24MAY2021 Pilot/NFO Board

[slick99]

Do you guys believe the accuracy of these selection list to the boards. I have a hard time believing the ASTB and OAR scores listed here. After talking with Celestin and the civilian equivalent they say that its very competitive anything over 6 for the ASTB and that the OAR of a 50 is competitive. When I look at these list mostly everyone is above 7's and high 50's on OAR. My buddy is an Officer recruiter for the past 3 years and he has never seen a 9 on the ASTB and very rare an 8.

Could be that those with higher scores are more involved and motivated in their application process/more likely to get on AW and include their scores in the sheet...just taking a guess though, I could be wrong. At the same time, I wouldn't see much incentive for folks to lie about their scores, unless they're just trying that hard to impress a bunch of random internet strangers lol

 

[Mike1432]

Do you guys believe the accuracy of these selection list to the boards. I have a hard time believing the ASTB and OAR scores listed here. After talking with Celestin and the civilian equivalent they say that its very competitive anything over 6 for the ASTB and that the OAR of a 50 is competitive. When I look at these list mostly everyone is above 7's and high 50's on OAR. My buddy is an Officer recruiter for the past 3 years and he has never seen a 9 on the ASTB and very rare an 8.

This is probably some form of selection bias since the list represents only a sample and not the entire population of applicants. My guess is that maybe people with higher scores might be more willing to seek out forums and post their scores.

 

[villo0692]

Do you guys believe the accuracy of these selection list to the boards. I have a hard time believing the ASTB and OAR scores listed here. After talking with Celestin and the civilian equivalent they say that its very competitive anything over 6 for the ASTB and that the OAR of a 50 is competitive. When I look at these list mostly everyone is above 7's and high 50's on OAR. My buddy is an Officer recruiter for the past 3 years and he has never seen a 9 on the ASTB and very rare an 8.

I think that people coming into this community have a better chance (reflected in higher overall scores) of being picked up than someone who doesn't. For instance, if you live in the 21st century and go to the interwebz a lot, sand google "HOW TO ANIHILATE THE ASTB" like I did....you will inevitably end up here....and when you do, you find all the resources that you need to get a good score....such as the compass trick, Kyle (whoever he is) Study guide...that PBI simulator thing that some wiz came up with....etc. I don't have the best of scores, but I feel I scored decently enough for a first try and a week only of study.....so yeah.....I think out of EVERYONE who applies to these boards, the people in our spreadsheet are most on the higher end of the scores spectrum.

Take that as you will....I'm just a simple guy who believes Spider Man should have been named Peter Parkour

 

[KaleDaSquid]

I'm just a simple guy who believes Spider Man should have been named Peter Parkour

That was amazing!

To address the scores. From what I have heard is that the scoring are based on a bell curve. So you are always going to 10-20% of people in the 8,9 score range. With @villo0692 response in mind, usually the people that come to these forums are on the higher score range, rather than the latter. When I first started following, I checked the ASTB guide and plenty of people were in the 3,4 range on scores. Obviously, they do not progress to the application stage and dont add them to the calculated numbers for boards.

 

[spolasek]

With all the uncertainty regarding when the next board will be or how many aviators the Navy will be taking moving forward, I think it is important for those of us with aspirations to keep hope alive and carry on with business as usual. We've all heard the rumors of boards being cancelled and ship out dates for those selected being years down the road, I personally don't care how long I have to wait. I'm hoping this thread can serve as a pool of our best intel from everyone who will be submitting and eventually become our regular board thread when big Navy decides to nail down a solid date. As far as rumors go, the only thing I have to add is that my best friend who will also be submitting has talked to the Aviation OCM and, like we already know, said he doesn't control board dates, but he believes a June board with an April deadline will be the next Aviation board following this January one. So here's to all of us sitting in the driver seat of our number one preferred platform gents.

Prior Service AT3
Age: 27
Degree: BBA Econ, MBA
GPA: 3.73, 3.77 (respectively)
ASTB: 61 7/7/8 (1st attempt)
3 LOR's from a professor, my former DCPO (E-8), and my former LPO that is now a flight deck Bos'n (LDO).
No flight hours yet but I will be trying to get at least 10 before the board. Also had LASEK eye surgery that will not require a waiver.

Hopefully we get word about the new board soon so we can get a spreadsheet going.

