@ucbalumnus No doubt that people are sending their kids to elites because they believe it increases their chances of going into desired careers/jobs. If you don’t think the results will be better (in ways that can go beyond a job/career), why send them, right?
And I totally agree with respect to sports. I have asked friends who are looking at athletic scholarships for their kids, assuming your kid is able to get an athletic scholarship, what are the changes it will be to a school where you want them to be academically? I can happen but the odds (long in the first place) are against it.
@saillakeerie: “What are the changes it will be to a school where you want them to be academically”.
Depends on ability. If they are Div1-quality, Stanford, Northwestern, Duke, Rice (& Vandy, ND, UVa, UMich, Cal, BC, WFU, etc.) are at that level.
Meanwhile, the Ivies and many DivIII LACs don’t offer scholarships but being a recruited athlete could range from being a big hook to a bump at many academically elite schools at those levels.
For instance, someone who was an average P5 recruit in football (which, granted, is pretty elite; within the top 800 or so in his class in the country) has a decent to good chance of being wanted by Northwestern, Duke, Vandy, UVa, Cal, BC & WFU. Possibly by Stanford. Rice and all the Ivies (if his academic scores were high enough for them to slot him in to a band; and they’d probably be willing to use their lowest band–which they have only 2 spots in each year–for him) would be begging him to come.
Based on how their teams perform on the football field (other than Stanford), I am willing to bet there aren’t a lot of those P5 recruits with the academic skills to gain admittance to the schools you list. Majority of those P5 kids are able to gain admission to better academic skills than their academic background would otherwise indicate. But as you note, you are talking about a very elite level of athletic skills.
My point is the number of kids playing sports in high school (and even excel at them) is huge compared to the number of kids getting athletic scholarships (and the number of kids getting full rides or full tuition on athletic scholarships is even smaller). Then you add another level of odds in terms of lining up where your athletic skills get you a scholarship with where you want to be academically. As noted, at the elite level you may well improve your academic game. But a lot of kids will be facing the choice of an athletic scholarship at an institution which is below where their academic record would indicate they should go or foregoing the athletic scholarship to attend their academic match.
Are their kids who are able to upgrade the academics or at least match them? Sure. I just think the number is small. And no doubt it depends on athletic ability (as well as academic abilities).
@saillakeerie: Other than Stanford and Northwestern, the academic standards for football players at those FBS schools are low. NCAA minimum or slightly above that, which is not high. At all. 2.5 GPA if you take enough classes in some subjects would be enough.
And as as I mentioned, for someone who doesn’t have the athletic ability for FBS but does have the academic chops, the Ivies would be there. If you don’t have that (but do have academic chops), DivIII schools would be there.
Honestly, it comes down to athletic ability, as I mentioned. You have the athletic ability, you can choose where you want to go. So no, there aren’t that many kids facing the dilemma you imagined.
Maybe our experiences are just different. I know several kids who had to make the exact choice that you say I imagined. I likely will see one of them this weekend. He ultimately transferred to a better academic school after giving an athletic scholarship at a lesser school a try. I am sure he and his parents will be glad to know they imagined their dilemma. LOL
@saillakeerie: Give an example of the schools and sport.
That may be more likely in non-revenue/Olympic sports where a school’s academic rep is valuable (because almost all those players will be going pro in something other than sports), so many of the top teams in those sports are academic powerhouses.
In football? Hard to see unless you’re talking about the lower reaches of DivI.
@saillakeerie: BTW, in your example, did the transfer keep on playing their sport? If so, then it’s not really an argument against pursuing a sport as they may well not have been able to transfer without their athletic ability.
So for instance, a football player of G5 talent may attract interest from a bunch of non-Rice G5 schools and Ivies and they may have to choose between a scholarship and Marshall vs. no scholarship at Penn. But without his football ability, he may very well not have gotten the chance to attend Penn at all.
Remind them the Ivy League is an athletic conference. Cornell is undoubtedly a great school, but would it get nearly as much attention if it wasn’t in the same athletic conference as HYP?
I think that a lot of the ivy-worship comes from students whose parents are from countries where you DO have to go to the top prestigious university or universities to get ahead in business. Probably one of the big advantages that the US industry has had over the years is that we have mostly evaluated people based on what they can do, rather than what school they came from.
However, at least in some companies, the management in the engineering team is now almost entirely made up of people who are from a country where in order to get ahead you have to come from one of the most prestigious universities.
This makes me wonder whether we will adopt the methods from other countries, and prestige actually will become necessary. At some level I suppose we will just have to wait and see.
I think last year there were >2000 ACT 36s and only ~500 SAT 1600/2400s. More kids take ACT now. But the new SAT is trying to change that if what reported is true - it’s easy to have higher scores for <1400 but hard for >1500. If that’s true, SAT beats ACT for more test takers, more have better scores and fewer get perfect scores.
Ivy+ schools should make it clear that they favor lifelong athletes and give preference to those who spend spare time exercising to keep fit rather than on test preps. Ivy worshippers will at least become healthy and strong.
@PurpleTitan Kid I am thinking about went to a Div3 school to play lacrosse. Academics were mediocre Midwest regional school. He didn’t play lacrosse for his new school (he was admitted out of high school but not to play sports).
Maybe the issue is you keep talking about elite athletes and I am not. No doubt elite athletes will have more options than non-elite athletes (who can nonetheless get athletic scholarships in college). And you are talking about FBS/Div3 schools as some monolithic group. But non-elite athletes who get athletic scholarship offers do not get them across the board. They typically get them at a handful of schools (at most). Academics range in FBS and Div3 schools. Not all kids who get scholarships at those schools match academically. And that is without considering strength of majors/programs in terms of future career goals.
And I am not arguing against pursuing a sport. If it lines up for you academically, I think it makes sense. Also makes sense if you don’t otherwise have the ability to pay for college without a lot of loans.
Reality also is that for the vast majority of kids playing sports (even in revenue producing sports), they will go pro in something other than sports (the NCAA has a commercial to that effect).
But in the end, I do not care enough about this issue to continue this discussion. Would have stopped a while back had you not called my experience imaginary. Nothing you say will change the reality I have seen for kids. So as they say, we will just agree to disagree.
Here is a list of the top 12 universities with the most astronauts.
United States Naval Academy: 52 astronaut alumni
United States Air Force Academy: 36 astronaut alumni
Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 34 astronaut alumni
Naval Postgraduate School: 32 astronaut alumni
Stanford University: 21 astronaut alumni
Purdue University-West Lafayette: 20 astronaut alumni
United States Military Academy: 18 astronaut alumni
University of Colorado-Boulder: 14 astronaut alumni
Georgia Institute of Technology: 14 astronaut alumni
University of Texas at Austin: 12 astronaut alumni
University of Washington: 12 astronaut alumni
Air Force Institute of Technology: 12 astronaut alumni
So the Ivy Leagues isn’t on the list of top 12.
The OP could always remove the military academies and ask NASA for a complete list of universities attended.
I think the greatest difficulty with students and parents making informed decisions about schools is the lack of objective data. Colleges should have a Monroney Sticker equivalent that provides information about key information about costs, graduation rates, employment, graduate school placement, etcetera.
The more transparent, comparable, and accurate the data is, the better peoples’ college selections would be and decisions about choosing a major would also improve.
That’s because they have been rigorously screened as admits, really.
Is it any surprise that elite prep school kids do better in college admissions?
Same situation.