Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — Military Service Academy Information Session

good morning everyone looks like we're filling up here we're gonna start in a few seconds okay i think we have all the attendees for this event um good morning everyone my name is dancy soggy and i'm the service accordingly coordinator for congresswoman grace megan's office on behalf of congresswoman grace meng and congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez's offices we'd like to welcome you all to our first ever virtual service academy forum we all realize that these are difficult and trying times especially for our students so we'd like to thank you all for taking this first step in learning more about the nomination process and your desired service academies in light of cloven 19. so i'm just going to quickly go through our agenda for this morning and we will kick it off um so we're going to start with brief remarks from both congresswoman and then we'll have a q a session with both congresswoman after that we'll have a brief overview from all of our panelists our five service academy reps and new york um our air force rotc followed by a q a session with the panelists and the students and after that we'll wrap up the events um before we officially start the program i want to let you all know that we're using the zoo zoom webinar um platform today and um there's a q a feature next to the participants tab at the bottom so when it's time for the two q a sessions um please enter all of your questions in that q a tab to be selected by staff to be answered by either the congresswoman or on the service academy panelists and air force rotc with that we're going to transition to the brief remarks from our two congress members today rep ocasio-cortez um if you can introduce ragman so that we can start the introductions absolutely thank you so much um and welcome everybody we're really excited to have you today and you know as was mentioned this is just such an extraordinary time for each and every one of you for our country and for the world and um even in all of all of this kind of uncertainty that a lot of you all are facing one of the best things that i think we can do is give you information answer any and all of your questions and make sure that you all have everything you need at your fingertips to make the best decisions for yourselves and we're really excited to be presenting um all of this information to you regarding entry to our military service academies and you know we're also very very thankful and i'm very thankful to congresswoman grace mang for including us in this conversation and this is our second time that we've hosted this event together but she has been um leading the way in hosting these events for quite some time so um she's done such incredible work and making sure that you all have um this information and that you're able to really access all the opportunities available to you um through through our wonderful military service academy so with that i'll hand it off to congresswoman thank you to my dear friend and colleague congresswoman ocasio-cortez for your partnership and i want to thank your team for their tremendous efforts as well and thanks to my staff stancey and john for your efforts i know that our teams have worked very hard and very closely together in the last few weeks and months on this i want to echo my colleagues comments on um you know i know it's a really tough time for everyone people are facing a lot of uncertainties um even locally we've been getting lots of inquiries because many people in queens don't have power or the trees are blocking their streets so always feel free to reach out to us if we can be helpful and i also want to mention uh something that our congresswoman ocasio-cortez's team have worked very hard on as well getting the word out about the census i know it's unrelated uh directly to today's event but since we have you all um you know captivating audience right here on zoom we wanted to remind everyone as well so thank you all for participating thank you to our representatives from the naval academy west point air force academy coast guard and merchant marine academy thank you for your service to our country and your commitment to our students and helping to groom and to train our next generation of leaders um very impressive young people here on the zoom call today so turn it back to all of you thank you all for joining joining thank you congresswoman uh so we're going to transition to the q a portion of the program uh i would encourage all the attendees to use the chat box to ask the congresswoman any questions about what it's like to do their jobs we're going to focus the questions on the day in a life of being a congressional member and we'll save the service academy questions as well as the application questions for the second portion of our program today so if you have any questions of the congresswoman please use the chat box and we will ask some of the congresswoman we're just holding for some questions i mean uh the q a feature sorry so uh students if you have any burning questions for our congresswoman please use the q a feature on the zoom so the first question we have uh for the congresswoman are representatives based in their home districts or in d.c regularly i can start by answering we are based in our home districts congresswoman ocasio-cortez and i both represent parts of the borough of queens she actually has a tougher job she has two boroughs my district is completely in queens we are based here we travel back to washington dc when we have votes committee meetings we have still been doing that when possible even during the coronavirus and we're actually more fortunate than a lot of our colleagues because they have to travel really far people who might be on the west coast or people who have to take multiple flights uh to get there or you know be live in an area that is maybe a couple hours away from the their closest airport so you know everyone has a different sort of commute um but yes we do go back and forth from our home districts here in new york yeah definitely we're we're based in new york um but i think to get it to give you guys a little bit more detail on the schedule when congress is in session which is most months out of the year usually votes are around three days a week they're um or rather four days a week uh and so you will be in dc voting and doing committee work four days a week and then we go back to our district three days a week and then there's one week out of the month that's all in district um but that kind of changes a little bit and especially during covid19 we've been able to spend a lot more time in district which i know has been um kind of a blessing to congresswoman mang and myself um especially since our families are are in the community and everything um but it's a lot of travel but again like she said we're pretty blessed and that new york is a lot closer to dc than a lot of other districts and areas in the country what is the best way a person in your position in congress um can help their community so what's the best way a person or position can help our community well i think one of the things that's great about this work is that there's a lot of different ways that we can help um one in the most top level way is you know what the work that we do day to day which is introducing legislation uh we you know it was congress that introduced legislation to get everybody stimulus checks to expand unemployment insurance of course we're working out and we're currently debating on on how to extend that you know congresswoman meg and i are really trying to make sure that we extend those benefits but um but it was congress that did that that that did that um additionally we have a lot of work that we do on the ground congresswoman mentioned you know taking calls about power outages and um and on our end we've been doing a lot of fundraising for food banks and a lot of other community organizations that are getting help out directly to the community so there's kind of this high level work which doesn't feel as direct in that you know your family may get a stimulus check may not know that it came from congress and came from a legislation that we had drafted and then there's more direct work that may be a little bit smaller in that your family received a meal or your family was able to get their power back on um but it was but that's also you know even though it's smaller in scale it's it's work that's more directly um linked to things that our office and our wonderful caseworkers that you're seeing on the call that are helping us accomplish um