I’m missing your point @korab1
But it might be just me. :-S
@momof3swimmers - Very well said! Exactly.
@queenmother - I don’t think Center and others are saying that. I think it’s just correlation. Most 99 percentile SSAT students are not also going to be star athletes. Yes, they COULD be, but is it common, probably not. If you look at the posts with 99 percentile kids, they often have academic EC’s, and dabble in a sport, but are not varsity starters. [ There is a difference between “Played soccer this year” and “Starting Center Midfielder on XX Academy team - video attached- for 2 years; played XX Club soccer 6 years”.
This is life…everyone cannot be superstars in everything! And they shouldn’t be! Everyone has strengths and weaknesses.
Also, even if they ARE academic and sports superstars, the school may already have enough Forwards in Basketball or MIdfielders in Soccer. And not all sports are ones the school puts key focus on, even if they field a team.
Also, IMO…anyone that got into one good school, with tuition they can afford, should be happy! These schools have 10-20 percent admit rates! There are only so many of these schools. And perhaps more candidates COULD be successful, but they can’t admit more than the yield will allow spots for.
@AppleNotFar I accidentally posted before I finished. It is there in all its glory now.
@sunnyschool you are looking at a tiny portion of the boarding school world and drawing a conclusion from it that fits your pre-conceived and untrue bias against athletes. Face it - at the elite boarding schools - there are kids who excel in the clasroom AND on the athletic fields. They are not unicorns, they are pretty common. Boarding schools and Ivy league and patriot league schools and the NESCAC are packed with athletes who with great grades and killer standarized test scores.
Are their dumb jocks out there? Yup - just as there are dumb people from every race, creed and color. Are their schools that care more about athletic prowess than grades? yes again
We can agree to disagree. I don’t think most of the star athletes score 95+ percentile (a few may). More of the recruited athletes may be good or excellent students but are often not the top students taking the most challenging classes. At some point there just isn’t time in the day to be #1 in everything. And who said Ivy looks for the very top? Those I know that got into Ivy to play a sport didn’t have the highest SAT or grades. I know a few that got recruited with low stats…and also know a few that got recruited the summer before 9th grade, before any stats are even available.
I’m afraid this thread has devolved into a polarized argument in which White people claim being URM is a hook and offer anecdotes about boarding school recruitment events and rhetoric, and people of color say, if that were so, why do so many URMs with great stats get rejected and why do so many schools still fail to reflect the US population in their demographics.
I don’t think we are ever going to come to an agreement because neither side has hard data.
But if any Latino or Black applicants or parents are reading this, please heed @queenmother 's warning: Believe the rhetoric and hype about URM being a hook at your own risk. This site is full of anecdotes of URM kids who had all the requisite qualifications on paper, and still weren’t offered admission. Cast a wide net. Pour your heart and soul into your application to show how much you would contribute to the BS community, then cross your fingers (but don’t hold your breath!). That’s probably good advice for all applicants.
@sunnyschool - You can continue to believe what you wish - your attitude towards athletes is misplaced and inaccurate. I’m not sure where it stems from, but something about it about it is clearly striking a nerve for you.
Indeed @CaliMex, and it’s happened so many times before on other threads. I wonder what % of posting traffic in this forum is dedicated to the topic of “hooks”, particularly as it relates to URM’s???
I find myself trying to find the specific practical value in repeating our respective positions on this topic. Admissions decisions will not be better predicted before the fact, or rationalized after the fact. And minds will most likely not be changed.
For prospective applicants I think the best we can do is help them identify factors which may keep them out, and offer encouragement for possessing factors which might boost their applications, all the while trying to give honest perspectives on just how difficult it is to get into these schools no matter how strong an applicant they think they may be. As @skieurope so often says:
For applicants with otherwise strong stats and no glaring weaknesses or shortcomings who are trying to understand waitlists/rejections, it seems that this will almost always be a grasping-at-straws effort because there is so little anyone knows about what each school is looking for in a given year, and more importantly, what the profiles are of the other applicants. And to the point being made by @doschicos far upstream in this thread (#121), those of us here have no practical way of assessing the quality of an applicant’s personality and soft skills.
At the end of the day, I believe that every student at all of these schools are qualified and capable. Maybe they also happen to be a legacy or a sibling or an athlete or an URM. They impressed the admission staff enough to make them think they would be an asset to their community. Stats don’t tell the whole story of who a person is. If the school only wanted kids with 4.0 GPA and 99%SSAT, I am sure some of them could fill their school with those students. Instead, they are looking to make a community of all types of people. It does not mean they lowered their standards to make that community. Stop thinking that the only standards a school has involves GPA and SSAT.
Just another anecdote, my son took the SSAT again this year because he thought of applying to his first choice school again. He scored 99%. He is also an freshman starter on the varsity team in his sport. Smart athletes are not unicorns, they do exist.
@doschicos I agree - we all want to come to the defense of our people when they are denigrated - 99% of the criticism towards any particular group on here is misplaced.
As far as recruiting at the top tier schools, it most certainly goes on. The extent to which it goes on may be sport and school specific. I define recruiting as coaches attending sports events looking for athletes and then encouraging kids they like to apply and supporting them in the application process.
@doschicos lol - what do you want me to do? It happens to be one of those schools but I don’t want to say specifically which one. In this instance, it works for me!
Just say “top tier” or “most selective”. Ixnay on the acronyms. They are a dumb CC invention. I know I’m probably fighting a lost cause, though. Just a pet peeve. 
@Korab1 Don’t know the details for top BS, but for top colleges, it’s an open secrete that they would lower the stats required at least somewhat for recruited athletes. I’m sure there are recruited athletes that are every bit academic as non athletes, but you can’t deny that as an institutional policy, athletes are receiving preferential treatment. And it is “rumored” that URM and legacy get such treatment as well under certain circumstances to different degrees.
Check this out: https://www.goschoolwise.com/tools/academic-index
https://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/ivy-academic-index/comment-page-2/?_r=0
@doschicos When I say “recruited athlete” I am referring to college. I referenced SAT also so I though that was clear.
@panpacific has posted the data I have read and was referring to generally.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Closing thread. While the conversation could go on forever, the OP (a student) certainly does not need to continue to read back and forth debate. CC is not a debate society. The kicker, however, is when a user decides to out another poster by revealing the kid’s school, yet refuses to say where his own kid goes. Not cool. Remember the name of the website please.