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Washington Post
April 16, 2000

At the Naval Academy, A Battle for Applicants

For most of its 155 years, the U.S. Naval Academy could sit back and wait for applicants to knock at its wrought-iron gates.

The Annapolis military college--like the Army and Air Force service academies--was the pinnacle of macho glamour. Its football rivalries were followed as closely as the Super Bowl; on the society pages, dashing midshipmen squired debutantes of the year. For generations of a certain kind of ambitious young man, the question was not whether to attend a service academy but which one.

But interest in the nation's service academies appears to have plunged. As recently as 1988, 15,730 men and women applied for the Naval Academy's roughly 1,000 freshman slots. But in 1996, the number fell below 10,000 for the first time. The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs report similar drops over the past decade.

"We didn't used to have to worry because everyone wanted to come to the Naval Academy," said David A. Vetter, the dean of admissions. "Now we've got to fight smarter."

Officials say that they still turn away scores of worthy candidates and that average test scores of incoming classes are as high as ever. Yet with the numbers suggesting a sagging interest in military service among young people, the academies are rushing to update their recruiting techniques and to adapt some of the marketing strategies of civilian schools.

West Point recently took out its first magazine advertisement and embarked on a public-relations offensive, even offering unrestricted access to a reporter for Rolling Stone. The Air Force Academy is expanding its presence on the Internet. The Naval Academy is adopting a computerized system to track potential recruits as early as middle school, sending out a slick new interactive CD-ROM to engage students' interest.

Vetter, a retired Marine Corps colonel who graduated with the Class of 1967, said he first learned about the service academies by watching "Men of Annapolis," a weekly prime-time television drama of the 1950s that depicted the exciting adventures of young midshipmen. "I knew that's what I wanted to do," he said.

But the service academies' grasp on the public imagination has slipped. "When you get away from Washington, D.C., and military bases, the vast majority of high school students have never heard of us," said Col. Michael Jones, West Point's admissions officer.

Added Lindsay George, 18, of Sherborn, Mass., who checked out Annapolis last week at an orientation for newly accepted students: "Most kids don't even think about" applying to a service academy.

Matt Dowling, 17, of Olney, agreed: "For my friends, it's not like a regular college experience. They want to have fun."

As families become savvier about finding financial aid, students seem less inclined to accept the academies' free tuition, once one of their biggest selling points. And in a booming economy, high school seniors seem little concerned about job security offered by the military and, indeed, are less inclined to accept the academies' five-year military service obligation, officials say.

Others may be turned off by the academies' cumbersome admissions processes, which require candidates to complete multiple applications, receive a congressional nomination and pass physical tests.

Academy officials say they doubt their admissions prospects were hurt by the scandals of the mid-'90s, especially the accusations of cheating and arrests at the Naval Academy. Those incidents would seem like an eon ago to today's seniors, Vetter said.

But Joyce E. Smith, executive director of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, wonders whether the service academies were indirectly tarnished by the more recent sagas at unrelated private military colleges such as Virginia Military Institute and The Citadel, which erupted in hazing and harassment scandals when they admitted their first female students.

"If that's the perception of students, be they male or female, that added visibility may have aroused concerns," Smith said.

Academy officials see larger societal trends at work in their declining applicant pools. The end of the Cold War has blurred the once well-defined role of the armed services, while the latest deployments in such places as Kosovo, Somalia and Haiti come across as "more dangerous and more complicated than what we were accustomed to," Vetter said.

And today's high school students are the children of the baby boomers--the first generation to pass up military service in large numbers--and thus have little affinity for the military. Vetter sees it in the personal statements penned by academy applicants. They used to write admiringly of their fathers' service, he said. "More and more, they say their mentor was their grandfather."

In an attempt to reverse the trend, the Naval Academy has intensified some of its old recruiting tactics. Last fall, midshipmen who agreed to speak to high school students about the academy were granted three extra days of leave at Thanksgiving break.

The academy also is expanding its annual "summer seminar"--a week-long junket in the Annapolis dormitory for interested high school juniors. This year, the academy sent out 50,000 applications for summer seminar--more than three times as many as past years--and will expand the class from 1,150 to 1,500.

New this year is a computerized "leads tracking" system, a $60,000-a-year program run by a Kansas City contractor that will compile information on all students, no matter how young, who write or call for information about the academy.

Their personal information will be catalogued along with information on students across the country who have received high marks on the PSAT or other national achievement tests.

They will all get the Naval Academy admissions office's new CD-ROM--a fun, gimmicky item that provides a "virtual" tour of the campus (known as "the Yard"), complete with buzzing car alarms and run-ins with officious guards.

"We want to get the kids interested to play with this so they'll take the time to learn about us," said Cmdr. Paul Bradfield, the academy's head of nominations and appointments.

Over the years, the academy will follow up with them, sending brochures, trinkets, invitations to Navy football games in their region. And when the time comes, each student in the tracking system will receive an admission application.

Meanwhile, the Naval Academy will continue to reassess its recruiting tactics. Consultants hired last year noted that changing times may require Annapolis to tweak its image--presenting itself as not just a military fast track but a civilian one, too, a breeding ground for corporate executives, senators and astronauts.

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