Good afternoon!

Random question, what did you use to study? I'd be pretty happy if I got your score!

 

[spolasek]

I think that people coming into this community have a better chance (reflected in higher overall scores) of being picked up than someone who doesn't. For instance, if you live in the 21st century and go to the interwebz a lot, sand google "HOW TO ANIHILATE THE ASTB" like I did....you will inevitably end up here....and when you do, you find all the resources that you need to get a good score....such as the compass trick, Kyle (whoever he is) Study guide...that PBI simulator thing that some wiz came up with....etc. I don't have the best of scores, but I feel I scored decently enough for a first try and a week only of study.....so yeah.....I think out of EVERYONE who applies to these boards, the people in our spreadsheet are most on the higher end of the scores spectrum.

Take that as you will....I'm just a simple guy who believes Spider Man should have been named Peter Parkour

Oh my gosh! Can you elaborate on these useful study tips, please?

 

[Coffee & JP8]

Oh my gosh! Can you elaborate on these useful study tips, please?

I cant find the specific study material I used at the moment, but it all came from the ASTB forum categories. Dont buy any of the ASTB study books, none of them helped or was relatable to the actual test (except getting basic math practice). Theres a big study guide in the forums that was pretty good. Definitely look up the compass trick for the FOFAR section of test.

 

[Mouselovr]

Oh my gosh! Can you elaborate on these useful study tips, please?

Look on the ASTB forum. They are shared a couple times on there if you dig through the pages. You can study and ace this test for free with all the available resources

 

[exNavyOffRec]

Do you guys believe the accuracy of these selection list to the boards. I have a hard time believing the ASTB and OAR scores listed here. After talking with Celestin and the civilian equivalent they say that its very competitive anything over 6 for the ASTB and that the OAR of a 50 is competitive. When I look at these list mostly everyone is above 7's and high 50's on OAR. My buddy is an Officer recruiter for the past 3 years and he has never seen a 9 on the ASTB and very rare an 8.

I mostly would see 7 and 8's, some 9's.

They are fairly accurate, before they switched to min 6 when the data was pulled it was 5 rarely picked, 6 sometimes, 7 was 50/50 and 8 or 9 was rarely not picked. Then they started requiring a PQ letter prior to board, a few more people with 5's started getting picked, and even more 6's, 7's was a decent chance of selection and 8 or 9 was still rarely not picked.

If you friend hasn't seen a 9 and just rarely 8's that is very odd.

 

[spolasek]

I cant find the specific study material I used at the moment, but it all came from the ASTB forum categories. Dont buy any of the ASTB study books, none of them helped or was relatable to the actual test (except getting basic math practice). Theres a big study guide in the forums that was pretty good. Definitely look up the compass trick for the FOFAR section of test.

Thank you so much!

 

[spolasek]

Look on the ASTB forum. They are shared a couple times on there if you dig through the pages. You can study and ace this test for free with all the available resources

Perfect! Thank you so much!

 

[exNavyOffRec]

Yes there is a limit on the board size for aviation now. It would behoove us to get the packages in earlier than later.

There technically have been limits for a very very long time, but the "limits" have rarely been enforced and it was more of a guide, it really depends who is running NRC and how strict they want to enforce it, most of them never really enforced it as the whole premise is to select the "best qualified" which for aviation is mostly the best PFAR or FOFAR which translates to better shot through the pipeline, and the less attrition you have the more money you save.

 

[villo0692]

Oh my gosh! Can you elaborate on these useful study tips, please?

Go through the 1001 ASTB questions and you'll find plenty of info there. but yeah....I say the only good thing of buying a study book is for the practice tests, so you get a hang of how the language, mechanical and aeronautical information work. But here are my takeaways

MaTHeMatics:
you're not going to get anything past precalculus, however, it is an adaptive test, so it gets harder the more right questions you get....I'm an engineer so questions got very tricky after the 10th one or so, and ended up running out of time without answering them all....I'd say...make sure you know to Factor, know basics of Probability, know the properties of exponentials and logarithms, lots of averages, unit conversion, calculating the price kinda thing..... know how to solve the problems of the "if Jeffrey Epstein is running at a 6 mph pace north and he's being chased by pursuers who are a mile away but running at 6.5 mph, how long before he kills himself?" type......if you know how to convert numbers on the decimal scale into binary, learn how to do that too, I got two questions like that.....the problems themselves were not too complicated granted you can do them quickly enough....so make sure to practice lots of them.

