<p>“The average non-athlete freshman at Rice in 2003 had a 1428 SAT. The average athlete freshman that year had an 1130 SAT.”</p>
<p>My guess is they can probably bench on average about 300 lbs as entering freshmen so my first post might not have been as fecetious as it appeared.</p>
<p>Seriously though to really assess the academic impact on the schools involved of these atheletic recruits the scores must be disaggregated. Are the SAT scores of recruited URM atheletes 140 points below the the average SAT score of rejected URM applicants at Rice? Probably not. What do the SAT scores of recruited football players look like when weighted by URM status versus the overall pool of Rice admits? If 30-40% of your recruited football players (or more) are URMs and the schools overall total is 10% (or less) you are comparing apples and oranges. Better yet lets weight for URM status and economic status and all of a sudden the football players won’t look so bad at most schools.</p>
<p>Every friggin liberal in the country wants holistic admissions but then turns up their noses when that holism includes your 40 meter time or three point range. Sports and especially football and basketball have done more to help poor and working class kids of all races get a crack at the good life than all the Pell grants that have ever been given out. That is not to say there are not problems with big time college sports. It just to say that the Rices of the world shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water.</p>