BGO experiences?

[Integer]

BGO & other experiences?

(--I understand that this post gives the impression that I am complaining. I am not: I just found my experiences entertaining - Int)

I knew that BGO's have access to our candidate profiles. For one, my BGO quoted things off of mine when I called him to set up an interview, and every post in this thread says that their BGO's have been able to keep them informed, as well.

So, when I called my BGO a few weeks ago to learn of my application status, I was surprised to have the conversation below. His secretary took my name, and he picked up the phone the fourth time I called him. Since he had my name, he must have had my profile open and saw that I was recently rejected, right?

Thinking I was still in the race and that my BGO could confirm it online, I was surprised when his end of the following conversation came out in a timid tone that lead to me to learning that I was wrong on both assumptions:

Me: "Hello, sir!"
Him: (pause)
Me: "What's going on?"
Him: (pause) "Nothing. ..I interviewed you, right?"
Me: "Yes!"
Him: "ok.. I think I remember you.." (sounded like a lie)
Me: "I was wondering if you knew what the status of my application is?"
Him: "oh...." (His voice now goes back to normal.) "Uh.. no. We.. don't have access to the uh no we don't know. You'd have to hear back from them." (sounded like a lie, plus I knew it was a lie )

Me: "Oh alright! From what I hear, they send them out around April 15th?"
Him: "...Yeah that or .. sooner."

In fact, I received the turn down letter the NEXT MORNING!.

He lied to me because he knew I was rejected. He thought I was calling him to complain about being rejected! That's my story.

Yes, obviously, my BGO should know me by name, that's how much I should want it, right? I should have constant rapport with the guy, correct? Well, my BGO seemed kind of busy enough already, as it was quite an adventure to setup an interview. It took me the lack of results from sending 3-4 e-mails trying to set one up to get the feeling that this was going nowhere. (He wouldn't reply.) I ended up having to call his work and pretending to be a new customer to get through! It turned out that the Academy was not pushing him to interview me, and something in my CIS profile was incorrect. After learning that I had nomination, however, he said "oh..." and setup an interview two days later.

That was another story right there.

(He turned out to be a great guy, by the way, from what I saw by the end of the interview. He definitely reinforced my positive feelings about becoming a Naval Officer.)

Does anybody else have BGO stories (or other candidate experiences) to share?

 

[usunkmybship]

I went through half a phone conversation with him. Then I heard "Your daughter..." And I'm like, "No, I'm Emily!"
He thought I was my mother:/

 

[Integer]

haha

Haha, nice one! Oh, I have another one. A senator's office replied to me near the end of January, three weeks after I had received a congressional nomination.

The letter read something along the lines of,

"We have considered you, but did not select you for appointment. Good luck in your other plans,"

as if everybody who did not get his particular nomination has zero chance of being accepted.

Also, the other senator said he is not even considering me because I already received a congressional nomination. (?!)

 

[H20man]

Wow! My experiences were completley different. My local academy rep or as USNA calls them BGOs, was always willing to help me out.

The first interview was scary, but he really enjoyed coming over and talking to me and my family. Basically from that point on he was constantly working with me. I learned a lot about the USMMA from him.

My rep really worked hard, hes about the only one for our area.
He told me that about 10-12 usually go to the academy from San Antonio each year, from what ive heard there have been very few, cause the academy upped the ante this year, i feel real fortunate i had a good rep.

Man that sucks integer, sounds like your BGO was just pushing bodies or that he already had his pick. Good luck next year, remeber along with the USNA there is always the USMMA. (hehe, i had to do my plug)

 

[HerrLURP]

Try to keep in mind that there are well over 10,000 applicants every year. That's NOT including all the people who fill out the Candidate Questionaires. If you include those, you're looking at 50-70,000 a year!!! That's a crapload of people, and Admissions and the BGOs have a hard enough time keeping track of everybody. The Academies get more APPLICATIONS than most other colleges, and most other colleges don't even offer interviews to ANYBODY.