yeah totally agree um you know since we have so many young people on the phone i want to share a question that i'm often asked you know who are your political mentors right well i am a daughter of immigrants my parents my family didn't grow up talking about politics you know i didn't know anyone who was elected who looked like me so i didn't have the traditional political mentors so i always tell people that it's my grandma so my grandma gave me and continues to give me the best political advice and this applies to whatever field you're in and that's to be a responsive listener so i think whether you're you know working on like my colleague said legislation in washington dc or issues on the ground it's important to be a good listener and all of you help us to do that you weigh in on the issues that matter most to our district and to our uh what we call constituents the people that we represent and um to tie into another question i'm sorry i peaked ahead um but how our jobs were sort of redefined during kovid both of our offices have spent a tremendous amount of time um especially in the early days when new york and queens was and was hardest hit by covid getting you know food to folks getting ppe like masks because new yorkers our constituents just didn't have enough and that was the direct results of everyday people in our communities telling us what we need what they needed and us trying to be responsive to their concerns yeah definitely and like a lot of you all have been making these transitions having to go from the from the work that we do is very physical and it's very in person in nature with community organizing and being out and community with everybody having to transition a lot of that to zoom and virtual work has definitely been kind of a learning process for us um just like it has for a lot of you all and so the way that that shaped our work has been pretty dramatic um in some ways for better and so in other ways that are a lot more challenging um and so i think uh you know i think that this is this is something that we've all had to navigate in some ways that are very similar um and you know how it's how it's also another question that kind of piggybacks on that that we're seeing here is how has that affected the nomination process it's also very similar um our nomination process used to also be you know you would send in all your materials we would bring you in for an in-person interview um that interview is now probably going to happen virtually uh or over zoom like so many of our in-person meetings have been transitioned to but aside from that we are still looking for really wonderful um you know young people and and members of our community that have kind of exemplified leadership qualifications and making sure that you all are really engaged and passionate about giving back uh congresswoman ocasio-cortez touched on that briefly that there was a question from uh the stude a student to both the congresswoman about what factors do you look for in a nominee uh that stand out to you in a candidate representative meng do you want to start with uh answer that question oh i think that's above my pay grade we have experts with us here today unless uh congresswoman ocasio-cortez wants to answer yeah i mean at least um you know as as congresswoman mentioned you're going to hear a lot about some of the factors that um that are really kind of sought after in the nomination process but there's also kind of another half to it where our office personally takes a look at a lot of the applications and nominees and who we recommend to service academies and i think for us in our office first of all we convene members of the community and we kind of have a little nominating council many of these are people who served in um in military or rather who who attended military service academies or otherwise served in our military that take a look at some of our that take a look at some of our nominees and they take a look um and they also bring you in for an interview but i would also say that one of the things that our office um also keeps an eye out for are unconventional candidates and so one message that i would have to every single person on this call is to not count yourself out don't count yourself out don't say you know oh you know i can't qualify or this this isn't for me or i'm not good enough i cannot tell you how many people are so hard on themselves in the nominating process and you're actually an excellent candidate and just you know the pressure of this time college applications and applying for college i know it's such a pressure cooker and it can really do a number on your self-esteem don't let that happen to you the thing that i always say to people is listen you miss every shot that you don't take and so um so it's it's really important that you just put your application out there and if you get it it's an opportunity that you otherwise would not have gotten if you had talked yourself out of it and you know if it's not your time for that opportunity right now who cares there'll be another opportunity there out there for you but what's so important is that you cast your net you know if this is something that you're interested in put your application out there and um and take it from there thank you so much so our final question uh for this for this segment is how can you get involved with everything going on is that youth getting involved in general or during cove sorry i missed the end of that sure i think um it's in regards to cloven coven um so what we've seen in our communities and all of our districts is the beauty of everyday people um helping out you know sharing resources checking in on each other you know we have constituents as young as you know kindergarten age kids who have been making signs and putting them in their windows saying thank you to our essential front-line workers we have you know young people who are senior citizens helping to collect food or to collect donations there are so many ways that everyday people can help each other during these um times and we saw the best of new york during the really tough months especially of march and april we are always happy to share a list of organizations and leaders that we've worked with so always feel free to let us know as well yeah and i'd say um make sure that you follow a lot of our governmental handles on social media we often post opportunities or areas of need where you all can volunteer and sometimes that volunteer work can be virtual we will be doing we often do kind of call-in check-ins um or you know we will amplify other organizations in the community that need help so make sure you keep an eye out for some of those opportunities and there are lots of wonderful food pantry and relief organizations in our district if a lot of you don't know um our community right here in queens was the most coveted impacted district in our community in the country at the new york peak and so you know our community really learned how to rally together and i just really would encourage each one each and every one of you to keep an eye out on food pantries on houses of faith who are also really participating in a lot of these relief efforts other community organizations because there is no shortage of um help that people can offer and that organizations need thank you so much congresswoman so we'll wrap up our q a session with the congresswoman and save your service academy questions and application questions for the next segment and we'll start with representative ming for your closing remarks thank you thank you so much again thank you to each and every one of you for signing on today thank you to my colleague for her leadership and her entire team for their efforts and again thank you to all the academies for um representing um each of your institutions today we're so excited to be joined by all these young people and their families and we're really excited to work with you for the long term so good luck to all of you absolutely thank you everyone um so much for joining us on this call thank you to our representatives from our military service academies thank you for coming in and presenting these opportunities to our young people thank you for kind of sharing this information thank you for your service and again to all of our students thank you for hopping in and take a listen to what's available to you and make sure that um you know that that you take in all of this information especially during um such a hectic time it's so important that you all take a look at all the opportunities available to you and thank you to congresswoman uh for for uh inviting us and um and graciously hosting all