'It's Going To Be Hard': A New West Point Leader On Confronting Extremism In Military

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11. The vast majority of a West Point class comes in under congressional nomination

Here's how it works:

There are five service academies in the US: the US Military Academy, West Point, NY (trains Army officers), the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD (trains Navy and Marine Corps officers), the US Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, CO (trains Air Force and Space Force officers), the US Coast Guard Academy at New London, CT (trains Coast Guard officers) and the US Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, NY (trains officers for US-flagged merchant vessels). To gain entrance to any of them, you must be nominated by one of four people: the Representative serving the congressional district you live in, either of your state's senators, or the Vice President of the United States. Each of those people receives five nominations for each academy. 536 people (435 Representatives, 100 Senators and the VP) x 5 academies x 5 nominations per academy = 13,400 possible nominations.

Now, here's where it gets fun: Everyone who is planning to go to one of these academies is encouraged to apply to all five and to all four of the people who can nominate them. The more nominations you can get, the more likely it is you'll go to an Academy. This is not overly likely to happen, but there is absolutely nothing preventing one candidate from receiving 20 nominations.

There are some other ways to get in. Active duty people can apply to an academy preparatory school and go from there to the academy. Children of Medal of Honor winners who are academically qualified will receive automatic admission. (Yes, this means that if Dakota Johnson fathers a child with Bristol Palin and he or she is smarter than the rest of his or her relatives, we'll be hearing from Caribou Barbie about her "cadet grandbaby" until the end of days.) But for the most part, if you're a cadet or midshipman you got that way because someone in Congress liked your packet.