I know someone who was on the USA swimming National Team (years and years ago). She has a complicated relationship with the sport, mostly because at that level she missed a lot of the “best parts” of college, including graduation. She was one of 5 kids and was beholden to her scholarship.
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keyword “may”
They exist for sure, but primarily for women. Many athletes play down academically to ensure large merit scholarships. Just like all the rest of the donut hole kids.
It is similar for our HS. They send quite a few to Ivy, NESCAC, UAA, and Patriot League but I don’t really see any drop off in academics especially for the first three groups. The kids who go NESCAC or UAA are always academic heavy hitters as well as strong athletes which is reflective of the high academic hurdle in those conferences. Their stats are identical (or better) than the unhooked kids going to those schools. Almost all of them have some D1 interest but they leverage their athletic skills to ensure admission to highly rejectives.
The Ivy League kids are similar, maybe a bit less academically than the first group but still top students. Patriot League kids a bit less but we are still talking 1350+ scores (everyone at the school has to test) so both groups are in the range for their conferences.
In general nobody is going somewhere where they won’t succeed and nobody is “taking” a seat from a more qualified kid.
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My D24 was recruited for 2 different sports at the selective LAC she will be attending. 34 ACT, 4.0 unweighted GPA, IB Diploma and top 3% of her class. Her stats are no lower than other students going to that college.
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While I’m sure your daughter is a fine student with an academic profile in line with other accepted students, that isn’t always the case. From our HS, outstanding athletes have attended selective LACs and Ivies with what could be described as pedestrian academic profiles - UW gpa’s of 3.5 and SAT scores below 1200. That doesn’t mean that they won’t be successful, but it does mean that absent their sport these students would never have been considered for admission at the schools they attend.
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The title of this thread is about Harvard. The Ivy League AI rules cause athletes to have stats that average ~1 SD below the overall student body. While there are numerous exceptions, recruited athletes as a whole are academically weaker than non-athletes, which the expectation under Ivy League conference rules. Some specific numbers from the Harvard lawsuit sample are below. 1 is best, 5 is worst. LDC = Legacy, Special List, or Faculty Kids (hooked kids). Note that the normal distribution center is ~1 SD lower for athletes, which is expected under the conference rules stated above. in this example, 1 SD corresponds to ~1 number worse academic rating.
- Academic 1 : 5% non-ALDC, 3% LDC, <0.1% Athletes
- Academic 2: 77% non-ALDC, 75% LDC, 25% Athletes
- Academic 3: 18% non-ALDC, 22% LDC, 61% Athletes
- Academic 4+: 0.0% non-ALDC, 0.6% LDC, 15% Athletes
Other conferences have different rules than The Ivy League. For example it’s my understanding that the NESCAC permits ~2 “athletic factor” admits per non-football sport + ~14 for football. These “athletic factor” athletes tend to have weaker academic stats and academic admissions ratings than typical non-athletes. In contrast coded athletes tend to have similar academic stats and academic admissions ratings to non-athletes. but they are admitted at a higher rate than non-athletes.
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I would also like to point out that the oft mentioned tuba player? Orchestra conductors (or philosophy professors, or computer science professors) don’t get to pull aside particular students that they are interested in for pre-reads and to use one of their special slots for preferential chances of admission if they apply ED (whether as near guaranteed athletic factors or coded athletes). Instead all of those other “hooks” are diffuse and at the discretion of the admission counselors, at most schools, no special priviliges.
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I appreciate your excellent post, however I meant that many athletes (and their families) may choose their sports based in the possibility of athletic scholarships and/or pro careers.
When I think about how my kids chose their sports, everyone started with recreational soccer. While all were good players, the competition and parental jockeying for the classic/travel/club teams was fierce and unattractive, with many parents constantly talking about college athletic scholarships on the line. While the kids were very good soccer players, we left this community with no regrets.
In our part of the country, it rains a lot so our kids chose their sports largely because they were indoors. Fencing, rock climbing and squash were available, accessible and no more expensive than travel soccer, and certainly less well enrolled. None of these sports were offered at our HS, nor our state universities and our kids participated because the loved it.
I will admit, as with all recruitable sports, our participation was entirely at the club level, and as most of the competitions required to achieve national rankings were on the east coast, our privilage was to be able to fly longer distances (commercial) to achieve a recognizable ranking. It is worth noting all these competitions were packed and our kids missed more school than most to attend.
Anyway, I guess my point is there are many paths to the sports our children choose and these decisions may be made long before college applications are completed/contemplated. We didn’t spend any more money than the kids who were ultimately recruited to similar schools for lacrosse, soccer, volleyball etc, It is worth noting all the really good football and basketball players didn’t apply to academically elite colleges and in most cases, athletic scholarship played a large role.
Obviously, some niche sports (like fencing/squash/water polo) with little post-college opportunities are for the love of the game. Golf on the other hand does have some financial/professional potential.
