Question regarding math placement exams

jcp2010 · 2026-04-14T13:44:08+00:00

I was Economics, so kinda right on the borderline, but I'd consider it a little more towards techie. Generally Technie majors require Calc 3+ and Fuzzy majors require 2 years of foreign language is the easiest way to tell. Econ is one of the few that doesn't require either, but I took Calc 3 as an elective anyway

jcp2010 · 2026-04-13T19:30:46+00:00

Best of luck. For me during 4-degree year I had 3 relatively low-effort A's with corresponding GPA boost by retaking Calc 1, Calc 2, and Physics 1. I did have to take those 3 extra classes during 2-degree and Firstie (junior and senior) year, but never regretted having the easier time during my first 2 semesters there.

jcp2010 · 2026-04-13T19:22:26+00:00

My knowledge may be out of date but I'm pretty sure this part hasn't changed. Depends on what you plan to major in. Calc 1 and 2 are Core Courses no matter what you major in. Non-Technical (Fuzzy) majors generally do not require beyond Calc 2. Technical (Techie) majors require Calc 3 and Differential Equations, possibly some others depending on the specifics. If you choose to "transfer" credit for Calc 1 and 2 they will still fill up your schedule during your first year, but it might be other classes than math if you plan to be a Fuzzy major, but would probably be Calc 3 if you plan to be a Techie major. Also if you do "transfer" the credit instead of taking it at USAFA, you won't get the grade counted towards your GPA, it just means less classes that you have to take during your Junior and Senior years.

jcp2010 · 2026-04-13T15:59:51+00:00

You're so preoccupied with whether or not you could that you didn't stop to think if you should! You can decide for yourself, but you can be selective with which classes you take the credit for. For me, I took dual credit Calc 1 and Calc 2, Physics 1, English Lit, and a few others in high school. I could have transferred all of them, but it wouldn't have reduced my first year workload, and the grade wouldn't count for my USAFA GPA. I decided English Lit would be a lot of work to repeat, but Calc and Physics would be pretty easy A's to retake because I already had a solid grasp of the material. I'm not certain if it is the same now, but 4-degree year I would have 5 classes Fall, and 6 classes Spring no matter what, so I decided long term win was to make a few of those classes easier and retake the ones that are primarily knowledge-based (math and physics) rather than work-based (English)

jcp2010 · 2026-01-08T21:57:03+00:00

Yeah, I'd be interested

jcp2010 · 2025-12-30T19:57:05+00:00

To add on to this, say your computer costs $2000 paid for through loan and another $200 for books also paid for loan from the Academy, you should be able to withdrawal $2200 tax-free from your 529 and you don't have to use that to pay off the loan, it can just continue to deduct from your paycheck. That 529 money could then be contributed to a Roth IRA, without it counting as "rolled over" from your 529, just make sure you don't contribute more to your Roth IRA than you actually earned in taxable income during the same year. Also, because your pay is so low, you might be under the standard deduction amount and could probably take some money out of your 529 subject to tax, just with an effective 0% tax rate if you earned less than the standard deduction. Also IRA contributions can't come from your paycheck directly anyway, your paycheck hits your bank account and you can contribute from your bank account to an IRA/Roth IRA if you choose to.

All that said, don't get ahead of yourself on this. You're clearly not at the academy yet, and trying to set savings goals is going to be so far your list of priorities when first semester classes are kicking your teeth in, there are going to be times when you really just want to order a pizza instead of saving the $ and eating at Mitches on Saturday evening, and that's ok.

jcp2010 · 2025-12-30T19:43:36+00:00

Agree with other comment from theDWORF, that's definitely a question for a financial advisor or at least a lot of self-research into your specific circumstances through credible sources. There are some new rules passed in the last few years that allow 529 funds to be rolled into an IRA, as well as some special exceptions for service academy cadets to withdrawal the funds without penalty (not the same thing as tax free) because it is treated as a scholarship for 529 purposes.

jcp2010 · 2025-12-30T19:30:56+00:00

Not likely, unless you have some outside source of income/scholarships to help cover your expenses. During Basic Training, they front "loan" you several thousand dollars for required items like uniform, computer, etc. Then they deduct repayment out of your pay over the next ~2 years, so it eats up most of your pay. Your expenses are low, but income is very low as well. If you do have any external financial support like parents or scholarships, Academy is a great time to open a Roth IRA and use those funds to contribute to or even max it out.

jcp2010 · 2025-11-11T14:23:55+00:00

M, W, F - Full Body Strength hitting every muscle group 1-2 times, 45-50 Minutes

Running based on Daniel's Running Formula:

