I’m a ranked athletic recruit for track and cross country but I don’t know if i can get into any Ivy league schools based on my academics. My GPA is 3.3 unweighted (I attend a STEM school that is very rigorous but still public you just have to apply to be admitted and I’ve taken only 2 AP class’s Junior year AP LANG & AP PHYSICS) my SAT is 1300, my ethnicity is Ethiopian (so yes i am a minority), and my family is on the lower end of the middle class which is hard living in Seattle, WA where housing is so expensive. I’m involved in lots of other things as well like being the President of 2 clubs BSU (Black Student Union) & and a club I started called Brotherhood club. I also manage 3 jobs as a basketball referee during the winters and track/xc coach in the spring/summer and fall. I also work as a Educator at the Museum of Flight. A looked project I was involved in as well was I helped design a financial outline for the redesign of the the South Satellite at SeaTac Airport here in Seattle WA. My interest for pursuing a major include economics or education at the moment. Chances of getting in any Ivy’s?
Only the coaches can tell you this information. If you haven’t reached out to the coaches yet by email or phone do so ASAP…some are doing pre-reads now, some leagues won’t do pre-reads until July 1 and later.
Also fill out each coach’s online recruiting questionnaire. I would cast the net wider than that of just the Ivy league as well.
Whether your athletic stats and URM status can overcome a relatively low GPA and low SAT will vary by school. Again, create a broad list of schools. Good luck.
Be careful of assuming Ivy League schools are interchangeable. They are all different and if you don’t understand that, it won’t bode well for you. Remember that a coach can want you, but it’s still admissions that lets you in. You need to broaden your search. Try some of the excellent Division 3 LACs.
You need to contact the coaches ASAP, as suggested above. Fill out the recruiting form and send an email to the coach with your times and academic stats. Your stats seem weak to me, to be honest, but the coaches will have a better sense of that.
Having said that, your times are going to matter if you want to be recruited. You don’t list those, and I don’t know what ‘ranked’ means. If you were on the podium at the WA state meet, then you might get some interest. But if that’s the case, you should definitely be looking in state and in the PNW. The Powells are putting together one of the best distance programs in the country, and WSU is strong as well. There are also WUE options like Montana State, Idaho, Boise St, Utah St. with good distance programs.
This is not a fact, but rather my honest opinion from attending an Ivy League School, the only thing that matters is 1. does the coach want you and 2. what is your test score. From my understanding, each team has a certain “tier” of athlete that they can take. Tier 1 is for the most athletically talented who have the lowest test scores. So let’s say an SAT from 1200-1250. The team can only take one of these for the incoming class. Then there might be two spots for tier 2 athletes who have SAT scores from 1260-1350 or what not. (This is from my freshman year roommate who was an athlete)
This continues up until all of the slots are filled by athletes that they want to recruit that also fit into these tiers. So it really comes down to how much the coach wants you on the team and if they have room in your test score tier to offer you a spot. Best of luck, however, attending an ivy is not the end all be all, and there are many other schools you could attend for academics or athletics that you would have an amazing experience at too. Hope this helped.
As far as the actual recruiting process and how to get on the coach’s radar, it sounds like the comments above seem to be a lot more informative than anything I could offer.
@collegecrazy2017 depends on the sport but what you are describing is more like the NESCAC where typical teams get 2 slots for great athletes less great students. For Soccer in the Ivy the coaches get 7 slots/likely letters. Typically the coach has an internal score e.g. 30ACT that soccer players must hit to get in. The old way of recruiting academic boosters doesn’t really happen anymore in the Ivy. For affluent sports most teams can easily make the 30ACT cutoff. It varies of course for football which goes lower, and men’s basketball. Golf seems higher, but each school has their own “protected” sport they still want to be great at and will go lower for admissions (Yale , men’s lacrosse, Princeton Rowing, Harvard men’s hockey etc…) But in general the key is for Ivies they want 0.01% athletes and maybe top 5-10% tile students. Most kids don’t realize that going in. For many competitive olympic/non-revenue Ivy sports (women’s soccer, men’s lacrosse, etc…) the athletes that get into Ivy can easily get recruited to top 30 D1 powerhouses (not football, not basketball). Likewise the top 2 players on top NESCAC schools can also get recruited to middle/bottom D1 programs that aren’t full scholarship sports.
^ agree. Talk of tiers or academic index isn’t a big part of Ivy distance running recruiting in my experience. Maybe because distance kids with the level of talent needed who are also interested in Ivies tend to be very good students. In any case, I wouldn’t get too deep in the weeds as a recruit. Let the coach worry about that, and listen closely to what he or she says. If recruitment proceeds there’ll be an admissions pre read anyway.
It’s all based on how good you are, at least up to a point. The better you are as an athlete, the worse you can be as a student. @collegecrazy2017 doesn’t have the details right, but the outcome is basically the same. The coach will worry about the AI, and may or may not tell the recruits that. The AI is 2/3 test scores and 1/3 GPA. The coach most likely has a floor he can’t go below, and an average he needs to hit.
Good advice to ask the coaches. You need to contact them ASAP. If you have a school or club coach who can help you, that would be beneficial. They should be able to help you know which level of schools you should be considering.
Financial aid formulas don’t care that you live in an expensive town. So I would run a NPC before you get too excited about the Ivy League. Harvard has a super simple one on its website. FYI, that is more generous than most of them. So if that gives you an unrealistic number you may need to look elsewhere.
