program designed to prepare them for the rigors of their Fourth Class year. Each cadet takes two semesters of classes during the school year and then spends the majority of the summer in military training. After four years of study and training, approximately 175 cadets will graduate with a B.S. degree and be commissioned as Ensigns in the United States Coast Guard, to begin serving their five years of obligatory duty. Around 30% of the Corps of Cadets is female.

The roots of the academy lie in the School of Instruction of the Revenue Cutter Service which was started near New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1876, using the Revenue Cutter Dobbin for its exercises. With changes to new training vessels, the school moved to Curtis Bay, Maryland in 1900 and then again in 1910 to Fort Trumbull, a Revolutionary War army installation near New London, Connecticut.

The modern academy dates to the 1915 merger of the Revenue Cutter Service and several other marine services which formed the modern Coast Guard. The town of New London donated its current location above the west bank of the Thames River in 1932. In 1947, the academy received as a war reparation the German barque Horst Wessel, a magnificent 295 foot "tall ship". It was renamed the USCGC Eagle, and it serves as the main training vessel for academy cadets and Officer Candidates.