<p>Let’s see, which of the top academic schools don’t seem to care all that much about athletes? Off the top of my head I come up with UChicago and Reed? Any others?</p>
<p><<do americans=“” really=“” value=“” intellectual=“” pursuit=“” over=“” athletic=“” achievement?=“”>></do></p>
<p>Only the smart ones. That’s why it’s so easy to find someone to talk about sports with but so hard to find someone to discuss any issue on an intellectual level. </p>
<p><value is=“” the=“” word.=“” athletes=“” bring=“” in=“” revenue=“” for=“” schools,=“”></value></p>
<p>Then, athletes should be recruited and paid, outside of academia. What they do has nothing whatsoever to do with what is, or should be, the purpose of higher education.</p>
<p><<i think=“” of=“” this=“” as=“” one=“” the=“” “it=”" is=“” what=“” it=“” is"=“” issues.=“”>></i></p><i think=“” of=“” this=“” as=“” one=“” the=“” “it=”" is=“” what=“” it=“” is"=“” issues.=“”>
<p>“It is what it is.” Apathy should be the eighth deadly sin.</p>
<p><<why can’t=“” they=“” select=“” the=“” athletes=“” from=“” a=“” pool=“” of=“” kids=“” who=“” have=“” already=“” been=“” qualified=“” academically?=“”>></why></p>
<p>Because generally people are gifted in one area or the other but not both.</p>
</i>
<p>Athletes have worked hard at their sports and excelled. Colleges are in the business of teaching academics - no one has ever said you had to have perfect SATs and highest GPA possible to avail yourself of what Harvard, et al have to offer, it’s just that it’s become a way to pick and choose when so many are lined up outside to get in. I don’t believe that athletes admitted to the ivy league are dropping out in large numbers because they can’t hack it. Maybe someone has numbers to prove me wrong. I don’t think it’s nice for someone, no matter how hurt by the process they’ve been, calls a group of people (in this case, athletes) ‘not particularly interesting’, ‘significantly less qualified’ ‘have to rely on tutors’, etc. Athletes admitted to the ivy league ARE qualified - they are able to do the work in a given major.
And for the record, I am not an athlete nor do I have a child who has benefited/will benefit from being an athlete. I don’t think this discussion would be tolerated if the targeted group was women, or cellists, or international students.</p>
<p><<there are=“” no=“” athletic=“” scholarships.=“” now=“” that=“” is=“” established,=“” how=“” many=“” athletes=“” you=“” estimating=“” did=“” not=“” meet=“” the=“” academic=“” requirements=“” for=“” admittance?=“” 10%=“” of=“” 2400=“” or=“” about=“” 240?=“” more?=“” less?=“” what=“” it?=“”>></there></p>
<p>I don’t think anyone mentioned scholarships b/c Ivies don’t offer merit scholarships either so far as I know. But if you check the ED/EA stats, that’s where you’ll find the recruited athletes (and the URMs and legacies but we’ll leave that be for now). And hence is born the ill-conceived notion that students accepted ED/EA have lower stats and thus if the average high achieving Joe applies ED/EA, he has a better chance of getting accepted. It’s all related and I remain amazed that people are so easily duped. Fact is, they accept who they want to accept and the whole system is geared toward that end while attempting to raise the least amount of public ire.</p>
<p>It is a matter of supply and demand when it comes to musicians and athletes. There are many, many talented musicians at the top schools. Yale has extra orchestras for non music majors, and the talent there is such that I doubt if anyone can pick the music major ensemble. However, there are not that many kids who have the hours of experience and the stats for being on the gridiron and still are top school material. As a result they get a break. As a parent of a former college athlete from a non athletic scholarship school, I can tell you that the time college athletes need to put on their sport is incredibly high. I have posted a number of times what a typical weekend is when the sport is in season. It is not recommended for kids to work those hours.And they are mandatory for the kids to stay on the team. Extra curricular music activities are usually not as tough. </p>
<p>There is the question as to whether or not sports should be at a college particularly the ones that tend to need high numbers of players with low academic stats (football and hockey come to mind). That is a debate that is ongoing at some colleges. Swarthmore got rid of their football team. Emory does not have a football team. There are schools that do not put a premium on sports. But a school like Dartmouth needs to think twice about dismantling their sports programs, as ivy is truly a sports designation and to lose that would be PR mistake of enormous proportions. Too much history, tradition and money for many of the schools to even think about getting rid of their top sports programs. Polls have been taken among the college communities and they have overwhelming supported having sports team, most notably Duke, where the basketball players get a wiiiiiide leeway on academic credentials, more so than you will see in most selective schools sports programs. For many schools the sports give them a fabulous name recognition. </p>
<p>Dig, this was a great scenario you described. Might also add the internal workings in a family of the high achieving student. Kid applies to a number of schools, but the tours, sweatshirts and attention is focused on the HPY group. Those schools, of course do not care if you visit them 1000 times and each time the names roll of your tongue, each time you visit or talk to an alum, it reinforces the vision of going to the school. The disappointment stings all the more when it comes, and often schools where that demonstrated interested would have helped not only in admissions but in helping the student visualize himself and doing well at that college are often ignored. I think it was Soozievt who said that when applying to such schools, one should feel that it would be a wonderful surprise to get in but a long shot, nontheless, and the focus should be on the more realistic situations. I think that’s an excellent approach. This is a stressful enough process so to have expectations so dashed hurts terribly and can be somewhat mitagated.</p>
