Hi,
I’m currently getting recruited by Columbia University for volleyball. I am a legacy so I think that gives me a leg up however Columbia has not seen my transcript yet and I received a D my sophomore year in a math honors class. My weighted gpa right now is a 3.7 and my unweighted is a 3.1 however I’m planning on at least getting an unweighted 3.2 gpa my junior year. Do you think my transcript will restrict me from getting a likely letter or them even wanting me? Does being a legacy recruit help with admissions at all?
I also retook that math class over the summer and received an A
Our experience is that being a legacy may help with admissions, however, my son just went through recruiting and being a legacy didn’t seem to pull any weight with the coaches at the schools that my husband and I attended. That surprised us. We had donated money to both schools for years but that apparently didn’t mean anything to the coaches. It might have been different if we had been donating money to the team/athletic department instead. In the end, my son was accepted to a school with which we had no prior connection at all. Maybe that is just as well.
I should clarify that my son was actually recruited by the coaches at our alma maters but we did not feel that his being a legacy mattered to them.
A lot will hinge on your SAT/ACT scores
In my limited experience, if someone is being recruited by an Ivy, one of the very first things that happens in the process is that the coach requests information about grades and test results. The reason is that coaches do not want to waste time on prospects who are unlikely to make it through the admissions process. Makes sense, right?
So if this information has been requested and provided, and the coach is still in touch, that means the prospect is still in the game from an academic perspective. If this information has not been requested, that is not a good sign about the level of the coach’s interest about the prospect’s athletic ability.
There is definitely a legacy advantage or tip in admissions at the Ivies. However, I have not seen a legacy advantage or tip in athletic recruiting. In other words I do not think a coach would allocate a slot to a legacy prospect instead of a non-legacy prospect who the coach rates more highly.
If anything, it might work the other way. If the coach thinks legacy status might work to get the prospect in on their own, the coach might think about saving a slot for someone else and having the legacy prospect walk on.
Do you think my gpa/grades are too low though? They have requested to see my transcript after this semester so I’m sending it to them next week.
I don’t know. AI is a dynamic factor, except for the floor of, what, 176 now? The adequacy of your AI depends on the AI of other teammates/recruits, the AI of other athletes in other sports and the AI of the entire school.
Besides, as another poster has pointed out, we do not know your test scores, which are a major component of AI.
If the coaches keep in touch after they see the transcript you will be sending in, you are probably ok. If communication drops off, that is probably a contrary indicator.
Are you class of 2016 or 2017?
Unweighted 3.1 and a D in a course makes admission highly unlikely.
Volleyball isn’t football, you’ll have to be higher than the 170 floor. Prob around 200-205 minimum (but that’s just a guess since it varies by sport and school).
Not sure even a 2400/36 would get you there.
And the D is also an independent deal killer at ivy.
A question about the index. How do SAT II’s get used? I think D’s subject test scores will end up relatively stronger than the regular SAT, due to some math difficulty.
If you search the web for academic index calculator there are some good tools out there to estimate AI, including the one at Tier One athletics.
@thegfg, the general formula is lowest GPA appearing on transcript 1/3, SAT or ACT 1/3 and 2 SATIIs (if used)1/3.
In my family’s experience the use of SATIIs both for admission purposes and for AI/pre read purposes will vary from school to school. Some schools (Penn sticks out in my mind) said they would only use the SATIIs if they would help a particular recruit. Other schools (Princeton) required that the SATIIs be taken, submitted as part of the pre read and used in the AI calculation. That may have changed now as I believe Princeton no longer requires SATIIs for admission.
In any event, if the school does not use the SATIIs, then the SAT/ACT results are counted as 2/3 of the AI calculation.
The Tier 1 AI calculator ended up coming up with an AI that was close to what Ivies calculated for us.
Not exact, but within a point or two.
Just an FYI, the new SAT format comes into play this spring, which means going back to the old 1600 point scale. I have a pretty good idea how that will be used in the calculation but have an email in to verify. I’ll present that as an option as soon as I can.
Yes, I know about those calculators and have used them to get a ballpark figure. However, one college implied they can replace SAT I scores with SAT II if those are better. Does anyone know if that’s true?
That’s not true at the Ivies.
The best some of them will do is add the SATII into the equation if it will help.
But the SAT I will never be ignored, and will always carry a lot of weight.
needscaffeine, the fact that your offspring is a legacy should not impact at all on the coach but will on admissions. In other words, if the coach wants a student, then that student will probably have a better chance for being acceptable to adcons if the student is a legacy. But being a legacy would not sway the coach. The coach is concerned only with winning and then with satisfying the admissions requirement.
Sorry-had not read subsequent posts saying the same thing.
Sorry also. Some of you must have posted as I was writing.
@TheGFG , I know you’ve been down this road before so I’m probably not saying something that you don’t already know, but the AI is really an internal tool to ensure coaches are in compliance with their recruiting. That number is calculated using the SAT or ACT(1/3), GPA(1/3) and SAT2(1/3) if available. A coach really isn’t going to be able to cherrypick which scores he wants to use when they compile the team-wide AI.
As you know, the recruit’s application is evaluated by admissions and they’re going to be looking at the whole package. If her SAT math is a little soft, but she has strong subject tests - maybe that will help offset that.
When a coach is looking at how her scores will impact the team AI, bear in mind that the SAT is only 1/3 of the AI calculation of which the math component is 1/2. So for example, if she has straight 700’s in 3 sections of the SAT and 2 SATii tests, there would only be a 5 point AI difference if she had all 700’s except a 600 in math. In other words, a 100 point difference in her SAT math would only mean a 5 pt. AI drop. Not saying that’s insignificant, but would probably be easy enough for a coach to offset if her athletics made her a high value recruit.