@tonymom you’re welcome. I’ve known several Ivy and Ivy-caliber athletes… one of them so accomplished he’s in the history books along with the legendary Bill Bradley… one of my room mates at UC Berkeley was a record-breaking swimmer… my own husband was the #1 man on a top Div 1 tennis team back in the day… brother-in-law was All-American … So yea. Lots of experience with high achieving athletes at elite schools. And in my experience, these are without doubt the hardest working students on campus. Those who sniff in disapproval are simply ignorant. And the funny thing is, these students’ sports often cost less than something like the school orchestra… or theater. Yet no one is yelling to shut those down.
At Michigan blacks used to be stigmatized because of race bumps in admission. Since they stopped using race as a criteria, everyone who is there deserves to be there and the resentment and stigma has completely disappeared.
Athletes in revenue sports generate a huge amount of money and support the school. They give the rest of the students and alumni something to cheer about, and help popularize fitness for everyone and club sports for students. The super successful pro athletes support the children’s hospital and act as ambassadors too. No resentment there, more like gratitude.
Quite frankly, I’m amazed that the student-athletes can maintain a “B” average with a 30-40 hr/week commitment on top of their schoolwork and travel. One even graduated with a masters in engineering (with honors) while a basketball starter. They are some amazing kids.
The Ivy schools spend $20-$40 million a year on their athletics departments. Harvard has about 1000 varsity athletes. That works out to $20k-$40k a year per athlete.
^^^ worth every penny 
@TooOld4School try A averages! Many of my son’s teammates who are seniors graduated with distinction.
I think many of these students, who are admitted with “hooks”, work extra hard to justify their being where they are when, in fact, they are right where they belong.
I would guess that Harvard athletics alumni donate much more than $40 mil per year and are more generous than the average alumni.
@Tanbiko
Yes you are correct. While my son is not at Harvard (thank god ;-)) his Ivy’s alumni “sports” base is very active and we are already being tapped to give $$$ and he just finished his first year. I’m amazed at how generous these previous generations are and the well oiled donor machine they front. Very impressive.
I’m suspect there are similar Alumni groups organized around other “hooks”.
@roethlisburger – SO WHAT? In what way is that harming Harvard? I have a family member who put on 5 plays in her four years at Harvard. The university paid for the rights for the plays, paid for the costumes, lighting, set supplies, gave money for food for the after-party…
There are more than A DOZEN theater organizations at Harvard. More than 60 productions are put on each and every year at Harvard. Each one of them gets money from the school.
Why aren’t you criticizing that?
The vast majority of students at Harvard don’t go into theater… just like the vast majority of athletes at Harvard don’t become professional athletes. Both sports and theater are funded because Harvard thinks of them an important part of the school’s culture.
Do you have any data to support your theory Harvard’s alumni who didn’t play a varsity sport donate less? If it is true, could it be accounted for by athlete alums being wealthier?
@roethlisburger What do you have against college athletics?
Anything else you don’t think schools should spend money on?
What’s your opinion on art collections (Ivies have doozies) rare books (ditto) land purchases, sustainable gardens?International campuses? University presses?
@roethlisburger , I do not have any data to support my speculations. However athletic families at Harvard with 41 teams, most of them in “country club” sports, should be wealthier on average. A lot of Harvard athletes graduate into Wall Street jobs. I would further speculate that school pride is more pronounced in athletes and their families. A lot of children of development admits become atletic walk-ons (probably part of the deal). etc…
You really do not undrstand athletic tradition that exists in these schools. Do you really want to disband their 100+ year old teams? Or, maybe you want Brown to discontinue athletics and drop their Ivy league association? That would be really smart!
"Finally, of the 71 schools in our database with more than 10,000 undergraduates, there are only nine schools among the Top 100 for alumni giving that achieve an alumni giving rate of 15% or greater. These schools are well known, popular universities that, despite being very large, generate high levels of alumni support and correspondingly high revenue from alumni giving. These nine schools each have a unique advantage that allows them to counter the penalty of size. Three of them are Ivy League schools (Cornell, Penn and Harvard) whose gold-plated reputations help them offset large student body size. The rest all share another trait – that magic combination of a strong academic reputation and a high-profile athletic program. " from https://www.alumnifactor.com/node/5854
When Lafayette made a bigger deal out of the annual Lafayette-Lehigh football game and took it off campus to a pro arena, they linked the event with a fundraising effort and achieved record donations.
In past threads complaining about the athletic hook I know I have seen studies posted by CCers that indicate that former student athletes feel a greater loyalty to their schools and that loyalty is correlated with a higher participation rate in alumni giving.
Best not to give a crap about what other people think.
Yeah, but we are social beings and most people want to feel comfortable with others. I can see how parents might want to spare their hooked students the pain of other people’s resentment or negative assumptions about them.
Well my kids and my family are very greatful for developmental hook candidates as these donors genrosity has made it possible for my kids to attend prep school and college possible.
You can’t live your life based on what some lowest common denominator thinks. So I’m with MoD. If parents of hooked kids encouraged them to step back, because “someone might think you didn’t earn your spot at MIT,” (or Stanford, an Ivy, or any tippy top,) we’d all be be poorer for that, whether athletes or other, one way or another.
On this thread, we’re talking about people eager to engage in stereotypes. We should be discouraging that.
This is the fault of the colleges. If colleges truly wanted to be transparent about what they looked for, they would make their admissions data fully available to researchers for a study.
There are many people who believe Obama was an affirmative action admit to Harvard law. He’s never confirmed or denied it. The stigma doesn’t seem to have hurt him. Some think he is brilliant, others think he’s not. I don’t think anything could change those opinions.
I know a lot of athletes, some who got into good schools only because of athletic ability. Once at the schools, they do just fine. They are proud they were able to get an education, maybe at a higher tier school than they would have otherwise. They do the work, they get the degree, and the diploma says Notre Dame or UVa or Duke. It doesn’t have a little asterisk with **hooked admit * on it.
No has said the hooked student shouldn’t attend the top tier school, but obviously the OP is asking this for a reason–maybe to prepare a student for these reactions.
How would Obama confirm or deny that? They don’t send you a letter saying:
Congrats, you are admitted to Harvard Law*
*because you are a URM
IF… and I repeat IF…(because I don’t really think it’s true)
Obama got into Harvard Law (or even Columbia) as a URM… wasn’t that a BRILLIANT decision? Wouldn’t that make Harvard/Columbia look like incredibly smart and prescient universities?
And wouldn’t that just prove that affirmative action WORKS? That it should be applauded and continued?