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<p>Actually I am not speaking on anecdotal evidence. I am speaking of three kids from our hs who have gotten into Yale (lacrosse) Brown (football) Cornell (track). I personally know these kids. They are far from qualified academically. And what I am suggesting is not based on my own frustration with my son’s experience as you suggest, thank you very much. As a matter of fact it wouldn’t necessarily have changed his outcome. What I am saying is that they could possibly lower the standard for the sport and raise the bar on the academics. I think the sports fans could enjoy the inter school competition just as much. What it would have changed is the look on his face when he found out that these particular kids who have not excelled at school got into these schools. (incidentally my s didn’t apply at Brown or Cornell)</p>
<p>And don’t forget that the Georgian brick of Harvard somehow makes the concrete jungle of U Mass or Northeastern look so… unappealing by comparison. It’s hard to get excited about the match/safeties if you start at the top. Who wouldn’t want to live in Palo Alto after seeing it?</p>
<p>That’s one reason that I am a reformed “college visit-a-holic”.</p>
<p>Other schools that aren’t too big on athletics:</p>
<p>Brandeis, Case, Allegeny.</p>
<p>Andi, by citing 3 kids from your school, that is indeed anecdotal. However, you are entirely correct in your statement, as the bar is lowered for many athletes and in many schools the stats for the athletes are lower than for that of the school, particularly in some sports. In many of the top schools, the coaches are not just looking for excellent athletes and the positions they need for their teams, but also the likelihood of the kid staying on the team. The burden of athletics on top of a challenging courseload drives many of these kids to quit before the 4 years are up. It is very tough to field a competitive team. </p>
<p>Also some unlikely schools do give boosts to athletes, Oberlin and Uof Chicago. I know kids on the U of Chicago football team, and I assure you balancing the sport and the academics there is quite a feat. And the interest is NOT high for the sport there, and the last I heard, the football team was NOT good. But then few people even know UCh has a football team. Believe it or not, many of the kids, alums, community feel they should keep it as it is one of the few things to “balance” the pervading atmosphere there, even though I don’t think the team is well supported. It is the better teams that are enjoyed by the sports fans, the name team, so it does make a difference.</p>
<p>Well blossom, here’s one student who won’t have that problem. For me, the safety/match (really, most likely) school, UM, has one of the best campuses anywhere, located in an awesome college town, Ann Arbor.</p>
<p>Andi- you don’t have much of an understanding of how athletics work. As a coach, you don’t just field an interscholastic team which is composed of whoever might get through admissions. You might wind up with no goalie, no discus thrower, no quarterback… Recruiting, like it or not, is essential. Coach’s jobs depend on it. It is hard enough for the highly selective academic non-scholarship schools to attract top athletes who could receive money from other DI schools. The three examples you cite are not the norm, if, in fact, you are correct in your assessment of these students. There are very few track, swimming or crew recruits (excluding URMs) with academic stats much below the mid-range for the applicant pool.</p>
<p>“I don’t think anyone mentioned scholarships b/c Ivies don’t offer merit scholarships either so far as I know. But if you check the ED/EA stats, that’s where you’ll find the recruited athletes (and the URMs and legacies but we’ll leave that be for now). And hence is born the ill-conceived notion that students accepted ED/EA have lower stats and thus if the average high achieving Joe applies ED/EA, he has a better chance of getting accepted. It’s all related and I remain amazed that people are so easily duped. Fact is, they accept who they want to accept and the whole system is geared toward that end while attempting to raise the least amount of public ire.”</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I was answering to the question about which portion of revenues that goes to athletes in the form of merit aid. As far as I know, merit aid is a scholarship.</p></li>
<li><p>Ill-conceived notion? The ED/EA pool HAS lower stats, and there are no restrictions to enter into the pool. The chances to be admitted EA/ED are MUCH better than in the RD round. Do not take my word for it, read Avery’s reports and books. </p></li>
<li><p>Public Ire? No matter what schools do, they will end up generating public ire. That does not mean that the ire is justified in the least.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Chicago gives boosts to football players? and Oberlin? Well, how about that! I’m trying to imagine any of the football players I know wanting to play for Chicago . . .</p>
<p>Well, to steer the thread back to the advice of the OP, I’d say also you should get your admissions book, copy the data from the schools you’re interested in, and put it into a spread sheet so that you have data on at least the top 40% of the class, assuming you rank in it–more than that if you attend a small school. </p>