of us as well and we sincerely appreciate everyone on the call thanks thank you congresswoman see you soon so the next portion uh for all the attendees we're going to have the service academy representatives uh present so we'll first um start with the um the naval academy uh first we'll have lieutenant joyce kim present on good morning everyone thank you my name is lieutenant joyce kim and i am an admissions counselor at the united states naval academy more importantly i am your admissions counselor at the united states naval academy um i'm also a native of new york city so i am very familiar with the process from applying within our district as well as the feeling that all of you guys must be going through through the application process to talk a little bit about the naval academy we're one of the five federal service academies located in annapolis maryland the mission of the naval academy is to develop midshipmen mentally morally and physically so mentally we offer 25 different majors primarily in the stem the science technology engineering and math fields but we do also offer a few majors in the humanities as well we have a small classroom size ranging anywhere from about 10 to 25 students as well as having an eight to one student to faculty ratio meaning that all the students will get a or it is ensure that all the students will get the attention um and any assistance that they need from the professors and the help is available to make sure that all the students succeed academically at the naval academy and it's one of the reasons that helps us become nationally ranked as being as the number one public college within the nation now physically we offer 33 ncaad d1 sports meaning we are a d1 college but we also do offer club sports as well as intramural sports um all of our midshipmen are required to take the physical readiness test uh it's a physical test which comprises of a mile half run push-ups and planks in order to ensure that we keep up with our physical fitness and then last but not least morally the naval academy is committed to developing our midshipmen morally character development is imbued in every aspect of our student life mutual respect personal integrity and moral courage are all values that bind us all together now as i mentioned um i'm a naval academy graduate 2014 i'm also from new york city so i have a very unique perspective on the admissions process starting off as a high school student and then applying going through the academy now serving as an admissions counselor so if you do have any questions please feel free to ask those questions i'm also accompanied by our area coordinator for new york city mr scott tinkel and we'll be here to answer any questions that you may have afterwards thank you oh thank you so much lieutenant kim yes we're going to have a q a portion for each of the service academy reps after all the various reps present so next we'll have from a west point academy colonel al hood good morning everyone i'm colonel lahood i am part of the west point field force i help students uh throughout their application process and uh and i stand ready to do that if you reach out to me the the west point experience like the naval academy is a four-year experience it's a d1 school uh it is primarily an engineering school stem though there are some humanities as well but primarily well every every student will go through an engineering sequence so calculus is important and you should ensure that you take calculus and trigonometry while you're in high school so that you you have those skills once you arrive west point is an experience it's going to challenge you mentally physically and it's gonna push you to the limits and you have to want it you can't if you're gonna you have to want to serve as an army officer the friendships and the bonds that you will make at the academy will last you a lifetime but you're going to be challenged and so with that you have to be physically fit and the physical fitness is what excludes many of the applicants but you all have time you're going into your junior year and you have to be fit so the the cadet fits this assessment is really the thing that you have to focus on and so i'm gonna put a link in the chat and that link is to the cfa the cadet fitness assessment or candidate fitness assessment west point requires that you the student video is the pull-ups or flexed arm hang and the push-ups and then the student uploads that the people that can administer the cfa are your your physical fitness instructor someone like me in the field force a junior rotc instructor a an an officer or a non-commissioned officer who is who is currently serving not retired and and so those are the folks that can go ahead and administer that when students look at the cfa they say oh that's not hard but when you string all the events together becomes a significant emotional event and so you need to prepare for that within that link there are videos of all the events and the proper execution of those vents so with that um that's what i'm going to leave you with it's a physically fit academy and you're going to be challenged mentally and physically so you need to be prepared thank you great now we're going to sorry i believe i'm having some audio all right good morning everyone i am second lieutenant scott huda i'm an admissions advisor for the united states air force academy working here in burlington new jersey now i'm second lieutenant george brown i'm located in syracuse we're admissions advisors that cover um new york so just to give you guys a snapshot of the last four years lieutenant ud and i were extremely uh extremely fortunate enough to come across once in a lifetime opportunities such as finding out if we want to fly by flying supersonic trainer jet i myself walked onto the track team and as well as meeting lifelong friends we had the a few opportunities for leadership such as leading the squadron during basic in the academic year and as well as traveling across colorado but really what separates us from the air force academy um i mean excuse me what separates us from other service academies and colleges is not only do we offer the chance to go to a university we are ranked number three in public colleges top ten in numerous engineering groups and number 39 in liberal arts studies but we're the first accredited university that offers a bachelor's of science in space warfighting we're also the premier academy to commission into the space force there's more than 70 of my classmates we're the first group officers to do so so if you're looking to go that route the air force academy is definitely the way to go something that the air force county offers that none of the other service academies can say that they do is our airmanship programs so you get the opportunity to fly a glider without an engine a plane with an engine as well as jump out of a plane that is perfectly good and your first time is solo rather than tandem and also we have a very diverse and expansive athletic program we have many different d1 teams clubs and sports uh you know they all they all range in different successes such as conference championships and academic all-americans it's really important to know that we do have the highest number of women's d1 sports teams in the nation with 10. so we're always pushing the envelope to be inclusive and uh diverse as possible and this kind of fits in with the uh with the vision of the air force academy as well uh but so here are some of the career opportunities that you can pursue after graduating uh my you know me myself or i myself i'm gonna be a pilot after this year um so if you do want to go to pilot the academy is uh it should be at the top of your list and interest because we had 500 pilot slots last year uh the jobs on the left occur a five a commitment longer than five years and this is due to the time and resources that the air force puts into you additionally around 10 percent of the graduating class they go on to go to grad school and that may be doctors dentists or lawyers or they might go into other career fields but if you do want to do something a little bit more slower pace you can see that we have the jobs in the middle and lieutenant who to be able to speak on that so the jobs in the middle here are at the five year commitment line and so for myself i'm going to be an aircraft maintenance officer so just making sure that jets are getting up in the air and completing the mission as well we have the jobs on the right which require a specific degree or background so a civil engineer you don't want someone that's a civil engineer that doesn't have a civil engineering degree um and so