One thing that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is how do the Ivy Leagues somehow manage to get the best of the best athletes?
I’m not trying to put down any athletes, but I find it hard to believe that so many of the best athletes are Ivy material with high GPAs and high SATs. I know that there are most definitely athletes out there who are the top of the game who would make it into Ivies without any need to also be the best of their sport, but are there seriously a majority of those that the Ivies can pick from?
To boil it down, my main question is; is it possible to be a strong athlete and use that to get into an Ivy? (sport in question is rowing) Can you use sports to cover up a lower GPA/SAT than would normally be accepted?
At least from what I’ve seen there are definitely students that get in because of their sports. A lot I know use their network of people to get assignments done so they have decent grades. But they aren’t stellar, standout students. The amount of time, commitment and passion dedicated to their sport seems to outweigh high scores in these cases.
There are many athletes with top GPA and test scores that, even without their athletic prowess, they can be competitive with the rest for a spot in the Ivys. Then there are athletes that the Ivys covet for their specific sports programs (fencing, rowing, squash, etc.) and might overlook their lower-than-average academic resume for superior achievements in sports. Then there are athletes who may not contribute to the school’s specific sports programs but have a celebrity status, such as Nathan Chen and Chloe Kim, to use the latest examples. Chen was accepted and committed to Yale. Kim was accepted to Princeton but I’m not sure whether she’s committed to the school. I don’t believe either of them have the comparable GPA and test scores to other unhooked admitted applicants. So, I see basically these three types of athletes that find themselves among the Ivys: athlete-scholars; program specific coveted athletes; and athlete-celebrities. In your (OP’s) case, it’s the program (rowing) specific coveted athletes. How coveted is how strongly you’re being recruited. If you don’t have a set of highly competitive academic stats, your chance of being admitted to one of the Ivys is really your rowing standing among other class of rowing athletes. There are, I believe, some sports that the adcoms might go lower than some other sports. I’m not sure whether rowing is one of them.
The Ivies are unique in their academic requirements, which are pretty high. I know a national champion in a popular Ivy sport who was told not to apply by all the Ivy coaches – he had a 3.0 GPA average and OK, but not great SATs. He went to an LAC instead. His sister had the grades and the stats but wasn’t anywhere near his standing in the same sport. She got to pick between Harvard and Princeton. A family member had a 4.0 GPA and was a basketball recruit – until Princeton saw her SATs. They told her to retake it and raise by a minimum of 40 points in order to be considered.
Yea, you definitely can use your sport to get into the Ivies. But you have to have grades and test results, too.
@RandomRower In general, the Ivy’s don’t get the best of the best athletes. First big money sport athletes dont generally go Ivy. I.e football, baseball, basketball. Hockey is a very very small exception and only because there are so very many upper middle class kids playing hockey. The money in hockey pales compared to the other sports so it is a very different situation than say B-Ball. Secondly, top recruited athlete to Ivies only need a qualifying AI score. Most Ivy sports --like hockey --carry twice as many players as they need on their rosters. The top 1/3 are recruits and the other 2/3rds are all academically qualified AI boosters who happen to play that sport. Just because you got into Harvard to play squash doesnt mean you are an athletic recruit. There are sub-sets of recruits. Keep in mind that the AI -which is a an excellent system in many ways–doesnt differentiate between an A from online high school and Stuyvesant High School. For a non recruit applicant they will evaluate the rigor of the course load but not for a recruit. For a true recruit the AI is the AI.
a 3.6 weighted GPA (just finished sophomore year)
my PSAT during sophomore year was a 1300
(no prep classes or anything like that to boost the score, I’m doing those now in anticipation of junior year PSAT)
fairly full resume with multiple service outreaches, lead musician in competing jazz bands, orchestras, ect. job experience including internship at a high level law firm, 2nd dan national champion black belt + a small YT channel with a few thousand subscribers, collaborated with writers from networks such as IGN for published articles, school yearbook + school weekly TV brodcast
now for rowing…
I’d say I’m fairly close right now to the recruiting numbers that Ivies look for in lightweight rowers by senior year, which puts me in a good spot to be a fair amount faster than the times they’d be looking for in 12th grade lightweight rowers by the time I’m the same age.
Do I have any chance? I’m looking at a few honors + APs this upcoming year and senior year, which I am expecting to boost my GPA significantly on the weighted system, which hopefully will help. If I don’t have any chance, any other school recommondations, or things I can do to boost my chances?
Yes that is a false presumption that the Ivies get the best athletes in all sports, they do get some of them in some sports. What is more interesting are the Division 1 football schools. Namely Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt…these guys are playing with the BIG boys in Power 5 conferences. Stanford being the only one that seems to have some success doing so. In this case yes the grades/scores are going to drop way down. You only have to look at the numbers GPA/SAT for Stanford (which seems to be the most selective school) and wonder why they are significantly below most other very selective schools.
The Ivies don’t typically get the best of the best athletes. They get good ones and even some great ones, but the Ivy schools aren’t winning the National Championships. A lot of the best of the best athletes are interested in National Championships and don’t consider a school where that can’t happen. If a very good athlete, you still need the stats to get in. If you are exceptional in a sport (let’s say tippy top in the country) they may have a little leeway and play the coach favor card in admissions. But they don’t do that for a very good athlete, they do it for only the best athlete.
