Athlete recruitment...

TheGFG
Wed, 02 Feb 2011 23:43:23 +0000

19 football recruits each year x 4 (for each class) = 76. Add on a few fifth-year seniors too. So even with attrition and injury reducing that number, that still leaves enough players to field a team.

My daughter is a freshman on a Stanford team. Every one of her fellow freshman teammates was recruited, as in they all came on an official visit there. Based on Stack rankings and the Director’s Cup, Stanford athletics are the best in the country. The competitive level is much too high level for walk-ons to have a realistic shot at contributing to a team. Even recruited athletes can’t all make varsity.

Another point: I don’t know how it works for other teams, but for my daughter’s team the rule was that you had to submit your application and be accepted by admissions before the coach would continue the recruiting process and invite you for an official visit. I wouldn’t be surprised if exceptions were made from time to time, but in general that’s how it works.

If you take this discussion over to the athletic recruits forum, you can meet a couple of parents whose kids were courted this year by Stanford coaches as a top-5 recruit, but then were rejected by admissions ED. And guess where these athletes are going instead? Ivies. So if Stanford lowers academic standards for athletes, which they no doubt do in some but not all cases, then their bar is no lower than that of the Ivies and perhaps less than at the Ivies because Stanford is a more desirable place for the serious athlete who’s also very smart. In addition to more competitive teams for most sports, the weather is much better for training purposes. 68 degrees F in February, versus 15 inches of snow and ice. A no-brainer.