those jobs do require certain degrees or backgrounds so if you're going to get anything from this brief please pay attention to this slide to get started on your application go to academyadmissions.com and this really starts your free candidate questionnaire uh this opens up march of your junior year um if you're not a uh if you're not a junior yet we have the falcon foundation program that opens uh opens up grades 6 through 11 and that will help you get working on your application and make it as strong as possible so again make sure you go to academyadmissions.com and go ahead and follow us on twitter instagram and facebook as well thank you guys so much for your time today here's our contact information if you have any further questions great thank you so much um lieutenant brown and lieutenant huda next we have um lieutenant junior grade emily torsney from the coast guard good morning everyone i'm lieutenant junior grade emily torsney i am the northeast admissions officer here at the coast guard academy in new london connecticut so i cover maine all the way down to new york so i'm your admissions officer i am actually not an academy grad i went to officer candidate school and after receiving my bachelor's at the university of vermont uh i joined the coast guard commissioned in november of 2018 i am an operations afloat career specialty and i was assigned to a 225 foot bowie tender in which i was a deck watch officer for the past for my first tour and now i am here at the academy so the coast guard's focus is on a humanitarian mission primarily to ensure our nation's maritime safety security and steward we serve under the department of homeland security makes us different from the other armed services uh and we have eleven statutory missions that we cover primarily maritime safety maritime security mobility environmental protection and national defense and here's some listed here so the u.s coast guard academy at a glance we too like the other service academies focus primarily on stem majors and when applying to the academy something that makes a competitive applicant is those who take chemistry physics and calculus those are kind of our three target courses for the academy we are a smaller service academy we have about a little over a thousand students enrolled we cover all 50 states and 20 nations and we have 80 varsity high school athletics we do not require a congressional nomination which makes us different from the other service academies as well and like i said our focus is primarily on humanitarian missions we do have both opportunities following graduation during the fleet and we have an 85 graduation graduate retention rate after your five-year service commitment so we have high job satisfaction as well as post-grad opportunities uh application requirements it's 100 online we require four letters of recommendation uh official high school transcripts sct and act scores we also have a physical fitness evaluation as well as personal statements if you have any questions please contact me i have my email address and my phone number here and i encourage everyone to go online to www.uscga.edu and go and create a bearsten account that will ensure that you receive the literature that you need to hear more about the academy and opportunities that we have available we are hoping to have campus programs virtually starting next month and then we will be evaluating in-person events in the next couple months but definitely that bears done account is going to be the number one way for you to start your admissions process or inquiry process for the coast guard academy thank you so much lieutenant junior grade emily torsney next we'll have the lieutenant ryan mccann from the u.s merchant marine present oh you're muted i clicked the wrong one good morning everyone i'm lieutenant mccann here at the united states merchant marine academy i'm one of the admissions officers uh we're located here actually in kings point uh just down the block from queens i was actually born and raised in queens myself so good to see all the faces here um we are one of the five federal service academies uh we are one of the smaller ones uh we try to fill a class of a highly diverse and quality uh candidates and midshipmen about 285 per year and this is going to mean a lot for what means at the academy in terms of succeeding together as a class but also failing together as a class like lieutenant colonel laughing who sorry if i messed up that name there's a lot of external stressors at the academy and one of the biggest differentiators that we offer here at the united states merchant marine academy is the flexibility of your service obligations and career options you're not pigeonholed to commission in the merchant marines or coast guard this is up to you you have a flexibility uh to fulfill your service obligation by going active duty either in the army navy air force marine corps and coast guard or you can also decide to work in the maritime industry in the private sector for five years so that options up to you in terms of our academics uh we are stem focused just like any other academy but we're hyper focused we only have five majors pretty much split in between two academic departments and each of these five majors have a strong engineering uh curriculum type of sequence and in terms of what to expect of the academy um with regimental life you guys run the show when you are midshipmen we kind of pass off that leadership to you so you guys can fulfill that and one of the other biggest highlights of our academy is what we call senior uh c year also your c duty is a hallmark of the academy's academic program and is performed on u.s flag merchant vessels and naval vessels and is split between your sophomore and junior year you'll be out at sea for approximately 300 days the first time you go out during sophomore year will place you on a vessel us flag vessel for a little over 100 days you'll come back to campus do a deeper dive into your curriculum and then we're going to send you back out to sea for about 200 days and this is uh really important because when you do graduate from the academy you're not going to just receive a bachelor's of science and a commission you're also going to have a us coast guard license either a engine license or a deck license depending on your major and that's really all i have for you if you have any questions i'm going to put something in a chat box real quick for everyone and don't hesitate to reach out thank you so much lieutenant mckenn next we'll hear from the air force rotc we have lieutenant stevenson dang here with us as well as lieutenant evelyn soon we'll start with lieutenant lieutenant deng all right good afternoon everyone so i'm lieutenant dang and i'll briefly go over air force rotc uh so air force rotc is essentially another commissioning source similar to the service academies um except the biggest difference is that you'll go to a college of your choice so whether it be like cornell university syracuse et cetera we have over 1400 schools nationwide so and you are also able to major in anything you want such as business economics engineering etc and we do have scholarships available to pay for your tuitions in full um if you look at the slide so primary focus is building you into a leader while also giving you that college life so you can still work part-time join school clubs take regular school classes that you normally would if you were to attend college full-time you just have a set rotc time while you're in college with that being said we do still care about your academics physical fitness and leadership so it's really up to you to time manage that while you're taking your regular college courses so if you're considering a service academy i definitely recommend you check out air force rotc as well i just have more options available to you just in case something that doesn't work out or just you know in general because at the end of the day we're all commissioning source we're going to be a second lieutenant in the air force at the end of dave you go through this or the air force's academy so if you're a current senior in high school the biggest thing i recommend is apply for their air force rotc scholarship it won't commit you to the program but it you know will give you a second option if you do get awarded this scholarship um some more information can be found on our website at afrotc.com uh the application kind of overlaps with a lot of information that the academy requires so you'll kind of be knocking down two applications in one and i'll have lieutenant soon kind of talk about her experience as well and just go over some more