By The Numbers: Commissioning Sources
One of the very first things a service academy graduate learns on first making contact with the Fleet (or whatever those other services call their version of the world) is that not all military officers are service academy graduates.
FAR from it, shipmates! The average percentage across all services works out to about 18%. The Coast Guard’s proportion of USCGA grads is much higher than the other services (over 50%), but their numbers are so tiny (less than 2% of the total force) that they hardly move the needle much.
Meanwhile, RINGKNOCKER officially welcomes commissioned officers from ALL services and ALL commissioning sources! Some might argue our name is misleading or even downright pejorative. Others might call it tongue-in-cheek and disarmingly self-aware. For my part, I simply regard it as a frequent opportunity to trot out my favorite wisecrack:
The enemy doesn’t care where you went to college. Why should WE?
That literally never gets old. 😂🤣😂
Even so… we’ve been at this for 16 months and this week will share RINGKNOCKER Virtual Meetup #64. Small surprise that our membership leans Naval Academy: that’s where my personal network is centered, and my personal network (supercharged by the Tribify Engine, natch) is what drives RINGKNOCKER. But what’s the actual breakdown between our mailing list, Meetup registrants, and attendees?
We do have a few hundred people on the list for whom commissioning source & year are not yet known. But for everybody else, here’s the breakdown. Note that these numbers represent “uniques”, meaning multiple attendances etc. only count once:
| Commissioning Source | Subscribers | Registrants | Attendees |
|---|---|---|---|
| USNA | 3,215 | 719 | 377 |
| USMA | 770 | 170 | 58 |
| USAFA | 35 | 25 | 15 |
| OCS | 9 | 9 | 5 |
| USMMA | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| VMI | 5 | 5 | 3 |
| NPS | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Northwestern | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Texas A&M | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| KU | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| USN OIS | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Tufts U | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| LDO | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Direct | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| USCGA | 38 | 8 | 1 |
| Notre Dame | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Citadel | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| CSU | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| NWC | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| USNA | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Oregon State | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| AVROC | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| USC | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| UNM | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| USNWC | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Boston U | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| U of WA | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Iowa State | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| SUNY | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| USAF OIS | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| RAMCOS | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Nova Southern U | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| ECP | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| OIS | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Carnegie Mellon | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| U of FL | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| GA Tech | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| VA Tech | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| U of Akron | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| USAMS | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Miami U | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| NPGS | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| UNC Chapel Hill | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Auburn U | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| U of CO | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Grand Total | 4,117 | 978 | 485 |
So there you go! If you didn’t attend a service academy, please know two things:
- You are MORE than welcome at a RINGKNOCKER Meetup!
- Even after accounting for certain long-standing football rivalries—I name no names here—you are in excellent company!
Here’s a blast from the past: a few words on what it means to belong, from RINGKNOCKER Virtual Meetup #3…
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