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JoeTrumpet · 05-04-2008, 10:14 PM

I don't mind if athletic ability is a consideration for an applicant, but sometimes it seems to go a little far. I've heard of students at these universities who do not quite speak the most intelligible English talking about how they were recruited even though they had a 2.x GPA and other unimpressive stats.

@ dontno: Though I agree to a large extent with what you say, I just want to speak in defense for a moment about the student with 1100 SATs who attended a bad school: I am strongly against standardized exams, and I also think it's very important for a school to look at what a student has accomplished within the scope of what their school has to offer. It's really not fair if someone didn't have the appropriate education at the secondary level, and if they're showing that they have clearly surpassed what their school has to offer then they should of course be a serious consideration. This student may very well be a terrible applicant, but I don't think we can know that from his school and his SAT score alone: these are of the least consideration. Rigor of transcript, GPA, and the more discrete letters of recommendation and essays can tell a very different story. You may very well be right that this athlete didn't deserve to get in, but I just wanted to point out that there are probably some people that come from poor backgrounds who have achieved surprisingly well academically given their situation and played sports well enough to give them that final push.

But yeah, if the admissions council has doubts that a student can succeed in an Ivy environment, I think that's really pushing it, especially when I hear that some of these kids have to have a little bit of academic hand-holding throughout their years at the Ivies. It's the students who simply can't cut it at Princeton academically that I feel shouldn't be there, regardless of their athletic ability. If someone can do well academically and has achieved extraordinarily well in athletic ability, I think they should be given as strong consideration as the student who took the initiative to open a business or the musician. But to get in purely on athletic ability and nothing else is going too far.

To feign on-topic posting, I'll add that I also turned down Cornell and the University of Florida (those are all the schools I applied to), but they're far, far from the same level as the University of Chicago and Princeton in my eyes.

05-04-2008, 10:14 PM	#19
JoeTrumpet Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Threads: 3 Posts: 195	I don't mind if athletic ability is a consideration for an applicant, but sometimes it seems to go a little far. I've heard of students at these universities who do not quite speak the most intelligible English talking about how they were recruited even though they had a 2.x GPA and other unimpressive stats. @ dontno: Though I agree to a large extent with what you say, I just want to speak in defense for a moment about the student with 1100 SATs who attended a bad school: I am strongly against standardized exams, and I also think it's very important for a school to look at what a student has accomplished within the scope of what their school has to offer. It's really not fair if someone didn't have the appropriate education at the secondary level, and if they're showing that they have clearly surpassed what their school has to offer then they should of course be a serious consideration. This student may very well be a terrible applicant, but I don't think we can know that from his school and his SAT score alone: these are of the least consideration. Rigor of transcript, GPA, and the more discrete letters of recommendation and essays can tell a very different story. You may very well be right that this athlete didn't deserve to get in, but I just wanted to point out that there are probably some people that come from poor backgrounds who have achieved surprisingly well academically given their situation and played sports well enough to give them that final push. But yeah, if the admissions council has doubts that a student can succeed in an Ivy environment, I think that's really pushing it, especially when I hear that some of these kids have to have a little bit of academic hand-holding throughout their years at the Ivies. It's the students who simply can't cut it at Princeton academically that I feel shouldn't be there, regardless of their athletic ability. If someone can do well academically and has achieved extraordinarily well in athletic ability, I think they should be given as strong consideration as the student who took the initiative to open a business or the musician. But to get in purely on athletic ability and nothing else is going too far. To feign on-topic posting, I'll add that I also turned down Cornell and the University of Florida (those are all the schools I applied to), but they're far, far from the same level as the University of Chicago and Princeton in my eyes.