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I’m not sure if it’s true or not, but I believe I read somewhere on here (that already tells you how valid it is) that at MIT specifically the coaches have far less influence over the decision on admitting an athlete than, say, Princeton.
This is absolutely true. Princeton is a member of the Ivy League, which is a division I sports league, while MIT is division III. Division I and division III have different rules for recruitment and admission of athletes, and coaches have considerably less sway at division III schools in general, and at MIT in particular.</p>
<p>A quote from Matt McGann that I dig up every time we talk about athletic recruitment here:
Athletes at MIT do not face a “different admissions process.” There is no separate athletic admissions committee. Coaches do not get to sit with the Dean and present their students in a special meeting as at many schools. There is no policy that we admit all academically-qualified recruited athletes. Perhaps more importantly, there is no “slot” system. What is a slot system? In a major article on Division III athletics admissions in 2005, the New York Times wrote,
Broadly, Division III colleges are separated into those that use what is customarily called a slots system and those that do not. Slots are reserved for athletes in each freshman class, a specific number that typically represents 15 percent to 30 percent of those admitted. Colleges that do not have a slots system may admit more, or fewer, recruited athletes, but there is no set number.
That is to say – we don’t hold open admissions spaces for teams/coaches, we have no quota or even any target for athletes.</p>
<p>That being said, we do value extracurricular talent, including athletic talent, in our admissions process. Most of MIT’s full-time coaches do recruit (though this recruitment bears little resemblance to what Division I schools call recruiting). Because of stereotypes and preconceived notions, many talented student-athletes are not aware that MIT even has varsity sports, much less that we’re actually pretty good (for example, a classmate of mine, Jason Szuminski '00, went on to pitch for the San Diego Padres, after completing his Aero-Astro degree). The outreach work of our coaches complements the work done by many at MIT in identifying talented prospective MIT students.
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