<p>@CheesyMonkey: your LAX player friend is blowing smoke. Top programs are eying freshmen and have top recruits committed as juniors. </p>
<p>Although Princeton isn’t a tippy top program, they aren’t talking to him. Why?
Princeton is in clear communications with a select few who will BE recruited. At best, your buddy, if somehow he attained the fantastical SATs and GPA and got admitted, MIGHT be a walk-on for Princeton – and he’d be eclipsed by the starter-recruits who have been excelling for 10+ years.</p>
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<p>They have to meet standards. No one is flying in under the radar.</p>
<p>As far as nods to athletes, to the Ivies (and many LACs), this is just one sub-group. Would you agree that it’s terribly difficult to find a super high performing opera singer as a college applicant? If available, would a college be amiss to not compare her with the bulk of 30K applicants and instead ensure that she has a minimum level of academic achievement and potential and try then, to woo her to be part of that college’s community? Is this wrong? Many private colleges practice what’s called “category admissions”</p>
<p>Basically, the college decides in advance, how many slots go to which teams or which other sub-groups such as international applicants. They are not available to the general applicant. If you applied to Princeton, you’d NEVER be in the same pool as the int’l students. That last marginal int’l applicant Princeton decides to admit did not take away a slot from a “general” applicant. He took the slot of the next int’l applicant who was just one excel cell lower than his.</p>