Privilege vs potential in college admissions

[ucbalumnus]

@MWolf

Weirdly, it seems that top LACs give a higher boost to athletes than to legacies.

A given set of sports teams will not vary much in number of players whether the college has 2,000 students or 20,000 students, although a larger school may choose to have more sports and therefore more teams and players (but probably not ten times as many for various schools in any given NCAA division).

So athletes will consume a much larger percentage of students at a small school than at a medium size or large school.

@MWolf

PS. Private schools like Notre Dame, and large public schools often recruit athletes a lot more aggressively than any Ivy, and provide a bigger bump, with athletes who wouldn’t normally be accepted at all, being provided with large scholarships and other benefit.

However, the number of athletes consumes only a small percentage of students at a giant public school, even if the admission preference is large. (It is not large at some giant public schools like University of Mississippi, where Mississippi residents get automatic admission if they meet NCAA minimum academic standards, even if they are not athletes.)