Is there a minimum class rank for football athletes, or only AI

[Paul13375]

<p>Hello, I am posting from a IPhone, so my bad for any mistakes on the post. I was curious if ivy leagues have a minimum class rank requirement for admission. According to a website that I read, the coach said something about how they need to reject applicants constantly due to academics, things like below 1200 sat score (old) and they are done, or below top 15 percent they are done. I am just nervous because class rank was never one of my specialties, and I may be cut just because I can’t maintain my rank along with my peers. So they question I have for you, if I am in the top 50 percent or so (terrible I know) however I manage to get extremely high sat and sat 2 scores, and I get a AI of like 200-210, do I get in, or am I rejected because of inferior class rank. </p>

[gibby]

<p>Class rank is not a factor in Harvard Admissions – that’s true for everyone (see Common Data Set, C7 Data: <a href=“http://oir.harvard.edu/files/huoir/files/harvard_cds_2011-2012.pdf”>http://oir.harvard.edu/files/huoir/files/harvard_cds_2011-2012.pdf&lt;/a&gt;).</p>

<p>By Ivy League rules, the minimum GPA allowed at all the ancient 8 schools is a 3.0, but Harvard’s recruited athletes generally have much higher grades. Harvard’s team AI is thought to be 220, possibly higher. For every recruited athlete that is under 220, another team player must be recruited with a 220+ to offset the lower score. With a 200 AI, I would think your chances are pretty slim unless you are a top nationally ranked player. See:
<a href=“https://www.mka.org/uploaded/college_counseling/Publications/AI_Guidelines_Worksheet.pdf”>https://www.mka.org/uploaded/college_counseling/Publications/AI_Guidelines_Worksheet.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“Before Athletic Recruiting in the Ivy League, Some Math - The New York Times”>Before Athletic Recruiting in the Ivy League, Some Math - The New York Times;

[sherpa]

<p>“By Ivy League rules, the minimum GPA allowed at all the ancient 8 schools is a 3.0…”</p>

<p>Source?</p>

[gibby]

<p>^^ The NY Times article I linked to from post #1</p>

<p>

Perhaps the most talked about goal of the A.I. is the academic credential minimum it establishes, a number below which virtually no Ivy League recruit can be admitted. This summer, that floor was raised from an Academic Index of 171 to 176, which roughly translates to a B student (3.0 on a 4.0 scale) with a score of 1140 on the old two-part SAT.

FWIW: I went to the CC Academic Index and played around with the numbers. A student with a 3.0 GPA would need to score a 750 on each sub-section of the SAT and have a 750 on both SAT Subject Tests to have an AI score of 217 – which is still below what is thought to be HYP’s average team AI of 220.</p>

[sherpa]

<p>Being one of CC’s most valued contributors, I’m surprised by the misinformation gibby is posting.</p>

<p>

By Ivy League rules, the minimum GPA allowed at all the ancient 8 schools is a 3.0…

The NYT article makes no such claim. As gibby correctly notes, “a student with a 3.0 GPA would need to score a 750 on each sub-section of the SAT and have a 750 on both SAT Subject Tests to have an AI score of 217…” It is also true that a student with 800s across the board could have a 217 with a GPA below 3.0.</p>

<p>In any event, gibby’s assertions that

Harvard’s team AI is thought to be 220, possibly higher

and

For every recruited athlete that is under 220, another team player must be recruited with a 220+ to offset the lower score.

are also incorrect.</p>

<p>According to gibby’s first source <a href=“https://www.mka.org/uploaded/college_counseling/Publications/AI_Guidelines_Worksheet.pdf”>https://www.mka.org/uploaded/college_counseling/Publications/AI_Guidelines_Worksheet.pdf&lt;/a&gt;

The Campus AI is the average of all students on campus. This varies slightly from college to college, but probably no more than ten points across the entire group. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are thought to have the highest Campus AI at approximately 220…
…The Athletic AI for all athletes in all sports must be within one standard deviation of the Campus AI…
…TEAM AI Must be within one standard deviation (10-15 points) of the Campus AI for that institution…

The implication is that HYP athletes must have AIs of 205-210. But that’s only an average for all athletes, not a minimum for every athlete. As the article gibby cites explains:

The Athletic AI for all athletes in all sports must be within one standard deviation of the Campus AI. This allows each college some flexibility by allowing a few key revenue sports to have a Team AI lower than one standard deviation but be collectively offset by others with a Team AI less than one standard deviation away from the Campus AI (fencing, golf, squash, tennis, for example).

As such, the football team is not held to the 205-210 overall athlete standard, much less the overall student average of 220.</p>

[gibby]

<p>Thank you for all the corrections Sherpa. I don’t have time to respond today, but will on another day.</p>

[sherpa]

<p>I just played around with an AI calculator and I’m shocked that the reported average AI scores at HYP are as low as they are. I’m not referring to the averages for the athletes, but for the overall student body. By your typical CC standards 220 isn’t that impressive. If someone posted a “Chance me for HYP” thread saying they had a 2100 SAT, a couple 750 SAT IIs, and a 3.6 GPA, they be derided. But they’d have an AI of 220, the reported average for those schools.</p>

<p>But, you might ask, aren’t those recruited athletes pulling down the overall averages?</p>

<p>They are, and I did a quick calculation to account for that,and it looks like the average non-athlete AI would be around 223. What’s a 223?</p>

