Skip to main content
HonestMOS
●InvestigationsHow EUCOM shelved a tax break for 9,000 troops in Poland — for five years.→
Tools · USCG Servicewide Exam · Promotion Reality Index

How deep did the list go in your rating?

After every Servicewide Exam, the Coast Guard advances people in order off the eligibility list until the billets are full — then publishes exactly how far it got, rating by rating. Type yours to see this year’s cutoff and the multi-year trend. Higher number = the list went deeper = more of you advanced. Latest verified exam: May 2023.

Showing the latest verified exam — May 2023 (E-6 / PO1 and E-7 / CPO cutoffs). Tap a rating for every grade and the full trend.

RatingPO1 (E6)CPO (E7)

Latest source: ALCGENL 184/23, May 2023 Servicewide Exam cutoffs. Every number transcribed from the official PPC message; member names stripped. Legend: SL = everyone eligible advanced; EXH = list exhausted, still short.

Which ratings tightened — and which opened up

E-6 (PO1) · May 2018 – May 2023 · 21 ratings tracked

Got harder to make PO1

Cutoff fell the most — fewer advanced.

  1. BM1-72 (148→76)

Opened up to PO1

Cutoff rose the most — the list went deeper.

  1. IS1+31 (3→34)
  2. AET1+28 (2→30)
  3. AMT1+23 (2→25)
  4. ET1+23 (9→32)
  5. EM1+22 (27→49)
  6. MST1+17 (8→25)

Got harder to make CPO

E-7 cutoff fell the most over the window.

  1. BMC-45 (96→51)
  2. MKC-37 (72→35)
  3. EMC-23 (43→20)
  4. CSC-13 (18→5)

Everyone eligible advanced

Latest exam reached the supplemental list (PO2/E5).

  1. BM2SL
  2. CS2SL
  3. DC2SL
  4. EM2SL
  5. ET2SL
  6. IT2SL

Reading note: the Coast Guard cutoff is list depth, so it runs opposite to a points score — a falling cutoff means advancement got harder. “Got harder/easier” compares each rating’s first and most-recent real cutoff across May 2018–May 2023, requires at least four terms of presence, and treats a move under 12 as flat. We don’t rank ratings against each other on raw cutoffs — without each rating’s eligible-pool size, that comparison isn’t honest. SL (supplemental list) and exhausted lists are treated as the maximum-opportunity state, not a number.

Verify it yourself

Every term links its own official ALCGENL message inside the trend view above. The publisher:

Coast Guard PPC — Pay & Personnel News (ALCGENL cutoff messages)

9 exam terms loaded. Member names are stripped on ingest — only the rating, grade, and cutoff number are kept (aggregate data, not anyone’s record).

Frequently asked

What is a Coast Guard advancement cutoff?
After each Servicewide Exam (SWE), PPC publishes — per rating and paygrade — the advancement-sequence number of the last member who advanced. It is not an exam score; it is how far down the eligibility list the Coast Guard reached. A higher cutoff means the list went deeper, so more people advanced (more opportunity). A lower cutoff means fewer advanced (more competitive). The numbers come straight from the official ALCGENL message.
What do SL and “exhausted” mean?
SL means the Supplemental List was reached — everyone on the eligibility list, plus the supplemental list, advanced. In practice: everyone eligible in that rating and grade made it. “Exhausted” means the list ran out and the Coast Guard still had billets to fill — maximum demand. Both are the easiest possible state to advance in.
Can I compare cutoffs between two different ratings?
Carefully. A cutoff of 100 in a large rating and 10 in a small one are not directly comparable, because the messages do not publish how many people were eligible in each rating. What IS reliable is each rating’s own trend over time — comparing a rating to itself across exams cancels out the size difference. That is why this tool leads with per-rating trends, not a cross-rating ranking.
How current is this, and where does it come from?
Every term here is transcribed from the official Coast Guard PPC ALCGENL Servicewide-Exam cutoff message, retrieved from the public DHS/Coast Guard GovDelivery mirror, with member names removed. The current window runs from the May 2018 exam through the May 2023 exam (nine terms). More recent terms are published on a Coast Guard site that blocks automated retrieval; we add them as we can verify them — and never estimate the ones we cannot.
Related
Promotion Reality Index — every branchArmy Promotion Cutoff Tracker (by MOS)
Published by the Honest MOS Editorial DeskVerified against DoD/.gov sourcesUpdated May 2026Editorial standards