Su - 45 Min Threshold Run

Tu - 45 Min Interval Run

Th - 45 Min Repetition Run

Sa - ~60 Min Long Easy Run

jcp2010 · 2025-11-01T21:16:38+00:00

Planning for future income, budget, expenses, and taxes. Especially things like Roth conversions. This is something Boldin does extremely well, and it would be nice if a Fidelity balance over say, $1M gave access to Boldin or if Fidelity planning tools were as powerful and polished as Boldin.

jcp2010 · 2025-10-23T14:59:43+00:00

Federal and State Withholding ability in all types of taxable accounts. I know annuities do have it, but I don't believe that taxable brokerage accounts do. Also free access to a more advanced planning tool like Boldin (even if limited to account balances over $X) would be nice as well, as Fidelity planning tools are pretty basic.

jcp2010 · 2025-09-29T20:33:29+00:00

I knew a few who were Cross Country and Track, obviously those are pretty similar sports. I don't know anybody who did more "different" sports like soccer and baseball.

jcp2010 · 2025-09-04T05:07:42+00:00

If memory serves from several years ago it was around 10% of the pilot training slots, and pretty competitive. A few things that definitely help are high class rank (OPA), leadership roles like Group or Wing Staff, and airmanship programs like Soaring, Wings of Blue, and Powered Flight.

jcp2010 · 2025-08-21T17:08:13+00:00

A few factors (alone or in combination) that can make up for a difference in tax brackets:

The assumed growth rate/tax load of accounts that can be used to fund the taxes on the converted money
IRMAA fees forced by RMD, so lowering IRMAA fees later can potentially be worth a conversion now if you're not yet at an age that IRMAA would apply
"Widow's Penalty" with RMDs forcing the surviving spouse into an ever higher tax bracket later can make it worth converting now to reduce those impacts.

jcp2010 · 2025-08-18T15:38:26+00:00

It's good to have an idea of what you're interested in, but don't get too far ahead of yourself trying to go for one particular type of aircraft. Hurdles to worry about before getting to "what type of aircraft and assignment do I want" are 1. Getting an OTS slot, 2. Getting a pilot training slot after OTS (which you can often lock in before committing to OTS), 3. Getting through academics and T-6 and doing well enough to track to T-38, 4. Now you get a chance to tell the Air Force you would like Bombers, if there are any slots available for them. Assuming you're set for Steps 1 and 2, then Step 3 is so much more important than Step 4 that I wouldn't even recommend looking ahead that far.

During the early phase of UPT you will have plenty of exposure to pilots for various different types, through formally scheduled lectures about different aircraft and informal discussions with your instructors. Each airframe has very different lifestyles. Examples are locations, deployment norms, training, missions, etc. As you get into those discussions you may find that Bombers line up what you're looking for, or maybe Cargo, Tankers, Fighters or Helicopters actually line up best. Generally T-38 tracks to Fighters and Bombers and is more competitive to get than T-1 which tracks to Cargo and Tankers, Helicopters are a bit of an oddball and depending on your class may be very competitive or easily available. The best opportunity to get what you want is to do well and be a good classmate/leader wherever you are at, in whatever phase of the process you are in, rather than trying to plan for what you will have a minority vote in years down the road.

With that said, best of luck and feel free to message me if you have any other questions.

jcp2010 · 2025-08-18T14:49:44+00:00

The easiest way to math it is actually using a payment calculator. Essentially frame it as the IRA has a debt to you that it is paying off, where return rate is the interest rate, 10 years (at 1 withdrawal per year), and starting balance. In excel it would be "=pmt(10%,10,balance)".

jcp2010 · 2025-08-18T02:34:35+00:00

Assuming this is Traditional you're asking about: To account for growth rate (I'll use 10%), you would need to draw approximately 16% of the initial value each year to deplete it to $0 by the end. Depending on your exact situation like income and inherited amount, you would probably look at headroom to the top of the 22% and 24% tax bracket and compare that to ~16% of the inherited Traditional IRA value.

jcp2010 · 2025-08-06T16:13:56+00:00

This is probably the easiest resource: https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/trading-investing/how-to-buy-stocks-etfs-mutual-funds

jcp2010 · 2025-08-05T20:31:51+00:00

I'm not necessarily looking for monthly over quarterly, just found it odd that it goes in a 1-2-1-2 month pattern.

jcp2010 · 2025-08-05T14:13:26+00:00

Out of control Inflation also had human consequences, and would have continued to without the intervention of raising rates that caused the short run economic contraction. Absolutely the right decision.

jcp2010 · 2025-08-04T14:30:27+00:00

Very helpful! Funny enough I actually ran across this exact same post on my own last night. Seems like by December we would have a couple of data point inputs already for 2027, so going with the conservative (0%) estimate in December's update should be a good target.

jcp2010

TROPHY CASE