Daughter #1 received a USMA scholarship to attend the SAP prep program at Marion Military Institute. Can anyone school me on MMI, Marion and the rest of the area?

Thanks

I was talking to my cousin-in-law a few weeks ago, his son attends MMI. He was telling me there has been some neglect of things such as buildings, dorms, (the showers, lavatories, and such). His son was complaining, so he called someone in Montgomery to complain.
He says they are going through leadership transition, but have started to repair the things mentioned. Says son will be going back in the fall.
I know this isn't all the info you wanted, but hope it helps.
FWIW, I have always heard MMI is a top-notch school, and prepare students well for leadership as well as academics, and self-worth.

I am an alumnus of MMI. However, since my time there over 30 years ago, it has transitioned from a private 4-year high school / 2-year junior college to a state-run 2-year junior college only. The steady thing during this passage of time is the Service Academy Prep (SAP) program. MMI is one of 2 approved SAP schools for the USCG Academy. The SAP there is top-notch, and they have a very high percentage of candidates moving on to the service academies. Instructors are mostly ex-mil.

The town is a little boring, but a girls college, Judson College, is only a few blocks away and provided plenty of entertainment for me and my friends back in the day. I don't how much free time they allow the cadets these days, but we used to go to Selma or Birmingham for serious entertainment. These days I hear that cadets go to Tuscaloosa now. I hung around town a lot too, because my dad's side of the family is from Marion and I still have family there. My hope for the future of MMI is that they will eventually become a 4-year military college. It's a shame that they only get to work with cadets for 2 years only right now. When I was there, we had quite a few who started in high school and finished the junior college, and had anywhere from 4 to 6 years at MMI. I'm sure your daughter will do fine if she chooses to attend. She'll have to get used to the weather, especially the first part of the school year in August where it is HOT.

Hope this helps.

It will be a huge Culture shock being from the state of NY. Coming from CA to Marion AL to attend college at MMI was such a huge culture shock for me. Now that was 15 years ago but Marion is a small back country town and everything moves slow. At that time most everyone was supper friendly but the town does not have much to do. As stated after plebe cycle and if/when you are allowed leave most Cadets without demerits will travel to the larger cities for "action". Again I can't understate that there will be a culture shock since you/she are Yankees and coming right into the Bible Belt. But I became a man there, wore a set of soles out with all the trouble I caused and had to march weekends, but I would not trade the experience for nothing.

As far as the Academy Prep area everyone of my friends in the program at that time made it into their prospective Academies.

I grew up in a town with 1500 people and about 5000 cows, she's good with that. What is the day to day life like? She's coming from a D1 soccer program and I know there's no women's soccer but is there anything available for her to do as far as high intensity sports. The website only lists softball (yawn) and tennis (zzzzz).

Funny that was the exact words my wife said when I read her the first post and asked her about this.  She went there about 20 years ago coming from NY state as well.  Small town Alabama like Marion is quite a bit different that NY and be prepared for culture shock.

Even being from a small town I guarantee that she will still feel everything is ass backwards.

Like prison and the movie groundhog's day, especially during the plebe cycle. Forget what you know shut up and listen, and get ready to be yelled at. No matter what you do it will be wrong and you will get plenty of PT. You are told what to do and when to do it, lots of rushing to get places then lots of waiting. Not only will the Bible Belt be a culture shock but so will the introduction to a "military environment"....unless prior service then it's more of the same. Yea like prison, memories are flooding back thinking about it.

For anyone else who went there remember the Shack and a Shack burger. I took my wife there one time and told her not to judge the place, I promise I never got sick eating the food. It was hot and humid with the same sticky tables that I remembered. Makes me want to take the pilgrimage to get a hamburger.

They do a Plebe Cycle for SAP candidates?

Unless it changed, everyone does the cycle and gets to participate in the fun. The SAP and "regular" cadets are almost indistinguishable except for classes.

Back up...paging TheCampNinja

OMG, when you said small town Alabama you didn't extrapolate it out to "small dead town". At least the MMI facilities and programs seemed top notch.

LOL! I grew up in Selma (ugh....shivers) and the word "dead" for any place in that area would be a compliment.

its still alive, rose sanders is sucking the life and $ out of anything she can.  back few months ago when the town grew 100K in 1 weekend due to the tourism on the movie and whatever, the city spent bookoo $ on security, etc etc thinking they recoup it all with the tourism.  nope, huge loss, but rose sanders made out big.

but yeah, as far as ops kid goes, how long is the SAP program?  and I suppose its not actual credit hours towards USMA is it?  is it SAP for the other service academies or just USMA?

The crowd was bigger on Sunday for the Bridge Crossing than it was for Obama's visit on Saturday.

SAP should be one year, no credit for the Academies but you do gain some good experiences and as long as you don't mess up a higher chance of admission.

WE TOLD YOU IT WAS ASS BACKWARDS! Did you at least stop at at J&R's and get a burger? I would be jealous of that.
Did you tour the campus, lots of history.

well fml, guess maybe I could have got into USAFA had I even known about SAP.  and I grew up near MMI too.  I always thought it was just a private AISA HS that parents sent their kids too when the kids screwed up bad enough.  I got recommendation letters from all 3 of my congress critters but couldnt secure an appointment.  I had to do the whole process on my own, no one, parents/etc to help guide me through the process.  oh well.

SAP has two levels, sponsored and self. Sponsored SAP Cadets are sent there by their respective Academy (all five are represented, USMA, USNA, USAFA, USCGA and USMMA) and received a scholarship to defray costs. The sponsored cadets also are contracted in that should they receive an offer of appointment they must accept it. The Commandant stated they have a 98%+ placement rate with sponsored cadets and even the self kids are above 50%. The Cadre seemed very well represented with former academy instructors and the President, a Marine O-6, was the chair of the selection committee for USNA.

The town is 90% empty and I did not see a J&R but may have missed that. I was impressed with the campus and the program as explained. I did buy some stuff at Fred's, that was a trip.  Tuscaloosa was cool, the fact that I could visit three real gunshops in less than a mile apart was great...I almost cried.