information that i might have missed out on hi everyone i'm lieutenant soon so i'm just going to talk a little bit about myself and my experience just to give you a quick snapshot of what rotc is like for one individual so i'm from northern virginia i went to school in boston a commission out of boston university but i actually attended northeastern university which is about a mile south of boston university that was a crosstown so that means that rotc even though on our website it says that we're only hosted at 120 universities we're actually offered at over 1200 universities which is amazing um at northeastern i studied chemical engineering and i got my master's in engineering management all thanks to the air force through one of these scholarships i was able to fund my education also thanks to the air force i was able to have a lot of these and amazing opportunities like studying abroad in china they sent me to china twice where i studied mandarin chinese for two summers in a row and i got two years of credits for that which is also incredible um there's also a ton of leadership conferences all across the u.s which was also funded by the program and i got to go travel all over and network with cadets from all over the nation which is pretty amazing but that's just some of my experiences on this next slide i'll pull up all the other different opportunities you can have in the air force but this is another way to have a very normal college experience with these unique extra sprinkles of activities and also end up a lieutenant in the air force just like any of the other service academies great thank you so much um again this is dancing from congressman meg's office i was having some connectivity issues so i thank my colleague mabel for taking the lead here for our next segment we're going to transition into a q a with the panelists and the students and we're going to select some of the questions that you all have put in the q a box and the first question is um this is for all the panelists has the karna virus affected the nomination process sorry if we can have all the panelists come on on uh the question that we have standing is has the coronavirus affected the nomination process uh so for the air force so uh the nomination process is ran separately from uh the application for the academies or rotc and so uh the nomination process is gonna be through your congresswoman and or your senators um and so from the air force side of things uh the biggest change that we've had is that we're letting candidates go from the pre-candidate stage to the candidate stage without having uh test scores in uh you can submit psat scores and your standard gpa and other extracurricular activities and you'll move on to the candidate phase without having test scores however it is expected that if available you test thank you and um lieutenant junior grade torsney yes so the coast guard academy does not require a congressional nomination therefore it has not been affected in any way you can go ahead and still submit your application online through the coast guard academy website and what is the process for the west point colonel lahood apply for west point you you have to have a nomination you can do the app you can start the application now it's been open for about a month and a half now but for your file to be complete you must have a nomination from either the from your representative um your senator or the vice president thank you and for uh the naval academy what is that process lieutenant kim so the biggest difference um with this application is that um we have actually extended the application deadline so we understand that it is a little more difficult to you to or it has been and maybe more difficult to take these standardized tests um so we've extended our deadline by a month so now instead of january 31st you have until february 28 of 2021 to complete your application and for uh representative ocasio-cortez's office will be working with each academy to make sure that our process is in lockstep with each academy's process um sorry i missed uh did i miss yeah lieutenant mccann here with kings point the united states merchant marine academy yes uh a nomination is required um it actually gives us the academy the legal authority uh to give you a full appointment um but with that being said do not wait to start the nomination process or the application to the academy do both simultaneously don't wait for one or the other um and another is we do accept congressional nominations to our academy kings point not just from the congressional district that you live in we accept from any district uh in new york state if you're a new york resident and we also accept senator nominations as well this is fancy from rock bang's office i'd like to echo what my colleague mabel said on our office too what would be reviewing our nomination criteria to adjust some of the challenges that covert has posed for you all ma'am if i could just a general statement i think that everyone would agree with this just make sure that you're starting everything early and you're staying on top of your applications and the different paperwork that you're going to be tracking due to the covid everything has been even tenfold more versatile and kind of a changing environment and so making sure that you're staying on top of your taskers is going to be even more important now than ever before yes thank you so much for that um the next question we have sorry mr dinkle did you have anything to add i think that joyce uh gave everything that's necessary for that explanation okay uh the next question that we have is uh what does the interview process consist of and look like uh we'll let the service academies start with that question and we'll start with lieutenant joyce kim yeah so the there are two different interviews um specifically for the naval academy applications now the respective congressional offices will run their congressional nomination interviews um but for the naval academy we also have a blue and gold officer interview where your blue and gold officer there are our liaisons to the naval academy and one of your primary point of contacts to guide you through the entire application process so they will interview you to ensure that we get a whole person perspective of who you are because the naval academy admissions board reviews your application as a whole person and we understand that maybe the cfa the ecas and sats don't give us a whole person view of who you truly are you guys have personality talent and all of that we want to capture all of that so that's where your blue and gold officer interviews come in to make sure that we truly get a sense of who you are as a person now mr dinkle i didn't know if you want to add towards that especially because you conduct the blowing gold officer interviews sure we're we're looking for somebody really well-rounded we want somebody who's active in a student government or president of a club that's in your school we want you to be maybe a leader on a sports team maybe captain of a team and we will actually go back and talk to the the coaches of those teams to make sure that you were the captain of that team when you say you were so we want to follow up and make somebody really well-rounded uh acceptable to the academy we don't want just one thing to stand out we want somebody who is across the board representative a good candidate thank you so much um colonel lahood do you have anything to add about what the interview process looks like yes this this year the interview process will be on online so it won't be in person so that will definitely be different so when you are interviewing you're going to have to prepare your online skills and be able to look into the camera speak clearly not bumble and like the naval academy we're looking for a rounded person someone who has strong academics someone who is an athlete someone who has demonstrated leadership and someone who's dealt uh demonstrated selfless service in some type of volunteerism so the academy is is looking for not just one thing and if you're well-rounded those other areas may support an area that is maybe not as strong as the others thank you thank you so much for that uh and second lieutenant huda or lieutenant brown do you what does your interview process look like and consist of during these times um so like the other service academies head on uh it's really just to get a full perspective um we are switching to virtual and uh it's really just a conversation that uh our halos and mission liaison officers will have with you and they're just trying to get a feel for who you are what you enjoy um and really just