article 'The Mad, Mad World of Niche Sports Among Ivy League–Obsessed Parents'

[arbitrary99]

@politeperson

@BKSquared I think you mean non headcount sports, correct? If so, I totally agree and that’s why Ivies are a great option in track, where limited scholarship money is often spread thinly (especially for guys).

On the Ivy track athlete issue, I took a look at the Harvard and Princeton incoming classes. Several 2:10, a few sub 4:50 women, a couple top 15 Foot Locker finalists, a 4:05 miler, and several guys close to 9:00, just for starters. I don’t know any of these athletes but no question they had interest from good distance programs (and have better marks than kids I do know currently competing for top 10 programs).

This is not an atypical recruiting year. If anything, past years have been stronger on paper (given that this incoming class did not post senior marks). So I guess if these are what people are saying are the exceptions, then maybe we all agree. But it’s just flat out wrong to say that an Ivy distance runner getting recruiting interest from another strong D1 distance program is the “rare exception”.

I was focused on distance but notice that Princeton has the PAC 12 PV champ coming in as a transfer from UCLA.

Princeton and Harvard are the strongest of the Ivy track programs.
Stanford is weaker than USC in short track events, but here are their walk on (not admissions preference and may not even be allowed to join the team) and scholarship standards. (Oops, can’t paste it in. The scholarship rimes listed are full scholarship. They have partial scholarships which are times between the two but they are scholarship limited. )

Men’s 800 1:49.5 scholarship; 1:53 walk on

Women’s 800. 2:05 scholarship 2:11 walk on

Men’s 1600(not 1500). 4:04. 4:11

Women’s 1600 (not 1500). 4:40. 4:53

Men’s 3200. 8:47. 9:07

Women’s 3200. 10:00. 10:30

Men’s 5,000. 14:28. 15:05.

As for XC, it’s pretty common for Stanford to take the winner of Foot Locker. And the state XC champions.

So you can see there is a huge gap. that shouldn’t be surprising. By the way, all these athletes are incredible. The Ivy’s are very very strong. However, they generally will not get the elite D1 athletes. And Stanford is just as competitive academically as Harvard or Princeton of course.