<p>Just to clarify a few of the numbers that have been posted above that are a little off.<br>
1)The NESCAC has a roster limit of 75 for football. The top programs (Williams and Amherst) have had to cut some kids in recent years–not a fun thing. Other programs are under the roster-size limit without having to resort to cuts.
2)The NESCAC permits each school to admit 14 “slotted” students per year for football. They are slotted for “athletic factors”. These students are typically not at the academic level of achievement of the incoming first year class, but they’re not dopes either. However, they are stand-out football players and if it weren’t for the “athletic factors”, they would probably not be admitted. As one Head Coach put it, “the lower your GPA and SAT’s, the more you will cost me to admissions, so the more of an impact player you have to be”. I think the term most NESCAC coaches use for these 14 admits are “slots”. At a top LAC, a real impact slotted football player is still going to have around 1200 SAT’s and be in the top 25% of his class. Most of the slotted players are more distinguished academically than that even if they are a standard deviation or 2 away from the incoming class mean.
3)A school like Williams or Amherst will also recruit and help with admissions an additional 10-12 prospects. These are “tips”. Their level of academic achievement is typical of the rest of the incoming first year class, and they are good at football. Were it not for football, though, they would stand a good chance of not getting that offer of admission–after all, there are valedictorians and perfect-SAT-scorers routinely rejected by these top schools. Amherst accepts about 15% of applicants, but 80% of applicants can do the work there (including the “slotted” players described above) and 50% of those rejected are probably statistically no different than the ones who are offered admission. So for these “tips”, football is the thing that gets them in. They have 1450+ SAT’s, top 5% of class, leadership extracurriculars, AND they are really good football players.</p>