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Originally Posted by evan11235 1of42, I think you should stop trying to shove it in everyone's face that you got into Caltech. |
You may think that; however, I'm not shoving it in people's faces, I'm using it to demonstrate the point that I have seen firsthand the empirical results of what dontno is proposing, and they look very, very different (in a negative way) than the kind of admissions he is against. If you consider that shoving it in faces, fine; that is your opinion, and you are welcome to it - though I will ignore it.
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Originally Posted by Evan11235 Of course anyone non-athletic is biased against athletics being as major of a role in the admission process as more academically based attributes, but you, as the parent of an athletic child, are just as biased in the opposite opinion. Just as it's not fair for dontno to proclaim things as fact, it's not fair for you to do the same. I believe, and I think that I have to use that qualifier for fear of you starting to yell at me, that while athletics certainly add to the color and culture of a university, academics are the purpose of their existence. It is not required that everyone join a sport or a club at a university, but it is required that they take classes. While life lessons can be learned on the field, they can also be learned off the field. Just as one can learn to be a team player in a team sport, he or she can learn teamwork in doing a group project. A person can learn the same life lessons off the field as on, making athletics replaceable as learning tools. There is no way for athletics to provide the academic education that can be provided in the classroom. |
You make the presumption here that I am biased towards athletics because I am an athlete (or, though you have been corrected, the parent of an athlete). This is not the case. I was not recruited for anything. I have since walked on and play on a team at Princeton, but it played no part in my admission. So I really have no bone in this game - or, going from your assumption, should be arguing against athletic recruitment.
The fact is this: at universities, there are going to be people who take extra-curricular pursuits more seriously than academics. At every university, there are a lot. This is not viewed by the schools or admissions officers as some kind of errancy to be corrected; no, indeed, it is prized highly. That is because the campus life at Princeton is so diverse precisely
because of the many people in the student body who are more focused on pursuits outside their classes.
Whether you think that is the way it should be or not, that is the choice: between a vibrant campus life including a number of students of widely variant pursuits, or a monochromatic campus composed of academic drones (yes, this is an exaggeration, but it is relatively close to the truth). Princeton has, clearly, chosen the former. You may disagree with that decision. If you do, there is at least one university in America, and certainly a number in developing countries (Indian and Chinese universities, in particular) where nothing but academics is taken into account. Why not attend there? The answer, of course, is that in spite of all the grousing about the shortcomings of recruitment, a lot of people would still like to get into Princeton and cannot, and so find a convenient scapegoat in athletes who "stole their place". What a shame.
At the core of it, is that this argument is entirely founded on the jealousy surrounding the idea that a recruited athlete is "taking someone else's spot", where that someone else is more deserving. Not only is that not true (it is not necessarily true that each recruit be taking a spot away from someone else), the idea that academics be the primary criterion to the exclusion of all others is unsubstantiated by everyone who has posted in favor of it on this thread. I do not agree, and Princeton does not agree.
Each person is a being of many talents and shortcomings, and are evaluated as a whole. If you wish to contend that certain people individually are less deserving than others, that is your choice, but I'm not going to argue that issue because it's not my place nor choice to defend Princeton admissions officers' individual choices. If you have a problem with someone they admitted, take it up with them. I am not interested in arguing banal stereotypes with you, so I'm not going to sit here listening to everyone pontificate about what they think they know about athletic recruitment.
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