Expert: Aaron Shifferly - 7/29/2009

Question
I have been wanting to join the united states air force academy for a while now. I work really hard in school and extracurricular activities and I also hold responsible positions in school that will help with leadership. But in my sophpmore year of high school I got suspended for 2 days for "drinking alcohol while on school campus when offered by another student". Will this effect me from getting into the United States Air Force Academy?

Answer
Possibly. They look at the overall student/officer concept like all the other service academies. What you need to realize, however, is that you're competing against everyone else for that year. This means that general criteria remain the same, but there really is no hard-and-fast answer when it comes to what will get you in because they will take the best fitting candidates from the pool of those that apply in a specific year. So if it came down to you being in competition with someone who wasn't suspended or something, you may lose if that were the only difference between you. It all depends on the strength of your overall packet.. grades, extracurriculars, ect.