Another question to ask yourself is would you be happy attending an academic institution where most of the students are “academic champions”? Think of it this way, if you were the weakest rower, were always an alternate (don’t know how crew works), would you enjoy your time on the team? Some would say yes and enjoy the daily competition and struggle to improve, gain acceptance, etc. Others would say no. Would quickly become a grind and not why they wanted to put in the time. The academic rigor and time required to be successful at top schools is a challenge. Your peers will be top of the food chain intelligent. Do you want to compete with that?
My son’s friend is heading to Princeton in the fall and was a recruited rower. The only other kid I know from our school to get into Princeton had a parent who worked there. Our valedictorian last year (much, much higher stats than the rower) was rejected last year. He’s smart, makes honor roll (not high honor roll as the valedictorian had every marking period for all of high school) but he definitely would not have gotten in without rowing.
He was highly recruited, however, I don’t know a lot about the sport, but I know size matters. Do you have that? He is 6’5”, which I gather is about average for top rowers.
I agree top athletes don’t usually go Ivy, but it is definitely a hook if you’re good enough to be recruited and it does lower the standard. Another friend was a recruited wrestler and was told by Brown he needed a 1250 SAT to get in.
It definitely helps. And many times in a big way. I don’t know why the schools care. If they lost every game in every sport they would still have the same students. Do kids go to Princeton or Harvard or Brown because of the ivy swimming titles. Or football. Nope
Many of the “Best of the Best” athletes prefer to go to a school where not only do they have a shot at a national championship, but can also get big bucks in athletic scholarships (which the Ivy’s don’t offer). So a large slice of the best of the best really won’t consider the Ivy league, for good reason. If you can afford the net price for your family, the recruiting edge is a nice thing.
Yale just won the men’s national championship in lacrosse. The other school in the finals was Duke.
Do I think Yale had 10 top academic, top players in the country on the team? No, I think it had 30. And I think the coach probably turned down a hundred others over the last 4 years because there wasn’t enough room on the team or in the classroom for all those qualified student athletes.
There are more lower stat athletes in the Ivies in sports like football, basketball, hockey and baseball because there is a professional level that many are hoping for. Some of those do go through Ivy -most do not. There are far fewer lower stat athletes in niche sports like squash and rowing. (remember the AI and the numbers on the various rosters) All schools, even the very best schools, want teams and thus student athletes. They make the schools better, more well rounded places with school spirit and camaraderie fostered through competition and rallying around the teams. Colleges and Universities have never been solely about academics. From early on when they were largely for white men there was still that notion of the renaissance man who could do it all: learn philosophy, mathematics and be a noble warrior on the side.
@blueskies2day
“The Ivies don’t typically get the best of the best athletes”
While of course there are exceptions, the Ivy coach I recently talked to pretty much said the same thing. The family member who was a 4-year starter at Princeton would get on a team, but probably not allowed to actually play at UCLA. (She checked.)
@katliamom I’m speaking mainly about rowing. There is a reason the Ivies almost always win the races, and it’s because they get the absolute most elite rowers. A large portion of Olympians in that sport come from the Ivies, much more so than any other schooling background.
However, my issue is that there is no way that all the most elite rowers who are going to the Ivies have the smarts to make it in. There has to be some backdoor way they are getting these dudes.
It’s a big country. And rowing is a sport that draws heavily from wealthy families to begin with… Not unreasonable that wealthy, smart families (many of them Ivy grads themselves) know that rowing is a conduit to the Ivys so start their kids down that path. The rowing recruits from our area that I’m familiar with are from smart, accomplished parents who are grads of top schools and had smart kids. Would the kids have been excellent enough to get into the Ivys without the rowing? Not sure, but they wouldn’t have been out of place at an Ivy either. One of my close friends’ son sounds a lot like the description a prior poster listed - 6’4", national level rower, very good grades and SATs, not valedictorian but would have gotten into at least a few of the top 20 most selective unis even without the rowing. Dad is an Ivy alum, but not of the college that recruited the son. The parents realized from an early age that the son would likely be tall and athletic like the dad and that rowing was the best chance at getting an admissions advantage.
Of course there is a back door way in, but you aren’t going to see anyone that uses that door discuss it, particularly on here. And if they do, everyone is going to tell them it isn’t true, because they don’t know about it. Talk about a secret society…those at the top of their sport see all kinds of things mere mortals never see. But those that have been shown the door, know it exists, but that is a very select few. So bottom line, you aren’t going to read about it here. And if you were good enough, they would show you that door, and you wouldn’t have to ask to see it.
There are a lot of strong athletes with strong GPAs in many sports. I really don’t think it is going to help cover up a lower gpa, unless an athlete is very far above the others.
@RandomRower – Milee30 is right: rowing attracts well-to-do students from educated families, many of whom went to elite schools. Take a look at the rosters (they’re online) – many of the crew members at Princeton, Harvard and Yale went to exclusive prep schools where they certainly not only got a good education, but plenty of tutoring and SAT/ACT preparation as well. It would not surprise me if many of them were competitive Ivy applicants to begin with, possibly with money and legacy status for an extra boost.
