What you are referring to was NFAS policy back in the day, not the conventional A' School policy that DR is referring to. The policy was actually 2.75 or higher to go to NNPS, 2.5 to 2.74 you got your thrid class crow and were sent to the fleet as a conventional. Want to know how I know this???
Young FN Gamecock had a 2.70 heading into the NFAS comp. I think I needed something on the order of 3.05 to get my 2.75 and move on to NNPS. I made a 3.12 and survived NFAS. I did significantly better at NNPS and then NPTU.
Correct sir, about the correcting my ET"A" School requirements when conducted at Great Lakes!
Also correct (with a few caveats) for 2.5 to 2.74 as passed NFAS, but do not cross the sidewalk to NNPS.
Once upon a time there were three little bears. The MM bear, the EM bear, and the ET bear. In order for the three bears to graduate NFAS, they had to score a 2.5 or above. Those bears who scored 2.5 would move over to their new cave at NNPS. All the other bears were slaughtered and their pelts auctioned off on eBay.
Then one day, it was realized that just because a bear may pass NFAS that it wasn't a good predictor that they might be able to go on to NNPS and pass; their failure rate there was astronomical! So, the
stuff ran down hill and it was determined that the poor success rate at NNPS was the fault of NFAS sending misfit bears. NFAS was told to raise the score needed to graduate (notice that the "F" word [filter] was not used). But, NFAS said that it wasn't fair to the bears to not let them graduate from NFAS after all their training. Moreover that even though they might not be a nuc, they would make a fine
conventional bear; so, we would not
punish them for their "hard" work that fell a wee short.
With this in mind, "they" looked at the history of all the bears from the past to see what the lowest average graduating score was from NFAS that had 100% graduating from NNPS later. This was not analogous to a filter found in fluid systems, but it was a modified choke in a shotgun.
"They" found that not all bears were created equal; the lowest average graduating NFAS score depended on whether a bear was an EM, ET, or MM bear. For lack of a photographic memory, the best I remember was that an MM bear needed to average about a 3.3 at NFAS to show that it would graduate NNPS 100% of the time; an EM bear was about a 3.13; and an ET bear needed a 2.75. The theory behind the wide range was that the longer a bear was at NFAS, the better the study habits and test taking wiseness became that were vital for success at NNPS.
So, the scale was changed at NFAS so that all the bears with an average greater than a 2.5 would graduate and so that those bears with a score of 2.75 and above would move to the NNPS cave, whether an EM bear, MM bear, or ET bear (remember, we were not a filter).
Low and behold more bears graduated NNPS and NFAS with the change. For NFAS it was probably due to the "Gap Theory" posted elsewhere, which reduced the number of bears that went to slaughter. This increased the overall profits from eBay with the market not saturated with pelts............it never ends.