2-High Quality

One impact of the defense drawdown is the Services' redesign of a number of career fields with incumbents assuming a more diverse workload and greater responsibilities. [1] The redesign both increases the number of tasks assigned to an individual, and requires incumbents to perform new tasks of greater complexity.The Services believe that as the levels of job/task difficulty and importance increase, so will the need to bring in and retain greater proportions of individuals with above-average aptitude.The Services define high-quality recruits as high school diploma graduates who score in the top 50 percent on the AFQT, Categories I through IIIA.Figure 2.9 shows the trends in the proportion of high-quality accessions since FY 1973.In FY 1999, the percentage of high-quality recruits ranged from 52 percent in the Army to 72 percent in the Air Force.

Table 2.8.AFQT Scores of FY 1999 Active Component NPS Accessions, by Gender and Service (Percent)
AFQT Category¹	Army	Navy	Marine Corps	Air Force	DoD
MALES
I	4.0	4.5	3.1	5.2	4.2
II	30.5	34.1	33.3	44.1	34.3
IIIA	27.9	26.9	27.2	28.6	27.6
IIIB	35.3	34.5	35.4	21.9	32.9
IV	2.3	0.0	1.0	0.2	1.1
V	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
FEMALES
I	2.6	2.5	2.9	2.6	2.6
II	29.2	30.7	33.4	35.3	31.5
IIIA	33.2	28.9	31.7	32.8	31.8
IIIB	34.3	37.9	31.7	29.2	33.8
IV	0.7	0.0	0.3	0.1	0.3
V	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
Columns may not add to total due to rounding. ¹ Service data from OASD(FMP)(MPP)/Accession Policy have been reviewed and updated by the Services for official submission.Data presented in this table may differ slightly from the data shown in appendix tables that are taken from DMDC's USMEPCOM Edit File.Also see Appendix Tables B-5 (AFQT by Service and Gender) and B-6 (AFQT by Service and Race/Ethnicity). Source: Service data from OASD(FMP)(MPP)/Accession Policy—submitted in accordance with DoD Instruction 7730.56.The 1980 civilian comparison group distribution for the total population (males and females) is 7 percent in Category I, 28 percent in Category II, 15 percent in Category IIIA, 19 percent in Category IIIB, 21 percent in Category IV, and 10 percent in Category V.Civilian data from Profile of American Youth (Washington, DC: Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense [Manpower, Reserve Affairs, and Logistics], March 1982).

Figure 2.9.Percentage of high-quality NPS accessions, FYs 1973–1999.

[1] See Sellman, W.S., Since We Are Reinventing Everything Else, Why Not Occupational Analysis? Keynote address to the 9th Occupational Analyst Workshop, San Antonio, TX, May 31–June 2, 1995.