ooking for a second chance to get into one of the military service academies? Greystone Preparatory School is ready to help.

Located in Kerrville, Texas, on the campus of Schreiner University, Greystone is a post-high school, college level prep program, specifically designed to assist military academy candidates who were unsuccessful in their previous academy application. It was founded in 2004 with little fanfare, but has since grown into the most successful academy prep program in the country.

In the seven years since first opening its doors, Greystone has admitted 96 students and graduated 85 of them for an 89-percent success rate. Of the 85 graduates, 83 have earned officer-training scholarships and 70 have earned academy appointments.

“The most significant thing, I think, is that each of these students had previously been turned down by an academy,” says retired Navy commander David Bailey, the founder and current director of Greystone. “And, to have 89-percent of those who were turned away from serving their country, keep working at it and eventually succeed—and to do it under our banner—is just great.”

Greystone was first profiled in Journey in 2006 as a new and innovative prep program with excellent leadership and a high ceiling for success. Today it has clearly arrived. Because of the enormous success of Bailey’s program and his graduates, Greystone has been named an accredited foundation preparatory school for the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, and the U. S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs.

Greystone is not just another year of high school, Bailey says. The curriculum consists of an intense one-year program, specifically designed to prepare high school graduates, mentally, physically and ethically for life in a federal academy. But, what really sets Greystone apart from other prep schools is the unique partnership it has developed with Schreiner University. Through this affiliation, Greystone students can earn up to 36 transferrable credit hours per year in calculus, chemistry, English composition, American history and global theories—something that Bailey says no other prep school offers.

Greystone students also undergo military-like physical training, and career and leadership training that closely align with the instruction provided at the five military academies. The classes students take at Greystone are the exact classes that first year academy students take, Bailey says, giving Greystone graduates a significant academic head start on their peers.

“We are not in the business of getting them into the academy,” Bailey says. “We’re in business to give them the skills to get through the academy.”

David Bailey is a current client of First Command Financial Services, Inc.