Thousands of Sailors take the advancement exam twice a year and await the results of those exams twice a year. The results of these exams determine their careers, and thus their intentions. While many Sailors will advance, unfortunately, some will not.

The most important thing for Sailors that did not advance this cycle to understand is why they did not advance, and what areas they can strengthen for the next cycle.

Every Sailor that took an exam will have a profile sheet that they can review.

"A profile sheet is a snapshot of the exam," said Personnel Specialist 1st Class Gilberto Vaz, a member of the Nimitz-Class aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) educational services office (ESO). "It is a breakdown of your score on the exam. It has your performance mark average (PMA), your passed-not-advanced (PNA) points, your standard score, your time in rate and how well you did on various sections on your exam."

Your PMA uses only the Promotion Recommendation block (Block 45) from evaluations in the current paygrade. For E4, your ESO uses evaluations from the past eight to nine months. For E5, the past 14 to 15 months are used, and E6, the past 36 months. Block 45 marks are added together and then divided by the number of evaluations used in the computation.

"An 'EP' (early promote) evaluation gives you a 4.0, a 'MP' (must promote) evaluation gives a 3.8 and a 'P'(promote) evaluation gives a 3.6," said Personnel Specialist Seaman Apprentice Langston Hooper. "With a 'SP' (significant problems) evaluation, you wouldn't be able to take the exam, so with that, you can determine what your PMA is yourself and make sure that it is correct."

Evaluations are important, but the standard score is weighted more for junior Sailors. The standard score is the score from the examination itself.

"For Sailors taking the second or third class exam, if they score well enough, they can advance even with a 'P' evaluation," said Vaz. "For the first class exam however, their PMA will have a much larger influence on whether or not they will advance."

Although one may pass the exam, that does not necessarily mean a Sailor will advance to the next paygrade. You will fall under one of three areas: selectee, pass not advance, or fail.

Selectee means that the Sailor passed the exam and will be promoted. Pass not advance (PNA) means that a Sailor passed the exam, but did not end up with a high enough final multiple score (FMS) to advance. Fail means the Sailor failed this cycle's advancement examination.

For Sailors with pass not advance, if they scored well enough, they can get PNA points. Sailors will be able to get a maximum of three PNA for each cycle. They can get a maximum of 1.5 PNA points from scoring well and another 1.5 PNA points from having a high PMA.

"That's why it's important to be able to read your profile sheet," said Vaz. "We all make mistakes and you wouldn't want to miss advancing because of a mistake. Some people will have incorrect information on their profile sheet such as a wrong PMA because the Sailor bubbled in the wrong information, we took in the wrong evaluation, or they just didn't give us the evaluation. If they knew how to read it, they would be able to spot potential incorrect information and tell us so we can correct it."

Sailors who find discrepancies in their profile sheet can go to the ESO department to fix them. These discrepancies can include their PMA, their PNA points, education points, or award points.

"We can't change the standard score from the test, but we can fix your PMA and award points," said Vaz. "We don't deal with the education points either but if you bring in supporting documents such as a transcript or award letters, we can send a correction letter and get it changed."

Having a clear understanding of one's profile sheet is a vital step in ensuring all possible points are awarded.

"Being able to read your PMA and award points will be the most important part of understanding your profile sheet," said Vaz. "As long as you can read those two and potentially get some additional points, you should be good to go."

Profile sheets also show how well you scored in certain sections pertaining to your rating. Sailors are able to tailor a custom study program for themselves to study what topic or section they scored lowest on based on the information from the profile sheet.

You can find your profile sheet by logging into NSIPS at https://nsipsprod.nmci.navy.mil/nsipsclo/jsp/index.jsp. In the Training, Education and Qualifications tab, click on "View Training, Education and Qualifications." Click on "Exam Profile Data."


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