[@Kouki] The one major case in both the show (Maka and Soul turning their backs to find Crona) and the manga is when they actively disobey the order to kill Crona. 

Regardless, DWMA certainly does share some aspects of Military School but it still is a unique enough set up that it can't be compared directly to military school. It's a really weird in between sort of academy. Y'know besides the obvious being supernatural 'n all.

Edit: Which reminds me, when you mentioned ranks. Are we going to try to apply the 1-2-3 Star Meister rankings? SPARTOI were 2 Star Meisters.