United States Military Academy

United States Military Academy is located in West Point, New York. It is a public, 4-year or above institution.

From Wikipedia: The United States Military Academy (USMA), also referred to metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a fort during the American Revolutionary War, as it sits on strategic high ground overlooking the Hudson River 50 miles (80 km) north of New York City. Founded in 1802, it is the oldest of the five American service academies and educates cadets for commissioning into the United States Army. The academic program grants the Bachelor of Science degree with a curriculum that grades cadets’ performance upon a broad academic program, military leadership performance, and mandatory participation in competitive athletics. Candidates for admission must apply directly to the academy and receive a nomination, usually from a member of Congress. Other nomination sources include the president and vice president. Students are officers-in-training and are referred to as “cadets” or collectively as the “United States Corps of Cadets” (USCC). The Army fully funds tuition for cadets in exchange for an active duty service obligation upon graduation. About 1,300 cadets enter the academy each July, with about 1,000 cadets graduating. The academy’s traditions have influenced other institutions because of its age and unique mission. It was the first American college to have an accredited civil engineering program and the first to have class rings, and its technical curriculum became a model for engineering schools. West Point’s student body has a unique rank structure and lexicon. The academy fields 15 men’s and nine women’s National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sports teams. Cadets compete in one sport every fall, winter, and spring season at the intramural, club, or intercollegiate level. Its football team was a national power in the early and mid-20th century, winning three national championships. Among the country’s public institutions, the academy is the top producer of Marshall and Rhodes scholars. Its alumni are collectively referred to as “The Long Gray Line,” which include United States Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ulysses S. Grant; Confederate President Jefferson Davis; Confederate general Robert E. Lee; American poet Edgar Allan Poe; United States generals Douglas MacArthur and George Patton; presidents of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and the Philippines; and 76 Medal of Honor recipients.

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Notes

These are items that bear looking into more closely.

  • This institution has limited or no participation in the federal Title IV program. This prevents students from receiving some types of federal aid. Some institutions are ineligible for various reasons (for example, US military academies like West Point, where everything is covered). Others could be eligible but choose not to receive federal funds in order to avoid following the requirements that go along with them, such as guidelines on how to respond to sexual assault or bans on some kinds of discrimination.

Overview of institution

This, and the rest of the page, use info from the most recent year available, generally 2023.

  • Institution kind: Baccalaureate Colleges: Arts & Sciences Focus

  • Undergrad program: Balanced arts & sciences/professions, no graduate coexistence

  • Graduate program: Not classified (Exclusively Undergraduate)

  • Enrollment profile: Exclusively undergraduate four-year (see more details below)

  • Average net price for undergrads on financial aid: Unknown .

  • Actual price for your family: Go here to see what your family may be asked to pay. It can be MUCH lower than the average price but also higher for some.

  • Size and setting: Four-year, medium, highly residential

  • In state percentage: 6.8% of first year students come from New York

  • In US percentage: 99% of first year students come from the US

  • Graduation rate (within 6 years) for students seeking a Bachelors: 87.7% (this is what is usually reported as “graduation rate”)

  • Graduation rate (within 4 years) for students seeking a Bachelors: 84.7%

  • Percent of students seeking a Bachelors who transfer out of this institution: 3.7%

  • Student to tenure-stream faculty ratio: 35.4 (undergrads to tenure-stream faculty) [Tenure explained]

  • Student to faculty ratio: 16.1 (undergrads to all faculty)

  • Degrees offered: Bachelor’s degree

  • Schedule: Semester

  • Institution provides on campus housing: Yes

  • Dorm capacity: There are enough dorm beds for 4700 students

  • Freshmen required to live on campus: Yes

  • Advanced placement (AP) credits used: Yes

  • Disabilities: 3 percent or less of undergrads are registered as having disabilities.

Map

Comparisons

The sections below show this institution compared with others. The ones listed are ones it has identified as peers, who consider themselves peers, and/or who the federal government considers peers. If a comparison school has the same value as the focal school, its cell is grayed out. Arrows show where there is a signficant trend over time for a school. You can swipe across the table to see more of it; the focal school column is always visible.

Enrollment

General

Teaching

Tenure track faculty are those who are eligible for tenure. This includes both pre-tenure and tenured faculty. Once faculty get tenure, they are (generally) protected from being fired for intellectual reasons, helping to ensure their freedom in teaching and research. They can still lose their positions for misconduct, financial problems, not fulfilling their duties, or other reasons.

Non-tenure track faculty are not eligible for tenure. Some are hired one semester at a time, some have multi-year contracts. They typically have a higher teaching load than tenure track faculty, leaving less time for research or other creative endeavors. They are also easier to fire than tenured faculty. Sometimes they are external experts (a noted musician, a former senator) who are hired to teach some classes without the expected permanence of a tenure-track position.

Note that this chart uses US federal demographic data: it only has two genders and a specified set of ethnicities and races.

Having a low student to faculty ratio is considered a good thing by many, as it can mean more individual attention.

Geography

This has information on the location of the institution. See the about page for more information on what the metrics are and how they are calculated. The goal is to neutrally provide information: for example, some individuals want stringent gun control in an area, some want the opposite: the categories are meant to be descriptive.

Financial Aid

Graduation

Note these are bachelors graduation rates in six years, not four (this is standard). Sample sizes can be small for some demographic groups with few individuals in a school, leading to large year-to-year fluctuations and often extreme values for those groups (if there are two individuals in the class with a given identity, the possible graduation rates are 0%, 50%, or 100% depending on whether zero, one, or both students graduate within six years).

Library

Libraries are changing rapidly. Note that how institutions count digital collections may vary.

Diversity

The US Census Bureau has a diversity index that goes from 0 to 1. In their words, “A 0-value indicates that everyone in the population has the same racial and ethnic characteristics. A value close to 1 indicates that everyone in the population has different racial and ethnic characteristics.” This uses their formula, but with the resolution available for the federal IPEDS data (which does not separate for a given demographic group whether members identify as Hispanic or not). This metric is about heterogeneity within the population, not the proportion of the population that comes from historically excluded groups.

Following the practice of the census, the index is multiplied by 100 to give the percentage probability a random pair of individuals will have a different background. Most institutions argue that diversity is a benefit, so by default a higher number is listed as better, but there may be cases where this measure does not reflect the mission of a college (for example, 70% of the students at a tribal college or university may be American Indian: that could be low-scoring by this metric but should not be read as “bad” given the institution’s mission).

These numbers are based on the most recent year available, generally 2023, which predates effects of the US Supreme Court’s striking down of affirmative action. This has often changed, sometimes dramatically, the incoming student demographics at some institutions.

Overall diversity

Freshman profile

Demographic data for first time degree-seeking students. Note that this uses US federal demographic data: it only has two genders and a specified set of ethnicities and races.

Freshman geography

Test scores

SAT scores

ACT scores

Majors

This presents information on the number of majors and the median earnings one and five years after graduation for people who got a degree from this institution in that field. The earnings are for those who are working and not enrolled in further education. The earnings data (from the federal college scorecard) also has information on earnings for those categorized as ‘MALE’ and ‘NOMALE’ – for readability, these are recategorized here as “Men” and “Women”, respectively, which adopts the gender binary used in other federal data. “W/M earnings ratio” is the median earnings of women divided by men, as a percentage.

Bachelors

Masters

Doctorate

Certificate

Associates