like i said just get that whole person perspective it's also important to note that we're looking for uh depth and not breadth so we don't want you to be too thinly spread across many different areas we want you to focus on like one one specific area and go pretty far into there uh so just uh just like a an example would be you know a captain of the football team or president of the class um but we don't want you just to show up to many different uh many different meetings just to say that you're there if that makes sense uh lieutenant dang do you have anything to add or lieutenant soon to your interview process and are you involved in the interview process yes so for air force rotc if you're applying for the scholarship you will also go through an interview it'll be the same thing kind of similar to the academy or the air force academy in which we do look at your whole person concept the interview carries the most weight in terms of the air force rotc scholarship application as of now we are still planning on doing it um in person or just based off the schools of the school's virtual then you'll most likely do a virtual interview but it'll be at the detachment at your respective university that you attend like lieutenant bank said the interview is incredibly important so with the contact on the side in the chat you'll want to contact your local recruiter and definitely ask for interview tips to help you get through it thank you and for the coast guard lieutenant junior grade tarzani what does that look like for the interview process yeah so lieutenant junior great emily torzney for the coast guard academy our interview interview process is um a little bit different than others in that we actually admissions officer will reach out to an individual if we decide that um we will be interviewing them uh to note though not everyone gets interviews but that being said just because you don't get an interview doesn't mean you're out of the running by any means it's um not it's kind of a lottery process the way we do it to try to get as much additional information onto applicants as we can and it will either be an admissions officer like myself that will conduct the interview or we have admissions partners who are either currently officers in the fleet retired officers or alumni and parents of the academy that will help us in different regions and so some of it will be potentially virtual in which case um we highly highly recommend you know you dress and act as if you would if it was an in-person interview and then um it's possible to have in person as well depending on the circumstances once again we are also a holistic application review in which we're looking at applicants more than just their grades and their test scores although they're important we want to know what your extracurriculars and your athletic or musical involvements were during your time in high school and we want to see that you were consistent so that you know you played a sport for all four years and you potentially held a leadership position at some point during that time so those are our primary kind of competitive things that we look at thank you and for the merchant marine lieutenant mccann yes uh we actually here at the virtual breed academy do not have a formal interview process there's a for us there's enough checkpoints uh within the application there's a lot of moving parts so just completing the cfa the nomination process the dominar process which is your medical qualification and all the little things like school official evaluations essays those are little checkpoints so if you do complete it that shows a lot of motivation for us um but what i do recommend since we are very very selective is make a connection with your admissions officer whether that's me or someone else in the office because we do like to know all of our applicants and make sure they have a true understanding of what it means to go to a federal service academy because that spot is yours you as a candidate will drive the process from day one until graduation this choice is yours um so let us know and being a different federal service academy have a flexibility with your service obligation and our curriculum it is a little bit different since like just senior you'll be out at sea for over over a year um and missing life events possibly like a wedding so we'll make sure that you're mentally motivated as well and again let us know who you are so if you have an email shoot me an email thank you uh for congresswoman ocasio-cortez's office right now we are leaning towards virtual interviews um we don't know what the world would look like when we conduct them but we want to emphasize you know the health and safety of everyone above all so we'll we'll share those details as they get confirmed yes and i'd like exactly the same from red men's office like i said we're still evaluating our criteria and how things will look like a few months from now when interviews are supposed to take place um as long as we have all of your emails which we do will definitely share any important updates on your end so you all are prepared ahead of time and with that we're going to move to our next question and i think this question is for me and mabel actually um the person wrote for our letters of recommendation and our application to get a congressional nomination can we have our recommenders print the letter out and sign it or do they need to upload the letter to the office so i can start with this one so in the past few years we've required um candidates to print the letter and submit it with their entire application to our district office and flushing we're looking to make that a little bit more flexible and possibly do um an email um um email submission for the recommender so um we'll definitely let the candidate know via email how we need those um letters recommendations submitted to our office for congresswoman ocasio-cortez's office we have an online application so the letters of recommendation they can be printed out signed and then scanned and uploaded and sent to me or to our nominations email at aoc.nominations.mail.house.gov or you can submit them online with your application so but feel free to reach out and let me know what the way is and our next question is for the naval academy and the merchant marine they a student wants to know what differentiates the naval academy from the merchant marine academy we'll start with the naval academy um so there are a few key differences but do you know that we are both service academies the naval academy being a little larger we have about 4 500 midshipmen for throughout all four years um i believe lieutenant mccann had mentioned some of the key differences during his um introduction about the merchant marine academy but just to pinpoint a couple um one of the academics or the types of majors that are available are different from the merchant marine academy and the naval academy for us we have 25 different majors and it does include humanities majors as well so you do have a larger selection to choose from in addition for our sports we are a d1 college so if you are if you want to play competitively at the d1 level um you can do so at the naval academy and then i would say that the opportunities and the experience also specifically for the merchant marine academy it will be a little different because at the naval academy you're going to spend all four years on our campus grounds now there are different opportunities available purely because of our location in annapolis maryland we're about four hours south from new york city or 30 minutes from both washington dc as well as baltimore maryland which means that throughout the summers there's a lot more internship opportunities available you can go to dc and possibly intern at the white house or the pentagon or if you are interested in the medical field there's john hopkins university in baltimore so you can do an internship there so location is very key and it allows you guys to really explore and see what interests you and pursue that kind of opportunity when available and i'd like to add to joyce after graduation we're not just surface warfare we have undersea we have surface we have aviation and more astronauts have come out of the naval academy than any other academy so i think there are a few more varied opportunities upon graduation yeah like uh lieutenant kim mentioned united states merchant marine academy is very similar we offer something different um she mentioned location uh actually very important in these types of institutions uh kings point is on the north shore of long island uh you actually can see new york city it's about a 30 