Exactly how much leeway are athletes given?

Applying to College
1

<p>Hello,</p>

<p>I am a pole vaulter in central Texas. My coach is very successful in getting his athletes to the top schools, regardless of whether they are intelligent or not.</p>

<p>In this particular case, a vaulter he had a few years back jumped 16’10 for him. High 16s are a big deal for high school pole vaulters. He had the choice to go to Stanford, if he managed to get a 26 on his ACT. Stanford applicants generally make a 30 or higher on the ACT. To the extent that I know, he was not in a single school club and just barely top 10% of his class. His only extracurricular activity was pole vaulting.</p>

<p>I’m just curious of how much leeway a successful athlete in an individual sport, such a pole vaulting, is given in the admission process. I’m not talking about a nationwide sport such as football, but the sports that have a limited amount of gifted athletes.</p>

<p>Oh, and to end the story, he didn’t want to take the ACT again and ended up going to the University of Texas at Austin.</p>

2

<p>I’d imagine that the athlete would have to be very good (like a state champion or close to that or national ranked) to have their academics completely overlooked at ivies and too colleges, and even then I think there would be some kind of minimum for test scores and GPA they would have to meet in order to be possibly recruited. But, all in all, possible recruited athletes are given a lot more leeway academic and extracurricular wide than normal applicants.</p>

3

<p>Oh, an the student would have to have garnered attention from the school and be tecruited for their academics to be “overlooked”, otherwise it is just seen as another EC.</p>

4

<p>Nationally ranked/recruited and still meet NCAA guidelines for grades/scores. </p>

5

<p>Your story sounds plausible, there was a post last year about a wrestler who got into Stanford with a 25 as well. That may be their lower cutoff for certain sports. Don’t know about major revenue sports, rules might be the same or they might be more lax, even Stanford got caught offering “athlete classes” a la UNC a few years back, though not nearly to that extent. At the same time, a 25 is considered well above average for the general population, I’m sure not many athletes actually have that high a test score. Sure, it’s low for Stanford, but they aren’t dumb by any means.</p>