<p>One combination is 2100, 750, 750, 3.8.</p>

<p>I don’t know if HYP could fill their incoming classes with perfect scorers, but surely they could fill those classes with 230+ AI kids. But they don’t.</p>

<p>Apparently they mean it when they say they look at essays, recommendations, and ECs.</p>

[gibby]

<p>Ivy league schools do not publish their athletic teams AI, nor do they publish their campus wide AI of non-athletes, so everything is really conjecture. That said, the Harvard Crimson recently did a survey for the class of 2017: <a href=“The Harvard Crimson | Class of 2017”>http://features.thecrimson.com/2013/frosh-survey/admissions.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>

The average self-reported unweighted GPA on a 4.0 scale was 3.94. Fifty-four percent of students reported a perfect 4.0, and the lowest score reported was a 3.0.</p>

<p>Freshmen reported an average composite SAT score of 2237. The reported average subject score was consistent across the three sections, with an average of 748 in the math section, 746 on writing, and 744 on critical reading.

</p>

<p>If I’m doing the math correctly, inputting a 3.94 unweighted GPA with SAT scores of 748, 746 and 744 to the AI — and making a guess at the SAT Subject Test Scores (I used 740 and 750) the calculated AI of the Harvard’s class of 2017 would be 228.</p>

<p>As the survey probably combined recruited athletes and non-recruited athletes, it’s difficult to break out AI scores of each group. Assuming the lowest GPA reported (3.0.) was probably from a recruited athlete, the average academic student’s AI could be several points higher than the average of 228 — 230 perhaps, given that more than half the class had a perfect 4.0. So, maybe you are correct @Sherpa or maybe Harvard’s recruited athletes AI’s are in the 215 to 220 range. Unfortunately, we will never know.</p>

[notjoe]

<p>gibby,</p>

<p>I hadn’t realized that the “54% of Harvard admits had a 4.0 unweighted GPA” was from self-reported data. You do realize that there is likely to be a small bias on the high side inherent in a self-reported statistic like that. Unless there is similar data that is derived directly from official high school transcripts of admitted students, I’d say that it is unlikely, then, that more than half of Harvard admits score a 4.0 unweighted GPA during high school. In fact, the structure of the data strongly suggest that many of the students queried gave a rounded GPA in answer to the survey, and thus, you have clustering around 4.0, 3.9, 3.8, etc.</p>

[gibby]

<p>That’s true @notjoe. It’s also true that only half the class responded. I’m on my phone at the moment. so I can’t double check the data with Harvard’s Common Data Set, but I seem to recall that the Administrations median GPA and SAT was in the same ballpark. Anecdotally, my daughter has roomed with 3 recruited athletes – two Crew and one Alpine Skiing – and all of them were straight A student’s in high school. So the AI numbers will vary from team to team.</p>

[sherpa]

<p>

Assuming the lowest GPA reported (3.0.) was probably from a recruited athlete, the average academic student’s AI could be several points higher…

Ouch, that hurts. Are you saying there are distinct two groups: the recruited athletes and the academic students, and the twain never meet?</p>

<p>Gibby, I’m kidding. As I know you know from your D’s experience, some athletes are excellent students.</p>

<p>But the truth is, there is an unfortunate but understandable suspicion that recruited athletes face from their athletically less qualified peers (again, I kid). Some may have viewed this great kid I know as “just a” recruited athlete, not knowing he’d worked as hard for his 237 AI as he had for his national athletic ranking.</p>

[notjoe]

<p>@gibby,</p>

<p>Actually, the article says nearly 80% responded, but not all completed the survey, so it’s difficult to say which statistics are based on what number of responses. I’m just pointing out that the GPAs cited are estimated in many cases. The kids with one or two A-s in high school may or may not remember whether it was one or two, or may have even forgot that that 93.8% was marked A- rather than A-. Or many students might have said, well, it was 3.9-something or other - I’ll just call it 4.0. The data cry out that this is precisely what happened unless you think that large numbers of students got precisely 3.9s, 3.8s, 3.7s, and so on. In a four-point scale, unweighted, with most kids taking 28 or more courses, those would be arithmetically very difficult to come by.</p>

<p>I’m sure a great number of students who go to Harvard wind up approaching 4.0. In fact, since so many Harvard admits (and other Ivy admits) come from feeder schools, I’d be surprised if it were otherwise. But the data you cite herein makes me doubt that over half of Harvard admits got straight As in high school.</p>

<p>As for athletes, my son’s experience differs a little. Freshmen year, his four-person group shared a bathroom with a group of four athletes on the other side of the entryway. The athletes were very good at puking all over the bathroom after long nights of raucous partying and drinking, but never showed much by way of academic rigor. But they all got along, anyway. As I’ve mentioned, my sons attended a high school that has a fairly prominent sports program, and once they found out where my older son went to high school, he became an honorary jock.</p>

[gibby]

<p>

Ouch, that hurts.

</p>

<p>I highlighted that fact, which may or may not be true, because the OP on another thread said he had a 2.6 GPA. Realistically, if he wants Harvard – or any of the other ivies – I feel he needs to get his GPA up towards a 3.0. which is not going to be easy for him over the next two years.</p>

[sherpa]

<p>^ I agree. As another point of reference, K1’s coach told his recruits in their non-revenue sport that they needed to have at least 700s across the board and a 3.8 or higher (with a rigorous courseload), which yields an AI of 218. I’m fairly confident K1’s team AI was over 220.</p>

<p>Football - a different story.</p>