We’re far from the only ones to note that West Point has lowered its entry standards and that this isn’t good for the Army.
A group of authors studying officer accessions standards (Arthur Coumbe, Steven Condly, and William Skimmyhorn, two of whom are at West Point now) from the War College wrote in 2017 in "Still Soldiers and Scholars? An Analysis of Army Officer Testing" that West Point’s decline in standards and status is real.
Briefly: The Army’s mental testing standards for officers have declined. This is a problem because the modern battlefield is increasingly complex with commensurately higher demands on its officers. Further, the military cannot import talent—it must rely on accessions and development for its strategic thinkers. The talent required for top-level thinking cannot, despite wishful thinking otherwise, be taught. This puts a "premium on officer selection and on native intellectual ability, since... intelligence is the single most important factor in who does and who does not think critically and strategically. For many observers, this is an extremely uncomfortable and unpalatable fact."
The book goes on to describe the decline in standards at West Point (and using OCS and ROTC for comparison), the circumstances surrounding the reduced standards, and the series of pressures militating against raising them. It specifically refers to West Point testing in the 20th century and up into recent years (2010+). These circumstances include:
But this does not remove the need for finding, recruiting, and retaining top-flight talent.
The authors are thorough and the findings support what we’ve been finding in our posts: that the decline in standards is real; that "non-cognitive measures" are not as important to outcomes as cognitive measures; and that the Academy, far from remedying the situation, spends more time and money in a misplaced attempt to build prestige through diversity initiatives and football uniforms than it does upholding its responsibility to defend our children’s country with officer corps excellence.