I grew up in rural, poor, Appalachian VA and was from very poor background. Lot of family that have gotten into legal trouble (going back to the early 1900s), I realized around 7th grade that for whatever reason I was very good at retaining and understanding information, and putting it back out specifically in the form of exams. I realized I didn’t have to try that hard to get a good GPA, I had read a book around that time that mentioned that the Federal service academies actually let you attend for no charge. I also read that they tend to primarily be selective based on your grades and exam scores, and that the step where you have to apply with a local congressman for an admissions endorsement is generally operated based on GPA and academic achievements as well. Starting in my freshman year of High School which is when all that started to “count”, I made sure to basically get As in every class and to take as many of the harder classes as were offered, extra levels of Chemistry / Physics / Math that weren’t required for HS graduation. When it came time to try to get appointed my research suggested that the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (Army) was actually generally easier to get into than the Air Force and Naval Academies. I saw it as a free education and I “didn’t mind” the idea of what I felt would be a short service commitment at the end of it.
Now, the fact that once I got in, I didn’t get out for almost 30 years means 17 year old me wasn’t quite accurate about my future, but that’s not what changed my life about going to the academy. What changed my life was plebe year. I was a tough Appalachian kid, had played football, wrestled, been in plenty of fights. I thought pretty highly of my toughness. Plebe year taught me that while I was big and could throw a fist, I was not mentally tough. In many ways I was mentally weak. I had an Appalachian accent and came from a “bad” upbringing, I was an outsider to many in my own class, and the whole system is kind of built to just shit all over you when you’re a plebe. I literally had days where I’d cry in my bed like a bitch. I wrote a few letters home saying I was probably going to drop out. But for whatever reason something inside me decided I didn’t want to be a quitter, and the lesson I learned was that if you stick with something and really push yourself you can get past things that feel way too hard at the time. I think that really changed me as a human being, it gave me reserves of mental toughness that frankly, I often see other people don’t have. I wasn’t born with it, and I certainly didn’t have it at age 18, it was something I acquired through a harsh and unforgiving system, and I think it set the tone of my entire life. FWIW I don’t hold up plebe year as being anything like what a lot of real bad asses in the military go through (like the Special Forces guys who go through hardcore training, or combat veterans who have gone through actual combat etc), but for an 18 year old kid from rural VA who had never been around anywhere, getting through that first year on the Hudson River in New York was a life changing experience.
I graduated from the academy in the early 70s, from everything I’ve heard they actually have toned down plebe year a lot, which I think probably is the right call in some ways. Some of the psychological bullying and stuff I think pushed some otherwise good people out of the service.