February 2007 Blue & Gold Officer's Notes

Cindy Miller '90, Area B&G Coordinator

Naval Academy Summer Seminar for Juniors

As the year is wrapping up for Blue & Gold Officers with respect to interviewing seniors, it is just beginning for the junior class. If you know of any junior who is interested in USNA, please make sure that they go to the USNA web site at www.usna.edu and under Admissions, register for the Naval Academy Summer Seminar (NASS). It is an online registration that opens up on 1 Feb 07. Admittance into the program is based on above-average PSAT/SAT scores, good grades and a good record of sports and extra curricular activities. If a junior hasn’t taken the PSAT/SAT yet, they need to before the end of January in order to competitive in obtaining a spot in the summer seminar program. The program fills up very quickly so it is imperative that juniors turn their applications in as soon as possible.

The Naval Academy Summer Seminar program is the Academy’s most successful marketing and recruiting program. Conducted and managed by the Office of Admissions, the Summer Seminar is scheduled annually during three weeks of June. Designed for top-performing, highly qualified rising high School seniors, a total of 600 students will attend each of the three sessions scheduled annually in June, coming from all 50 states of the U.S. The purpose of the Naval Academy Summer Seminar is to introduce the potential candidates to the total experience of the Naval Academy. Emphasis and events are designed to allow the students to experience, first hand, the Naval Academy mission, highlighting the moral, mental and physical development of each midshipman. Summer Seminar events include eight academic workshops taught by members of USNA’s Faculty, daily physical training sessions, intramural sports activities, seamanship and sailing opportunities, leadership training, drill competition, briefings on the character development program and the honor concept and a Plebe Indoctrination Session. Students live in Bancroft Hall and receive a first hand introduction to midshipman life in the Yard. The mainstay of the Summer Seminar is the leadership and mentorship provided by the midshipman detail, all of who are volunteers and highly recommended by the Commandant of Midshipmen for this program. Summer Seminar attendees are selected for their well-rounded and versatile resumes that are competitive for USNA admissions criteria. Each year, more than 80% of the Summer Seminar attendees become candidates for admissions to USNA. Applications for the Summer Seminar program are found on the USNA web site, and are usually open and available after 1 February.

The admissions process is going great this year for the state of Georgia. So far, we have 319 students applying to USNA from Georgia. To date, we have four students who have been offered and accepted appointments to USNA, 10 have been given full offers to USNA and have not responded back yet, and another 9 have been offered conditional offers (this means that they will be offered an appointment once they have been cleared medically and have a nomination). We have two students who have accepted NAPS and another that has been offered NAPS. The USNA Foundation has recently mailed out applications to two Georgia students for participation in the Foundation program. Both NAPS and Foundation guarantee admittance into USNA next year upon successful completion of their programs.

Congressmen and Senators are not required to submit their nominations to USNA until the end of January. After the deadline, we expect USNA to send out a lot of offers. The next few months are very exciting and sometimes disappointing for our BGOs and their students.

Blue & Gold Officers are volunteers that assist USNA by performing the face-to-face interviews of students that are applying to USNA. For more details on the program, please see the past articles in the USNA Atlanta Alumni newsletter or contact Cindy Miller at (770) 650-8921 or cindymiller@1990.usna.com.

Cindy Miller ’90
Georgia Blue & Gold Coordinator
cindymiller@1990.usna.com