<p>Then look at the relatively lower of your stats (GPA, or SAT). Now, sort your list of students (with accepts and rejects) by either GPA or SAT totals, and see where the 10 students above and below your GPA (or SAT) were accepted last years, AND ESPECIALLY where they were rejected. Doing this will give you a much better idea of where to apply. (it is, I believe, a common error to focus on the better of the two measurements. IMO, This is the key to achieving disastrous results.)</p>
<p>I must confess that we were “lucky” enough to have encountered a remarkably similarly distraught mother about this time two years ago, whose son was having to work his way in off waitlists, and who ultimately cleared it at one of the top LACs and also at a top ten national school. I was feeling pretty self satisfied that surely this would not happen to my son the following year, until I had the forwardness to inquire about her son’s board scores. They were high 1500s and turned out to be second highest in the school, (I found when I went to look at the admissions results book the next fall). That woke me up, and the result was that my son had a pretty good idea all along how difficult the application process was going to be. [Having said all that, those rejections hurt a lot, even when they were expected. Further, although I’ve “counseled” other parents on this, I think that unless you get the data and rub their face in it, there is no way to be prepared for the ruthlessness of the selection process. We have several talented young people at our school this year who, I think, are in similar circumstances to Andi and others.]</p>
<p>dadx - the spreadsheet idea is a good one, and we created one as well. We added a few other things, including costs, likely merit money (if any) and a “prestige” factor. Once you have all this info in a spreadsheet, it can be sorted in as many ways as you have data columns. The list CONSTANTLY changed as schools were added and removed.</p>
<p>“However, you are entirely correct in your statement, as the bar is lowered for many athletes and in many schools the stats for the athletes are lower than for that of the school, particularly in some sports.”</p>
<p>Couldn’t one as easily have said that the bar is RAISED? That is, since the quality of education being afforded to athletes and non-athletes alike is the same (and the requirements are the same), the non-athletes just couldn’t cut it when it comes to the discipline and time commitment and length of commitment necessary to become a first-rate athlete, and that the schools have to the lower the bar when it comes to these qualifications in order to let the non-athletes in?</p>
<p>When I think of athletic admissions I remember the “athlete” at D’s school. Stalked the Ivy coaches, learning what summer camp to attend. Almost a brain dead kid needing tutoring in every class. Tutor sitting in with student to take the test (the school went overboard on leniency). Ultimately, the kid and parents (did you know our D got into --fill in your Ivy school–at every school function loud enough to be heard three blocks away) were successful. Other brilliant kids got rejection after rejection.</p>
<p>There’s more to the story but I don’t like to put additional info up on public forums. It was enough to make you heave. I feel sorry for the kid. What obnoxious parents. Not impressed by the Ivy school.</p>
<p>My oldest daughter has never attended a school with a football team- …
Her sister is attending a comprehensive high school with a really sucky football team- but they just hired two men to coach next year who have been involved as players and coaches in the NFL so we will see if it makes a difference.
I suppose it would if you want to get an athletic scholarship- it would probably help to be on a winning team- or at least a team that doesn’t finish last.
BUt IMO at many schools emphasis is way overboard-
am I right in remembering that Swarthmore cut their football team?
And that earlham is targeting athletes for theirs?
Sports at LACS- at least big time competitive sports don’t make sense to me.
They don’t offer the comprehensive U thing- why try and mimic it?
Some LACS do offer football- Colgate comes to mind and I know there are others- but frankly- what is so great about football?
Even my niece at Colgate who was team captain in crosscountry and track in high school and who graduated 1st in her class wasn’t able to keep up with her studies and do a sport once she got to college.
It requires way too much time- they are there to get an education and I do think athletics are important but I would never send my kid to a school where the jocks got more attention than anything else</p>
<p>Well, regardless of what should or shouldn’t be, being an athlete that can help a team (as well playing oboe in the off season) can sometimes help. This is important for non-athletes (and their parents) as well as athletes to remember. It is another cog in that little black box of admissions that we can only discern indirectly.</p>
<p>It’s also important to remember that if the college has a surplus of, say, hocky goalies, that student will likely not get an athletic bump at that that school for that year. Its as random for (all but the most elite) athletes as is is for everyone else. The thing that they may have is addtional feedback from the coaches. This additional information may at least partially explain some of the successes.</p>
<p>I’m all for getting rid of D-1 sports at Rice - but they chose to keep the football team and D-1 designation even though attendance at home games is spotty at best, it costs the school millions of dollars a year (literally), and recruited athletes at Rice are not academically on a level with most non-recruited athletes.</p>