The U.S. Naval Academy, where I have been an English professor for almost 18 years, is the crown jewel of commissioning sources for the Navy and Marine Corps. It enjoys the reputation of being an elite academic institution with academically competitive admissions on the level of the best civilian colleges. There is one way the Naval Academy is different from its civilian counterparts: its Navy and Marine Corps officer graduates can one day end up with a finger on the button or trigger. Thus, we should demand the highest quality students possible and provide them the best education possible. We are not doing either.
The reason, as I learned to my surprise when serving on the Admissions Board for a year, is that admission to the Naval Academy is academically competitive for only about half of each class. The other half consists of what I call set-asides: students with lower grades and lower student aptitude test (SAT) scores than those we publicize as our minima. Usually these set-asides can be helped to pass courses by massive applications of extra instruction from the professors, fueled by the Naval Academy culture of "motivation" as the determining factor in success. They also slow class discussions and take seats that better applicants could have filled. Education is about thinking. If thinking is necessary to Navy and Marine Corps officers, as everyone agrees it is, weaker academics means weaker officers.
For years, we in the English Department have been fielding what I take to be justified complaints by serving flag officers that our graduates cannot think cogently in words. One Aegis cruiser skipper told a handful of us civilian English profs that he spent half his time correcting grammar on memos that crossed his desk. His parting words were a plea to go back and give the midshipmen hell. I have been trying my best, but things are getting worse.
This past spring, I found myself swimming even deeper than usual in papers from midshipmen that meandered about with no clear point, ended somewhere else from where they began, jerked from topic to topic and sentence to sentence, mangled the English language, and misused punctuation to the extent nobody could get the point. Pity their future commanding officers. When I pulled their records, almost all these students were from one of our three set-aside groups.
Such midshipmen are admitted "direct," which means they do not have to be the winner on the list of up to ten people who, say, a congressman can nominate. Those who do not win their slate—as many as nine "academically qualified" applicants—are turned away. This is what gives us our competitive reputation. Almost all these candidates are academically more qualified than the set-asides. As a rule, we send set-asides to the Naval Academy Preparatory School (NAPS) for a year of remedial work. If they maintain a C average at NAPS—a much lower average than we demand from high school students—they come to the Naval Academy the following year.
Set-asides are in three groups. First are applicants who identify themselves as one of three specific racial minorities: African American, Hispanic, and Native American. They are considered as their own group and admitted using different criteria than nonminorities. We often guarantee midshipmen seats to many of these applicants, who normally have lower scores and grades than candidates who must compete further.
Athletes also bypass the nomination competition (between 15% and 20% of any given class). These "blue-chips" are the young men and women "needed" for particular slots on teams.
Finally, there are admissions from the fleet, who typically enlisted in the Navy or Marine Corps out of high school and serve in many cases for as little as a year. We like to say we are taking a chance on these risky candidates. At the same time, it means that we are turning away better quality students.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial admissions policies are illegal—yet the Naval Academy's remain in place. Everyone agrees competition and sports are good for midshipmen, but setting out to fill teams is the tail wagging the dog. The usual argument is that playing a sport shows leadership. But how is this so unless you are the team captain or quarterback? All our applicants are athletic in one way or another. So we should take the best midshipmen and configure the teams later. And what is it about a student who spends a year at the Navy's nuclear power school that can trump the stellar high school career of a candidate who is approved by the Admissions Board but does not win his or her slate?
Admitting those who can meet our academic demands and do not struggle to maintain the minimum average means better education at the Naval Academy—and stronger Navy and Marine Corps officers. Isn't that what the country deserves?
Professor Fleming graduated from Haverford College and earned his doctorate at Vanderbilt University.
Nobody Asked Me, But...The Academy Can Do Better
By Bruce Fleming