minute drive on a good day right across from the throttle next bridge wherever lives in queens right there um and regimental life will actually look a little bit different uh united states merchant marine academy we're actually under the department of transportation we're not a dod school like the other uh west point annapolis air force those are dod um that means look there's little differences there about how you're paid um and how active duty versus reserve is when you're at the academy um and academics um as i said before we have five um all stem focused so if you're interested or not interested in engineering this might not be the best fit and that's okay but what i do recommend is learn get the feeling and the culture of each academy just for instance side note my background during my undergraduate i split between army rotc at the university of denver and west point um and now i'm here at the merchant marine academy so it's the culture environment is very important when you do like look at these academies great for our next question um this is for the naval academy um the student asks do we have to record ourselves similar to how it is required for west point so for the naval academy's candidate fitness assessment we do not require a video okay so it's not a requirement colonel lahood is that a requirement of the west point to have a recording yes it is it's required for the the chin up or flexed armhang event as well as the push-ups the student so when you do the cfa it takes another takes the the grader as well as someone who's going to use the student's phone to video it and and then the student uploads that video and those those uh two events are evaluated by the department of um military education so tp so they they make the judgment on whether the grader actually graded the the pull-ups and the push-ups correctly so i do administer that and uh my when i administer that test it's it passes the uh the inspection thank you so the next uh question we have from students are what are some that are that's for all the panelists uh what are some tips to have a stronger application so we'll start with the air force with lieutenant hoda um so as lieutenant brown head on before we don't want to see that you have breadth we want to see that you have depth so not necessarily that you completed or completed like 10 different courses or anything like that or took and you know 30 different clubs but more of you're the president of the club you were you held some position within the club or team um and that you're building a reputation of having good character and leadership um and so just on that line same with academics making sure that you're taking you're pushing yourself to do better uh you're challenging yourself and you're also doing good lieutenant junior grade torsney do you have anything to add about the how to make uh how to have a stronger application absolutely so i touched on it briefly a little bit earlier but um in terms of so of course having a strong gpa and sat scores or act scores you know it's hard right now considering the state of the pandemic and i know that students are challenged to get their test dates in but signing up for as many test dates and locations as you can taking them early and often um and then also we're looking for our three target courses or chemistry physics and calculus or pre-calculus those target courses will show us that you will be able to be successful at the academy because you will be introduced to those courses again so definitely having at least two of the three is definitely something that we would like to see as for extracurriculars we want to see that individuals not only were involved but kind of similar to what the air force was explaining earlier we want to see that you're able to be consistent in it so if you had involvement in a club or a sport that you were involved for anywhere from two to four years and that you were able to maybe hold a leadership position at some point whether it's team captain or something of that nature and then it just once again comes down to we want to see leadership potential um we want to see that you have good character you know volunteering is also something that we always we're humanitarian mission service so anything that you can do in regards to that as well always adds to it but um that's kind of the baseline breakdown do you have anything to add with the air force rotc lieutenant soon with how to make it a stronger application tips um well we're all looking for the same things um she just touched upon all my buzz words just leadership potential leadership experience and really having solid examples of how you're a leader in your community whether it's in school extracurriculars and part-time job maybe um when you're doing that interview like we said earlier it's the biggest part of our application um and just a side note if you're applying to any of these academies and you want to apply for rotc applications for any of the branches a lot of the application questions overlap and for us personally there's no essay and for our fitness test it's just very similar to the cfa so you can just add a half mile when you're running or um count what it is at the one minute mark versus a two minute mark for the set-up and push-ups so it's really easy to get both applications in at the same time and it's just just to have the option there in case you get it and you don't have to take it if you don't end up wanting it but even if you do get it you have one year to try out this program to see whether or not you like it and then after that point you can void your contract and you can go become a regular student at any other school um so it's a great way to just try it out and see if it works for you and if it doesn't there's no hard feelings you can walk away anything to add tips for a stronger application when you're selecting your classes for this fall we would like to see you take the hardest classes that your school offers because there's a wide variance among high schools so not all schools have most schools have aps but honors classes are not necessarily offered so when we're looking at your transcripts we want to see that you're taking the the hardest most challenging classes offered at your school and i think finally merchant marine lieutenant mccann anything else to add yeah i'm not gonna be too repetitive again overview just be a lot of quality over breath like everyone said um i wanna make sure what we look for i guess is your evolution as a high school student what resources did you have and what you made of it um if you had to take a class over it's okay but how where did you end up and then i'm going to say it again uh important nomination there's so many people i want to appoint at the end of the year but without the nomination i just can't so you want to do it on time and a strong application is also done in a timely manner even though our application isn't going to be closed until next year make an early deadline for yourself that means a lot and so you see that self motivation let's make a hypothetical one january 1st 2021 as your deadline great thank you so much mabel and our panelists um we are trying to be mindful of time um we have a few minutes left we're gonna try to get through all the questions you all asked um if we don't um all of the contact information of the panelists are in the chat box which you all can save and we'll also send you um to all the attendees this information via email so you can ask some follow-up questions or any outstanding questions that were not asked so for our next question and this is for all the panelists um the student asks is it a good idea to narrow your application to one service academy as opposed to two or multiple so we can start with second lieutenant huda for this one um so i would say it's definitely not a bad idea to apply to multiple service academies if that's something that interests you um obviously it shows that you have a desire to serve in uh different capacities but as also realize that if you get in you're taking someone's spot along with the nominations if you're nominated to west point that's one nomination uh that they can't offer to someone else that would love to go to west point um so don't be afraid to apply to multiple service academies but also realize that you know there's uh it's expected of you that you're going to take and go to that service academy if you get the nomination okay and lieutenant um emily torresley do you have anything to add on this one hello so yeah it's similar to what lieutenant huda was explaining is definitely if that's something you want to do it doesn't help or hurt necessarily