Hello,

I'm not sure if you're still hanging around, but as no one has given you an answer yet, I thought I'd give it a shot..

There are several options available if you desire to become a pilot.  If you are willing to fly anything, including helicopters, then the options are ever greater; however, I'm going to assume you wish to fly a fighter, so I will only go through those..

As you have indicated, going to the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) is one of the options available to you.  While the USAFA is very competitive, I do believe you could make it if you were determined.  Are you involved with any extracurricular activities in school?  These can be very important; athletics are quite important at the USAFA, so you may consider joining a few school sports.  Other things, such as the Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (JROTC) and having a Prive Pilots License could be quite helpful as well.  You still have a few years left in high school, so if you were determined, you could probably improve greatly; the most important thing is discipline.  Discpline seems quite unattractive, but in actuallity you only need to discpline yourself to achieve the goals which you set for yourself; thus you are determining what happens in your life, and the work you do is done on your volition with the hope of achieve your goal; this is actually quite rewarding..  Anyway, things you may want to consider are sacraficing anything which seems to be getting in the way of your studying: spending time with friends, girlfriends (you'll find out in the end that they're crazy anyway..), or a job.  Concentrate on your work, but don't pressure yourself to do more than you're capable of, or you will just end up quite angry and thus less able to study..  Most importantly, however, is to have confidence in yourself; you will be much happier in your life, and more able to do what it is that you want to do.  If you feel like you're not as physically strong as you could be, you may also consider starting an aggressive, military style work out such as the following: http://www.teenbodybuilding.com/brent2.htm  However, like I said before, don't push yourself too far or you could get hurt.  You must take the ACT or SAT, so try you best to do well on these.  However, it's a bit impractical to actually study for these, so instead try to really learn and remember the things you learn in school, especially math.  Then you have the application process, which involved a congressional sponsorship and an interview, but I don't know much about this, so I won't try to guess at it.

While the USAFA gives you the greatest chance of becoming a pilot, it is also the hardest to get into.  There are several other options to becoming a fighter pilot, though, so you should really consider these as well (in fact, in my opinion, these options may be better)..

You could enlist in the USAF, try to become a crewchief or something comparable, and then try to get commisioned as an officer.

You could also attend any number of colleges and enlist in Air Force ROTC.  This way you are able to attend a variety of colleges and get a degree in whatever you'd like, and then when you graduate (you may have to take the Air Force Officers Qualifying Test) you will be commisioned as an officer into the USAF.  There are, of course, some AFROTC obligations during college, but they're nothing like the obligations you have while at the USAFA.  Moreover, enrolling in the AFROTC  will give you money to help pay for college.

Simliar to this, you could enlist in the Air National Guard.  In the ANG you attend basic training, then an AF technical school to be trained, but following this you are only part time (2 weeks each year and 1 weekend per month).  The ANG committement is 6 years, during which time you can attend college, which the ANG will help pay for.  Following this, you can take the Air Force Officers Qualifying Test (AFOQT), which is like a college level ACT, and then you can become commisioned as an officer.  Then, you can apply to a pilot slot with any ANG unit in the country (of course, you would probably choose to only apply to units which fly the F-15, F-16, or A-10); if you're accepted then you will become a pilot, and serve part time (though part time as a pilot is much more frequent than part time as anything else in the ANG).  Actually, I'm not sure if you have to become an officer to apply for a pilots slot; instead, I think you could just take the AFOQT, then apply for a pilot slot, and if you get  one, attend officer training.  Likewise, you could actually not enlist in the ANG at all, but instead just attend college, take the AFOQT, and still apply for a Pilot Slot.  In this case, however, you would most likely have to be a Certified Flight Instructor, as well has have a degree in aviation or something similar.

The Navy has simliar programs to the AF.  They've got the Naval Academy, Navy ROTC, and enlisted men.  Because of the simliarities, I won't go into detail..

As per your question about your eyesight; don't get surgery at this point.  You can be accepted as a pilot without perfect eyesight, and they will pay for you to get PRK surgery, I believe it is.  For more information on the eye requirements in the USAF and USANG, please refer to their sites FAQ's (airforce.com and  goang.com).

If you've got any further questions, please feel free to email me.