As far as Senators not nominating those who already recieved nominations, that is a very common practice. Congressmen want to nominate as many different people as possible, so they coordinate with each other to make sure that the same 10 people aren't the only ones nominated in the same state. It's called cross-nomination when that happens.

 

[usunkmybship]

I got the nomination from my Senator first and my Congresswoman gave me a letter congratulating me and saying she wasn't going to put me on her list because of that.

 

[Integer]

After my BGO said he had no idea about my status and hinted that I should expect a letter soon, I said "Oh.. sorry for wasting your time, then!" And I meant it.

Also, when it came time to ask my math professor for a reference letter for the Academy, I nearly broke down in tears, I was that nervous. You guys were probably the same way.

However, though I do respect people's time constraints, I cannot be satisfied with making only a half-memorable impression on the BGO. This doesn't mean I will try to establish rapport with him twice as much as I did before, since his time is valuable, of course. I will just have to make twice as good of an impression in the time I am allowed during the interview.

 

[manny7_99]

Also, when it came time to ask my math professor for a reference letter for the Academy, I nearly broke down in tears, I was that nervous. You guys were probably the same way.

I will just have to make twice as good of an impression in the time I am allowed during the interview.

do not take it as an offense, but it sounds like you are tyring to hard bro' Just do your best and whatever the outcome is accept it. somethings are meant to happen, somethings you have no control of,some others you do. Just a thought.

Manny
Pre- champion tour le france 2010

 

[Integer]

Learn to read

Once again, manny, you lack reading comprehension. I wasn't nervous because I was begging for a recommendation. I was very nervous because I was asking my favorite professor to write me one, knowing that professors are asked for recommendations all of the time by students, and I didn't want to be the latest "jerk" of the bunch That was the first time I had ever asked a professor for one.

If you didn't feel at least a little bit nervous/guilty the first time, at least, that you asked a professor to write you a recommendation, then you probably have no respect for professors and think they are there to serve you.

You have control over EVERYTHING. Obviously, it might take one person little time and another person a lot more dedication, but EVERYTHING can happen.

Also, you say "do your best and accept the outcome." To me, it sounds like by "do your best," you mean "just do how-ever and see what happens." Most people, when they say "do your best", don't mean "do your best." Well, I actually AM trying to do EXACTLY THAT -- MY BEST, and if I succeed, I will NOT HAVE TO ACCEPT ANY OUTCOMES, I will have only one outcome--I will get in. Because I truly did my best. Please learn that if you don't reach your goal, you did not do your best.

Finally, if you don't understand this, the Academy is a hard place that requires a lot of concentration. So, even if I twiddled my thumbs and got in, I would still have to four years to do hard work in. If you object to doing the hard work that it takes to get into the Academy, then you sure as heck won't be able to do the hard work if you GOT into the Naval Academy. So, don't bother applying there or the Nuke school, like you wanted. You gotta understand that the Academy or Nuke School are not AWARDS, they are just simply arenas for others to do THEIR TRUE BEST not their "oh whatever happens, happens" sob story like you suggest.

I guess I did take it offensively P.S. I like your signatures.

 

[viv]

My BGO this past admissions cycle was quite chill. He called me up, we shot the **** for about 30 minutes and then he said "hmm.....let's just consider this your interview". The guy hasn't initiated contact with me since. Anytime I had an admissions question, I just shot off an e-mail to the USNA admissions counselor or the BGO rep. for the region.