Our rock climbing kid was not in a recruitable sport, but it is possible his rock climbing is what got him into his college…more on this in another thread…
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My deepest apologies. Didn’t realize we were only allowed to talk about Harvard. Please ignore my comment.
I’d say this alone put you in a different economic class, or at least able to decide to participate in national events, than most recreational athletes participating in a local club level. Most kids playing any sport at the recreational level cannot travel at all unless a benefactor pays for the trips. My daughter played on a club lacrosse team for innercity kids and they had their fees and travel paid for for a few tournaments, but it was still very much ‘on the cheap’.
She certainly had friends (and school teammates) playing for much more expensive clubs ($10k per season) and some from each group were recruited by colleges, but I don’t think any to Harvard.
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Acknowledged with no apologies.
My point is everyone recruited at this level IN ANY VARSITY SPORT does this, not just the niche sports.
Excellence in sports is expensive and if sports are an institutional priority at some colleges, athletes will try to do what they can.
^this^
In my post I acknowledged my privilege.
At the same time did not complain that first gen/low income (FLI) kids now get an admissions advantage. I really could have benefited from that FLI advantage when I applied to college decades ago, but then it was not fashionable to offer that path to admission.
I learned a long time ago complaining that others had more money had a poor reflection.
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While I agree that can be true, I think in some sports there at least can be a lot less out of pocket burden. These will tend to be sports with a lot of local facilities, teams, and leagues, and lots of support in public schools across economic class, and then lots of charitable support as well.
Even so, I agree being willing and able to use family resources on things like year-round development can help some kids get an advantage in such sports. It is basically not possible to keep family resources from being helpful in anything related to US college admissions.
But I think the less “niche” and more widespread and popular a sport, generally the less that is a necessity and the more it is a luxury.
That is so relative. In my town, they couldn’t field a football team, for example. Living is such a location is just another type of privilege. If you live in FL and want to play tennis, its not that hard. Kids in CA in Texas can swim in a 50m pool year round. In NJ most kids get 4-5 weeks, if at all. (and NJ happens to be one of the most dense swimming states in the country).
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I guess it depends what you mean by privilege. There are inexpensive places families without much in the way of disposable income live in Florida, Texas, and California.
But yes, swimming can definitely be an expensive sport to do seriously.
Why not?
I’m going to guess it is because fewer UMC kids play football these days.
Part of the reason elite football and basketball talent isn’t attracted to “elite” schools is that the level of competition isn’t sufficient. Great football players want to go to Alabama or Michigan or Ohio State, not Harvard. The best basketball players are typically one and done.
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It is not just the facilities, it is also when and where a kid gets introduced to a sport. Kids might play pickup basketball or soccer at the playground, at recess, or in PE during early elementary school; I suspect even tennis falls into that category in certain parts of the country. It is obviously not the same as being on town team let alone a travel team, and it is not being trained/coached, but at least kids are likely to be exposed to certain sports enough to know they exist through those venues (and by watching it on TV). Then if a child has an interest, perhaps the parents can find lessons and leagues to foster that interest. It may not be a common path into elite playing but it is plausible. I suspect some kids are not even aware that some of the wealthier sports exist even if there are resources or low-cost facilities available. So those sports are probably only reaching a small number of kids through educational access programs like citysquash. Or at least that is my guess.
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Mostly local demographics. Some families moved so their kids could play.
I feel bad for poor squash since it was my own stories about S24 that happened to involve squash. And yet . . . .
He got into squash because a HS friend (who was nationally ranked, and eventually recruited by NESCACs), spotted him waiting for the bus on campus and invited him to come practice a bit and maybe try out in a few days. He liked it but had almost no time to get gear, so we ran over to a sports superstore. No rackets, and when we asked about squash shoes, the person in the store asked us what squash was.
Borrowed shoes and eventually Amazon Prime saved the day, but again I feel like sometimes the nicheiness of niche sports is really obvious.
Anyway, yes, not even on the radar of my kid until he made this connection at a private HS.
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My own observation of athletic recruiting (and the crazy costs associated with it) is that athletic recruiting follows a continuum of sports that require great natural talent (strength, speed, coordination, height) at one end and acquired skills at the other end, with success in all sports requiring some combination of both. As we go down the “skill” sports, this is where we usually see the highest expenses to compete at a high level, and this where a lot of the “country club” sports reside. At the other end, we have something like track, where you are either born fast or not (of course there is some training and technique but you can’t turn a tortoise into a hare) and recruiting is more egalitarian.
I’d also add that any team related sport (absent immense talent) is going to very expensive these days. College coaches tend to visit tournaments, showcases, camps where they have a wide pool of athletes to observe cost and time efficiently. In most cases, you have to be on a travel team or pay good money to be seen.
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