This article is grossly misleading and poorly crafted. It wasn't even passed through a spell-checker or proof-read by an editor before being published. Who could have missed the reference to "solider" instead of "soldier"?

This "Navarro Academy" is a small (~200 students) high school. Who cares what this woman thinks? Maybe her students aren't as interested because the economy is turning up. Or maybe it's because only four of the 17.7 teachers at Navarro are men. Or maybe it's because they suck, and or their students suck, or any of a million other reasons. It's a random data point suffering from a rather severe selection bias.

http://www.schools-data.com/schools/NAVARRO-ACADEMY-SAN-ANTONIO.html

k wrote:
] Really? It's curious? Makes perfect sense to me.

Then, simply put, you are easily misled, my friend.

The headline for the article doesn't even correspond to the body of the article -- not even one word in. The author can't tell the difference between applications and admissions.

The military academies are among the most competitive public colleges/universities in the US.

So getting into West Point just went from insanely exclusive to very, very difficult. BFD.

] what are the numbers for regular enlistment like?

This data was in the article you memed. Did you even read it?

The Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy all met or exceeded recruiting targets for the last year. The active-duty Army and the Army Reserve exceeded recruiting goals, while the Army National Guard fell short.

Even when the ANG is said to have "fallen short", keep in mind that they still turned away a significant number of potential recruits who made serious inquiries about enlisting. "Meeting the numbers" isn't the prime objective here; this isn't the stock market. Quality people are the objective, and the bar is set high intentionally. If the military "wanted" more people, there are already plenty of willing candidates getting turned away.

RE: Military Academy Admission Down