 

[manny7_99]

OMG! Integer, I am gonna try to be as clear, concise and respectful as I may. 1)I m not disrespecting you 2) you do not know me 3)you need to relax a bit

I understand your feelings and point of view, ditto. Before you go around saying I lack reading comprehension and such, you should think twice about your actions. You do not know who I am,what I do and even if you did you should always think twice before criticizing somebody regardless of how much you dislike them. You are not in the academy, nor have been accepted and for more that you "see" it happening you don't know if you ever will, so do not speak as if you knew a lot. honestly, I would not want to have an officer or leader that was to cry when he needed to brief somebody and give or receive orders. There is something you need to be aware of, officers need CHARACTER, you don't seem to have any. From your post I've also seen that you like to put people down or suck up seemingly looking for approval. It seems to me like you are over-analyzing things, you should not. But you are gonna do whatever you want and will probably give a two-screens reply to this arguing ethics and why visualizing is so important in this century, go for it, but before that understand that other people deserve respect.
About the letter thing, teachers ARE there to help you, and if you bust your A$$ for them in class(When it matters, not just words about visualizing things) most of them WILL GLADLY write an excellent letter. Like I said before you do not know me so you can go around lecturing me, please save yourself some time and effort.
To be honest with you kid, I am trying my hardest not to judge you based on what you write but you DO need to reflect a little and analyze your goals, if you end up going to the fleet you are putting yourself up for a big surprise.
Respectfully,

~Manny
Pre-governor of Vermont 2010

BTW military writing is usually very clear and to the point, no scrambling around about meaningless things. You'll find that out when you get to the academy (If you do),so for now save the philosophy posts for a philosophy forum. Good luck anyway kiddo'

 

[Integer]

My professor absolutely hates me, that's why he was the advisor to one of the clubs that I founded. I was more nervous about sharing that I want a career in the Navy than about whether or not he would write a letter for me. :icon_smil But, go ahead, re-read all of my past posts and derive irrelevant smears about me.

You wanna check my e-mail messages for grammar mistakes, too? I leave my grammar mistakes in on purpose. I only edit my posts to add information.

 

[manny7_99]

This is pointless Kid, you got issues. Good luck though
~Manny
pre-rhodes scholar
pre-superman
pre-Pope John manny I

P.S. three things before I stop replying to you altogether: 1) A career in the service is nothing to be ashame of (that's what it sounds like you are implying) 2)I didn't say you had grammar errors. Being concise and to the point is also avoiding to write three screen long replies when nobody cares, and much less to put people down or try to justify yourself to everybody (Kid you ARE gonna love military writing!!!) 3) I don't have time to be checking all your previous posts and messages so I can go around criticizing you or "smearing" you, I am not integer, I do respect people.

If you have any questions, concerns, etc... feel free to PM, simply make it short and to the point.
Oh! one last thing, my dear friend unless you already play football and ARE being recruited by the Academy, the chances of making it to the team are virtually ZERO. I have friends at the Academies and they wanted to walk on and were not allowed (it seems to be a coach thing), they were all american and all state players! But hey! give it a try, may be you'll be the first Mr. pre- heisman award winner.

 

[American_Ace]

Ahem...This is back to the previous topic (you know the distant one about BGOs)

My BGO acted about the same way. He was really happy with me when he found out I had a nomination and all that good stuff (sort of like he had hope for me), but I could tell when he scrolled down his screen far enough to see the big "Rejected." Then the conversation turned pretty chill.

However, my AFA LO interview was just like viv's. We talked for a while at an AFA recruiting thing, then he asked me to do the interview right there, and now I'm on the AFA wait-list, and probably the only reason I didn't get into the Academy, prep school, or falcon found. is because my vision isn't pilot qual (even though they give PRK to every cadet who asks and they have 99.4% success rate). Ain't that a kick in the teeth.

I guess if you're BGO/LO/rep/whatever, enjoys spending time with you then you're in.

 

[Integer]

What is the reason you call me kid?

Then what about sprint football

Finally, there is a very good reason why I was a bit nervous telling people I want to join the military. However, you're too close-minded and live in your own little world to understand, though. And if I explained it, you would pick at something else from what I said. The thread would just keep growing. See, when you grow up, you will realize that not everybody of 300 million US citizens is the same age and had the same life as you. So, stop debating stuff like my feelings. However, I appreciate everyone's comments on concrete things, like admissions and football, etc.