I’m not sure why anyone ever thought it would be?

Other than the naysayers who were looking not to like it and had to be ‘shown otherwise.’

Even Prodigy ended up an ‘all ages’ show.

In this case, despite the idea of an Academy show kicking around since the 1970s, it was fairly clear that no senior network/streamer executive were ever going greenlight it until someone came up with a concept that was more than a college soap in the Star Trek universe.

What I didn’t expect was for the other perennial ‘failed to make it to pilot’ franchise idea of a hospital show also got rolled into it. That’s one that Roddenberry first tried to spin off with M’Benga in the second season of TOS.