@politeperson @dadof4kids @anon145 More about admissions pre read: does that entail a coach saying, “hey, we like you, want you on the team, however, you are going to need to get your test scores up if you wan a shot at admission”? I mean, are they that explicit about what is needed if they want the athlete? And is the AI a phenomenon unique to the Ivy League?
The AI is specific to the ivy league. However, there’s a similar concept in most selective schools. But the AI is part of the agreement the Ivy League schools have with each other about recruiting.
Yes, they are that explicit at least some of the time. We asked, and S was given a target ACT score by every Ivy coach he talked to, which was most of them. Same with Stanford, Northwestern, etc. About half the Ivy coaches referenced the AI, the others just said assuming your grades stay the same this is the ACT you need.They knew his GPA when they gave him that target.
The target was given early in the process, so the number could change based on how high the coach put him on their list. One coach laid it out pretty well. He said if you’re my #1 and a freshman starter, 27 will work. If you’re a developmental guy who may never leave the practice room, I probably need a 34. Everyone else falls in-between. This was a coach we met with early, so while S clearly had potential but also had not really proven himself yet so the coach didn’t know where he would fall on the spectrum.
I saw that process in action with S. Initially I think he was seen as someone with potential but not super high on anyone’s list. His junior year he started having some pretty good national level success and notched several wins over older D1 commits. When his ACT score came in a couple points lower the most coaches wanted, they told him it was fine not to worry about it. I think without that success they would have stuck to the original number.
At most high academic schools, and definitely in the ivy league, the coach does not have final say on who is admitted. But most coaches have a pretty good idea. Ultimately what will happen is in July the coach can submit your information to the admissions committee for a pre read. That’s when you get confirmation that your scores are going to be okay. Stanford I believe you have to do an actual application to get the pre read. Not 100% sure, as S decided to go a different route before we got that far with them. I don’t remember exactly what information they asked us to provide for the pre read at an Ivy, but it wasn’t that much. you don’t have to write any essays or anything like that.
@tiempocompleto the AI is specific to the Ivy League; At least for some of the NESCACs a player that would be one of the best on a team can have a lower test score for a NESCAC than an Ivy, but in general since those slots are more limited per team (as a rule of thumb 2 slots in NESCAC vs 7 in Ivy team sport) most of the NESCAC roster (at least at Williams/Amherst) will have higher scores than an Ivy roster for team sport. In women’s soccer an ACT of 30 is good enough for any Ivy if the coach wants them. NESCAC Amherst/williams soccer rosters range from 28/29-36ACT. (Football is a completely different thing and I don’t know anything about that, since theoretical “banding” in Ivy league football would let in some very non-exceptional students.) (underrepresented minorities usually don’t count against a coaches requests since sports teams at NESCACs are whiter than the general school population and they know they need more diversity there.)
The two things about Ivy AI that are not obvious from a google search are 1) the Ivies no longer use “academic boosters” much. So the slightly below the rest athletically but way above academically doesn’t help anymore or they are only used for specific coaches/sports. 2) The ivy team sport I know uses slots/likely letters that have a minimum internal test score number in the coaches head to be hit so they will be crystal clear on that number if they really want the kid.
The pre-read is asked for by the coach; in UAA schools they can do this any time, at NESCAC after July 1 of junior year. They ask for test scores and a transcript (does not need to be official). For one UAA school where coach has been there forever, one of the first correspondences was for transcript and test score request - the coach herself screened it. Commented on lots of rigor/APs in diverse subjects so even though coach knew 4.0 wanted to see how rigorous.
An official screen by admissions means the coach is very serious since they generally are not over-using the AO for this. At MIT they want to know math and science subscores and whether there are plans to take subject tests/taken them before any official read. (I imagine if coaches at MIT see very high scores but low math/science, high english/reading they know those kids won’t get in)
For most players looking at those types of schools they will have the scores needed (except maybe MIT which is least forgiving). However, Yes if the coach wants a kid and they are a bit below what’s needed they will tell them they need a specific number. The overnight visit per my kid, included one who was told her SAT needed to be higher.
There are sites on the internet that will calculate/estimate your Academic Index and will give you the likely score ranges you need to hit . School and team AI targets will be different since each school’s AI minimum average for all recruited athletes is dependent on the AI of the student body in general. Some sports are given lower AI targets (football for instance uses a tier system which allows for a limited number of relatively low AI recruits) which necessarily means the team average for other sports is higher.
For my 2 kids, they first gave GPA and test info informally to the coaches on an unsolicited basis through the recruiting questionnaire, email and/or by virtue of some minimums required to participate in certain academic showcases. If you are not near their minimums, they won’t even bother talking to you no matter the athletic skill. The coaches who took an interest then asked for an unofficial copy of their transcripts and test scores. They generally are pretty good judges at that point, especially since they will be culling their recruit list down, as to whether they want to continue the process with you. We have found most coaches are pretty forthcoming on where you stand athletically and academically if you directly ask at this point. For their final cut of recruits, they will ask for your latest transcript, your best score report and senior year class list to take to the AO for pre reads by the AO. Once they have those in hand, they will go down their list of finalists primarily by athletic ranking and offer their recruiting slots. There is still some musical chairs going around as many of the top recruits will have multiple schools interested in them.