EA MIT, Chance ME! I return the favor

molliebatmit
Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:04:27 +0000

I posted the text of an email from Matt on the subject of athletic recruitment [url=http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063213526-post24.html]here[/url].



Matt McGann:

Athletes at MIT do not face a “different admissions process.” There is no separate athletic admissions committee. Coaches do not get to sit with the Dean and present their students in a special meeting as at many schools. There is no policy that we admit all academically-qualified recruited athletes. Perhaps more importantly, there is no “slot” system. What is a slot system? In a major article on Division III athletics admissions in 2005, the New York Times wrote,

Broadly, Division III colleges are separated into those that use what is customarily called a slots system and those that do not. Slots are reserved for athletes in each freshman class, a specific number that typically represents 15 percent to 30 percent of those admitted. Colleges that do not have a slots system may admit more, or fewer, recruited athletes, but there is no set number.

That is to say – we don’t hold open admissions spaces for teams/coaches, we have no quota or even any target for athletes.

That being said, we do value extracurricular talent, including athletic talent, in our admissions process. Most of MIT’s full-time coaches do recruit (though this recruitment bears little resemblance to what Division I schools call recruiting). Because of stereotypes and preconceived notions, many talented student-athletes are not aware that MIT even has varsity sports, much less that we’re actually pretty good (for example, a classmate of mine, Jason Szuminski '00, went on to pitch for the San Diego Padres, after completing his Aero-Astro degree). The outreach work of our coaches complements the work done by many at MIT in identifying talented prospective MIT students.