<p>This thread has been highjacked.</p>
<p>I agree with bdmrad.</p>
<p>Yeah but isn’t 1of42 articulate?</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Interesting, while the individual institutions of the Ivy League are academic institutions, we only know them as the Ivy League becasue of athletics. In fact, the first sentence of the Joint Statement on Common Ivy Group Admissions Procedures is: “The Ivy Group is an association of eight institutions of higher education, established in 1954 primarily for the purpose of fostering amateurism in athletics.” So while the schools are primarily academic institutes you can’t deny the fact that athletics are an integral part of their mission.</p>
<p>1of42, I think you should stop trying to shove it in everyone’s face that you got into Caltech. Of course anyone non-athletic is biased against athletics being as major of a role in the admission process as more academically based attributes, but you, as the parent of an athletic child, are just as biased in the opposite opinion. Just as it’s not fair for dontno to proclaim things as fact, it’s not fair for you to do the same. I believe, and I think that I have to use that qualifier for fear of you starting to yell at me, that while athletics certainly add to the color and culture of a university, academics are the purpose of their existence. It is not required that everyone join a sport or a club at a university, but it is required that they take classes. While life lessons can be learned on the field, they can also be learned off the field. Just as one can learn to be a team player in a team sport, he or she can learn teamwork in doing a group project. A person can learn the same life lessons off the field as on, making athletics replaceable as learning tools. There is no way for athletics to provide the academic education that can be provided in the classroom.</p>
<p>I respect your opinion, 1of42, but I know for a fact that you, just like everyone else, is completely biased. I know that you feel the need to validate your child’s admission, just as I feel the need to validate my own thought by posting here. I only ask that you be able to understand perspectives other than your own. Isn’t that something one should learn in the diverse environment of which you are such a large proponent?</p>
<p>@Evan11235</p>
<p>1of42 is a student…</p>
<p>I like the fact that there are athletes on campus. They bring “diversity” in many ways as well as the perspective of being a team player. These elite colleges have enough nerds. That is one of my concerns with my son who will attend Princeton and is not a recruited athlete, merely a participant in three varsity sports. The best he can hope for is club lacrosse. I never played a team sport in high school student and now appreciate what it adds to the experience.</p>
<p>Rofl. Sorry. I don’t know why I thought he was a parent. It doesn’t invalidate my point, though.</p>
<p>Just for the record, S has never had a B…not since 5th grade. Has taken 8 APs. 35 ACT, #1 in class, all while being an excellent athlete and getting home at 8:00 PM from school most of the year. Would he have gotten in without a sport? Who knows. Is he qualified to attend? You bet. Coach said his qualifications are higher than the average admit without sports.</p>
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<p>You may think that; however, I’m not shoving it in people’s faces, I’m using it to demonstrate the point that I have seen firsthand the empirical results of what dontno is proposing, and they look very, very different (in a negative way) than the kind of admissions he is against. If you consider that shoving it in faces, fine; that is your opinion, and you are welcome to it - though I will ignore it.</p>
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<p>You make the presumption here that I am biased towards athletics because I am an athlete (or, though you have been corrected, the parent of an athlete). This is not the case. I was not recruited for anything. I have since walked on and play on a team at Princeton, but it played no part in my admission. So I really have no bone in this game - or, going from your assumption, should be arguing against athletic recruitment.</p>
<p>The fact is this: at universities, there are going to be people who take extra-curricular pursuits more seriously than academics. At every university, there are a lot. This is not viewed by the schools or admissions officers as some kind of errancy to be corrected; no, indeed, it is prized highly. That is because the campus life at Princeton is so diverse precisely because of the many people in the student body who are more focused on pursuits outside their classes.</p>
<p>Whether you think that is the way it should be or not, that is the choice: between a vibrant campus life including a number of students of widely variant pursuits, or a monochromatic campus composed of academic drones (yes, this is an exaggeration, but it is relatively close to the truth). Princeton has, clearly, chosen the former. You may disagree with that decision. If you do, there is at least one university in America, and certainly a number in developing countries (Indian and Chinese universities, in particular) where nothing but academics is taken into account. Why not attend there? The answer, of course, is that in spite of all the grousing about the shortcomings of recruitment, a lot of people would still like to get into Princeton and cannot, and so find a convenient scapegoat in athletes who “stole their place”. What a shame.</p>
<p>At the core of it, is that this argument is entirely founded on the jealousy surrounding the idea that a recruited athlete is “taking someone else’s spot”, where that someone else is more deserving. Not only is that not true (it is not necessarily true that each recruit be taking a spot away from someone else), the idea that academics be the primary criterion to the exclusion of all others is unsubstantiated by everyone who has posted in favor of it on this thread. I do not agree, and Princeton does not agree. </p>
<p>Each person is a being of many talents and shortcomings, and are evaluated as a whole. If you wish to contend that certain people individually are less deserving than others, that is your choice, but I’m not going to argue that issue because it’s not my place nor choice to defend Princeton admissions officers’ individual choices. If you have a problem with someone they admitted, take it up with them. I am not interested in arguing banal stereotypes with you, so I’m not going to sit here listening to everyone pontificate about what they think they know about athletic recruitment.</p>
<p>“I hold that academic merit should be the primary basis of acceptance because, umm I dunno, a college is a ****ing academic institution.”</p>
<p>Amen brotha.</p>
<p>Princeton is not the University of Miami. I’m sure the the athletes recruited are good students.</p>
<p>“From experience in closely researching, applying to, and deciding whether to attend the single university in the US that essentially does not lower its academic standards for anyone (athlete, musician, minority, poor person) - Caltech - I can tell you that when you give academics primacy over all else, you create a monochrome campus. It’s really as simple as that.”</p>
<p>HA, that’s funny because Caltech’s acceptance rate for women are twice that of men.</p>
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<p>That’s a huge generalization, which many may even find offensive (doesn’t affect me, but I want to point that out).</p>
<p>Also, can we quit this futile discussion. We’re all stereotyping and generalizing “Caltech is this” and “Indian universities do that”. Who are we to tell Princeton who they should or should not accept. That’s our personal opinion.</p>
<p>Now can we all cut the crap and get back on topic?</p>
<p>I agree. Broad generalization. Charlie Weis caught it for the same. Let’s return to the OP.</p>
<p>My cousin also chose Princeton over Harvard.</p>
<p>I think it’s perfectly okay to continue both discussions on this thread (controversy about athletic recruits and what colleges individuals chose Princeton over) considering that there is a nexus between the two.</p>
<p>Plus, 1of42 and I have surely made our viewpoints and I’m curious what others think (besides the thoughtful remarks made by some others).</p>
<p>So dontno, where are you going and did Princeton turn u down?</p>
<p>No I’m going to Princeton in the fall. It’s for graduate school though. </p>
<p>But let me be clear: I don’t have this opinion because I’m jealous of recruited athletes. It’s completely unbiased and objective. Furthermore, I think my arguments ONLY hold for the very elite universities, such as the Ivies, Amherst, Williams, etc. For large state universities or small colleges that would greatly benefit from athletic exposure and don’t have extremely high academic admission standards (i.e. Davidson University), athletic recruiting is surely acceptable.</p>
<p>@1of42</p>
<p>I don’t know why you think that everyone who says that academics should be the primary concern in admissions is actually saying that ONLY academics should be considered. I never said that. I don’t think dontno ever said that. I think you made that up to portray us as academic elitists. The fact that you mistreat and manipulate what we say makes you less convincing, not more.</p>