S1 E18 - Coming of Age

[Mojochi]

If I remember rightly, they go out of their way to make clear that the other 3 are normal entrants and only Wesley is an early admission.

Well, they do make a point of having the Vulcan candidate mention that Wes doesn't look like he meets the age requirement (& he's not yet 16 at the time)

If we assume a realistic minimum serving age of 18, there's still a slim window to suggest that the other 3 might be still be under that but slightly older than him, & still in an early entrance program. I didn't see anything to mention the other 3's ages. So, it's a slim ledge on which to build a head canon, but it does kind of help the canon along some

 

[Swedish Borg]

Today in "things that have right got on my tits" - anyone else consider the system for gaining a place in the academy, as shown in the episode, to be completely batshit insane?

You have 4 of ostensibly the finest minds there and 3 get cut? Presuming that there are similar tests carried out elsewhere then surely it is possible that the winner of a heat somewhere else would be below the standard of 2nd place here.

Also, the numbers don't work for me - to train sufficient cadets to staff the ships of the fleet they must surely be allowing many, many more people than implied in to the academy.

If this was sold as being a special entrance where you skipped a year or were selected for Red Squad or something that might stack up but I'm not having any of this bull as presented in the episode.

Yes, this is just as stupid as Crusher getting a field promotion of full ensign (not acting ensign mind you!!) only to be demoted back to cadet upon his admission to the academy.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

i think part of this also goes back to the question of just how big an organization Starfleet is - the Earth campus of Starfleet Academy and Utopia Planitia over Mars have often been framed as THE Academy/shipyards respectively for Starfleet, rather than necessarily being prestigious historical places, which... I mean, take a look at any given fleet screencap from the Dominion War. You’re telling me that all those ships, ranging in crews from a couple hundred (Reliant class) to upwards of a thousand (Galaxy class) and everywhere in between, were all built in orbit of Mars and crewed by people who went to that one campus in California in Earth?

But season one portrayed a different view of Starfleet, where it was a small enough organization that everyone on the Enterprise knew people on ships who’d be nearby. So... yeah, that’s why I’m comfortable just calling Relva’s test some kind of AP test that would give aspiring cadets a chance to get in sooner, maybe take some advanced courses that mark them as deserving a spot on the more prestigious ships, like a pipeline to the Enterprise after making it through the Academy, or a jump past Ensign in rank right off.

 

[Swedish Borg]

i think part of this also goes back to the question of just how big an organization Starfleet is - the Earth campus of Starfleet Academy and Utopia Planitia over Mars have often been framed as THE Academy/shipyards respectively for Starfleet, rather than necessarily being prestigious historical places, which... I mean, take a look at any given fleet screencap from the Dominion War. You’re telling me that all those ships, ranging in crews from a couple hundred (Reliant class) to upwards of a thousand (Galaxy class) and everywhere in between, were all built in orbit of Mars and crewed by people who went to that one campus in California in Earth?

But season one portrayed a different view of Starfleet, where it was a small enough organization that everyone on the Enterprise knew people on ships who’d be nearby. So... yeah, that’s why I’m comfortable just calling Relva’s test some kind of AP test that would give aspiring cadets a chance to get in sooner, maybe take some advanced courses that mark them as deserving a spot on the more prestigious ships, like a pipeline to the Enterprise after making it through the Academy, or a jump past Ensign in rank right off.

Maybe not the best of ideas. Look at what happened to "Red Squad".