Reading:
just make sure you read the whole fucking thing, is annoying, boring as hell, but just push through and READ the whole thing before answering.

Mechanical:
There's a deck of like 300 flashcards going around with questions for this section which I found real helpful, but again, I am an engineer so I already knew a lot of these. Something I got asked which I wasn't expecting was a bit of auto shop stuff....like names of parts involved in braking or steering processes.....so if you want to study that too...however, the Mechanical portion doesn't seem to have any bearing on the ASTB, so it'd be overkill in my opinion

ANIT:
there's also a deck going around with like 300 flashcards....learn ALL OF THEM....add to that....know all the possible ways any part of the ship can be named...I got some weird ones here that I wasn't expecting. Know who everyone relevant to Naval History and Aviation is and study ALL THE AIRCRAFT PLATFORMS, all their missions, nomenclature....all that shit.....this last part is what got me, since I didn't study that part as much and I got questions such as ......" For X mission, which of the following aircraft is best...." and then just a bunch of nomenclatures.

PBM
Expect to get better with the joystick part as you go. It'd be helpful to use that simulator they got going around here so you get used to the inverted thingy. whenever you're in the last few trials with the joystick when they be throwing everything at once...LISTEN FIRST....then take care of your 2D target, then your up and down target....As far as the UAV portion, compass trick all day

hope this helps

 

[spolasek]

Go through the 1001 ASTB questions and you'll find plenty of info there. but yeah....I say the only good thing of buying a study book is for the practice tests, so you get a hang of how the language, mechanical and aeronautical information work. But here are my takeaways

MaTHeMatics:
you're not going to get anything past precalculus, however, it is an adaptive test, so it gets harder the more right questions you get....I'm an engineer so questions got very tricky after the 10th one or so, and ended up running out of time without answering them all....I'd say...make sure you know to Factor, know basics of Probability, know the properties of exponentials and logarithms, lots of averages, unit conversion, calculating the price kinda thing..... know how to solve the problems of the "if Jeffrey Epstein is running at a 6 mph pace north and he's being chased by pursuers who are a mile away but running at 6.5 mph, how long before he kills himself?" type......if you know how to convert numbers on the decimal scale into binary, learn how to do that too, I got two questions like that.....the problems themselves were not too complicated granted you can do them quickly enough....so make sure to practice lots of them.

Reading:
just make sure you read the whole fucking thing, is annoying, boring as hell, but just push through and READ the whole thing before answering.

Mechanical:
There's a deck of like 300 flashcards going around with questions for this section which I found real helpful, but again, I am an engineer so I already knew a lot of these. Something I got asked which I wasn't expecting was a bit of auto shop stuff....like names of parts involved in braking or steering processes.....so if you want to study that too...however, the Mechanical portion doesn't seem to have any bearing on the ASTB, so it'd be overkill in my opinion

ANIT:
there's also a deck going around with like 300 flashcards....learn ALL OF THEM....add to that....know all the possible ways any part of the ship can be named...I got some weird ones here that I wasn't expecting. Know who everyone relevant to Naval History and Aviation is and study ALL THE AIRCRAFT PLATFORMS, all their missions, nomenclature....all that shit.....this last part is what got me, since I didn't study that part as much and I got questions such as ......" For X mission, which of the following aircraft is best...." and then just a bunch of nomenclatures.

PBM
Expect to get better with the joystick part as you go. It'd be helpful to use that simulator they got going around here so you get used to the inverted thingy. whenever you're in the last few trials with the joystick when they be throwing everything at once...LISTEN FIRST....then take care of your 2D target, then your up and down target....As far as the UAV portion, compass trick all day

hope this helps

My heart just dropped! This is FANTASTIC! It absolutely helps! Thank you so much! I do have two follow-up questions.... Where do I find this compass trick and simulator thing? I've put them both in the search bar (on here) and it pulled up nothing lol

 

[villo0692]

My heart just dropped! This is FANTASTIC! It absolutely helps! Thank you so much! I do have two follow-up questions.... Where do I find this compass trick and simulator thing? I've put them both in the search bar (on here) and it pulled up nothing lol