prepsters.
As Fonoti put it, he can't call his parents and say, " 'Superimportant
mom and dad, shit hit the fan. I need help.' They're
the ones asking me! "
Washington Monthly 49
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