applying nris to multiple service academies but one thing we do look at is we want the students who really want to come to the coast guard academy so it's fabulous to apply to kind of everything you want to we want you to find your best fit at the end of the day and to keep your options open but in our conversations with you we're gonna be able to notice the students who maybe want it that much more and that's what we're looking for from primarily is the best fit for the coast guard academy okay thank you so much for your responses we're gonna move on from this question to our final question for our q a segment um again this is for all the panelists um the student writes if i receive a nomination could i send it to multiple service academies such as west point and naval and we can start anywhere um would you like to start off start us off on this one sure um you the student or the applicant does not send the nomination to the academies uh the the representative's office will send those or the or the senator's office will send those to the academies um one part of the interview process though you will be asked by the academy rep and and also by the uh nominating source um have you replied to multiple academies that's gonna be a question and then you're going to be asked to rank order them what is your first choice what is your second choice and uh remember leader of character so if you say to the naval academy the navy academy is my first choice and then you go to the coast guard academy and you say oh no the coast guard is my first choice and then then you have an integrity issue so um be cognizant of that you know honesty is among is the most important thing we want from our leaders and that goes for all five academies so um that's the you will not send the nomination it will be the representative's office thank you so much carlo hood i really think that covered um the question for everyone there now we're gonna move on to closing remarks um and we're gonna start away from the top so lieutenant huda can you provide us some closing remarks as we finish the program i really appreciate you guys coming in and uh tuning in to this call again like she said if you guys have any questions our contact information is out there please don't feel afraid to contact us with any questions there's no such thing as a stupid question and we'd much rather get answered early on rather than later into the process thank you all again for tuning in and thank you for putting this together lieutenant towards me hello everyone once again thank you for having me on today's panel i appreciate getting the opportunity to talk and share information with all of y'all um please feel free to contact me email and my phone number will be sent out i am your admissions officer so i'm your go-to person and i'm more than happy to schedule a phone call a virtual meeting um or you know just answer emails i encourage everyone to start the conversation early and keep it going i am here for you to provide the information that you need in navigating your application process and your you know just college application experience in general it's a pretty influential time in your life so know that i am your go-to person for that email and phone number feel free to use it and then i also highly highly highly recommend logging on to the uscga website and creating a bearstown account so you can get all the information you need regarding the application or just any events and opportunities that the coast guard has for you in helping you make your decision and just learn more thank you so much lieutenant kim yes thank you so much for having us here today it was a wonderful opportunity to get to know you guys talk about the naval academy um as an admissions counselor one of my roles is to guide you through the application process so over the summer i host information sessions to break down the application process so if you guys are still have any questions maybe not quite sure about how the application process runs or any other congressional nominations related questions please feel free to reach out to me the email address has been shared we'll go ahead and schedule you for one of the information sessions so you know exactly what you need to do for our application process now in addition mr scott dankel he is our area coordinator he's also there to guide you guys through the application process so if you guys have any questions again we are here to help you guys out so please reach out to us thank you so much lieutenant mccann uh thank you for everyone taking your time on a monday um and if you are still interested in learning about the merchant marine academy feel free to reach out and just a quick note about the nomination process for us and tidbits is uh you do learn during the application process more about the academy and we do expect you to apply to more than one academy um that's definitely an expectation and definitely take the application process to learn more about the academy itself so you can make that decision and again we live close our campus is still closed but give me your ring shoot me an email we can make it happen thank you second lieutenant dane yeah thanks for uh having us here i know again we're not really a service academy but we're still a commissioning source and it's a good alternative so definitely reach out to the con contact information in the chat it won't be me it'll be another lieutenant in new york um and if you have any questions uh definitely contact them and then also visit our website at afrootc.com for all the information that you need and if you don't know who to contact again you can also go on that website and then it'll put you in touch with a recruiter as well thank you so much for being here um second lieutenant brown i just want to say thank you thanks everybody for being here i hope everybody's staying safe um just a tidbit make sure you're actually finishing your application process uh like the congresswoman said please please please don't self-eliminate around um we have around like 10 000 applicants i want to say but out of those 10 000 only around 2 500 finish those so you can greatly improve your chances to be accepted if you actually do finish your application so i just wanted to throw that out there but thanks again thank you so much um colonel lahood i just want to thank both senators uh congressman's offices for for having us here and hosting this every year um i i do look forward to it for the um for the applicants uh reach out to me um if you're applying to west point um i will take a look at your application i will give you advice and when it comes time i can do your interview and i can also administer the cfa so one-stop shop we'll see we'll see how the cfa goes but i know west point is going to require so how that's going to happen well the next few months are going to tell but thank you all thank you so much colonel hood lieutenant soon hi ma'am um just to reiterate what we're gonna think because our information is on the side i'm on my way out of this admissions job but we have a recruiter in new york that will be happy to answer all your questions thank you for your time thank you so much and last but certainly not least officer dinkle actually i think lieutenant kim summed it up for the naval academy well just get things done early you know any questions reach out to your blue and gold officer or your admissions liaison we want to help we want people who are committed to serving our country and getting a first-rate education at the same time thank you so much i'm going to turn it back to my colleague mabel thank you everyone uh with that we will be wrapping up our events thank you all to the service academy representatives for spending your morning with us thank you to the attendees for spending your time with us this morning if you have any outstanding questions or through the process please reach out to me for congresswoman ocasio-cortez's office my name is mabel i think you all have my contact information and for congresswoman meng's office the contact is stancy so no questions no matter how big or how small please feel free to reach out and with that we you have all the contact information what for the service academy reps in the chat box but if you uh we'll also be sending out a follow-up email with their contact information so but that will be wrapping it up and saying goodbye for now thank you everyone thank you so much everyone we really appreciate it to all our panelists and attendees um don't hesitate to test any questions you have to all of us we're here for you be well everyone take care have a great enjoy the rest of the summer so you