<p>anxiousmom, be careful of generalizing. The Rice runners have one of the highest GPA averages in D1. I also know some recruited female swimmers there with over 1500 SATs. Athletics means more than the revenue sports.</p>
<p>I can’t disagree with much I;ve read here, but I’d like to preface my comments with this: Before middle school,we pulled our S out of a top (#1 in state) rated public school system because while parents all talked about their kids going to ivies and lac’s, the real emphasis in our town was on athletics not academics… Bright, hard-working intellectual kids never had their photos in the local paper, and were not the popular ones on campus. The private school we chose valued intellectual talents over athletics and our son graduated hs feeling proud about his academic talent. That said, I do think that the goal of the top colleges, including the ivies, is to have a campus that mirrors the population at large. That means campuses would admit even the “lowly” athletes. Our S is at Brown, and is not an athlete. He readily admits that the athletes struggle and frequently embarass themselves in classroom discussions. He finds it frustrating that he worked his tail off to get there, yet athletes in his classes can;t even follow the discussions–it’s as though they speak a different language, he said. I’m not sure what the ivies and top lac’s are doing with their admission policies, but the disparity between the high-achieving intellectual students and the struggling athletes seem to be growing.</p>
<p>Forgot to say that at the public school in our town this year, more ivy admits were athletes than scholars, but at the private school my son attended, there were no ivy athletes admitted, only scholars. I spoke to one mom of an athlete who bragged that her daughter got into Brown with a 1250 SAT and a 3.2. I can’t bring myself to tell my son.</p>
<p>prepdude- sounds like our town- and we’re the ones at the public school</p>
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<p>Because pretty much everyone associated with a given school wants to see a winning season and a victory in the Big Game. This is particularly true of the fat-wallet alumni. Fannies in the seats at the stadium = money. Donations from happy alumni = money. Money talks. Always has; always will.</p>
<p>Plus, let’s not malign the coaches here. Coaches get hired to produce winners, not losers. In collegiate athletic contests, the coach’s income depends on the outcome. Lose too many games and he’ll lose his job. Now if you were that coach and you had a family to feed, on what basis would you recruit: big scholarship + acceptable talent? Or would you shoot for big talent + acceptable scholarship?</p>
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<p>I think it helped my D. She was not a recruited musician in the same sense that her cousin, a state champ miler, was a recruited athlete, but she was (and is) a moderately-talented bassoon player. Her talent is at the All-SoCal Honor Orchestra level, not pro material. Her Harvard interviewer was also a bassoonist in his day. They talked bassoons during the interview. And once she enrolled and began talking to the various conductors and maestros on campus, it was clear that some of them had either read the interviewer’s report or had even been directly contacted by the interviewer. She started getting recruitment letters and e-mails to join various school orchestras and ensembles (which she did). Was she “recruited” to play bassoon for Harvard? No. But was the bassoon a tip factor back when the adcom was voting? I really don’t know, but I think it didn’t hurt.</p>
<p>Well, one sure sign of intelligence is the ability to understand people who speak a different language! </p>
<p>Frankly, the tone of this thread is getting pretty annoying. Again, I can understand the disappointment, but this anedoctal fingerpointing is childish. </p>
<p>If it was THAT easy to make it into a top school based on athletics alone, why did you NOT push your offspring in that direction? After all, it must not be THAT hard to push a ball up a field or hit a small ball with a round object. I have the utmost respect for people who can do things I can’t such as singing, dancing, or playing an instrument. In turn, even if you cannot recognize that people can excel at more than one activity, I expect other people to respect the “different” abilities of athletes. </p>
<p>If you really want to measure IQ, would you not think that you’ll find plenty of idiots and illiterates in Hollywood or Broadway? Then, this does not even begin to address the high IQ science students who have the social skills of ■■■■■■■■ manatees. What kind of conversations do they maintain when removed from their white coats environment? </p>
<p>Is it so hard to see that your gratuitous comments are offensive? Just as mine were in the paragraph above. Yes, I should recognize that for every Paris Hilton there are several Tommy Lee Jones who attended Harvard. And for every dumb as a broom athlete, there are many students who happened to excel at a sport AND at academics. </p>
<p>Showing a modicum of respect is also a sign of intelligence. Intelligence is not only the capacity to acquire and apply knowledge, but also the ability to comprehend and to understand others, and maybe even learn from them.</p>
<p>Digmedia: GREAT post. It well deserves being a featured post there on CC. </p>
<p>Dadx: great reply, more food for thought.</p>
<p>I don’t have athletes (unless you count a little frisbee or a run with the dog). I have boys with high scores/stats, EC’s, etc. And I know it would be difficult for them to perform at this level if they were spending 3 hours a day, every day, practicing a sport. Count in travel time for out of town games, week-end tournaments, conditioning, and off-season training and it’s a wonder the athletes have any time to study.</p>
<p>At the college level I don’t now how some athletes ever graduate. Not because they’re not bright enough but because they are rarely on campus to attend class.</p>
<p>I really don’t think many of you have any idea how hard it is to be a college athlete, especially a Division I scholarship athlete. I reviewed lots of athletics programs as part of my work on Title IX when I was in the US Department of Education. It was a wonder to me that any college athletes, who werent Bill Bradley, every graduated. </p>
<p>Athletes and their time are owned by their coaches. They work out all year round sometimes in dreadful facilities. They have to take drug tests. Their lives are constantly monitored. If they are an elite athlete they may be criticized in the newspapers and on radio. How would you like to have your 19-year olds English papers or chemistry experiments criticized in front of the entire state by a bunch of mean-spirited yahoo journalists? Their scholarships are only guaranteed for one year. They travel during the week; they miss classes; they’re tired; and often they’re injured sometimes quite seriously.</p>
<p>Come on. Consider that scholarship athletes give back more to any school than those who win merit awards based on academics. Believe me a scholarship athlete has more demands placed on him or her and gives back more to the school than any kid who wins an academic full ride.</p>
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Is that dog any good? I know the track coach at _______(fill in any school that rejected a CC child). He needs quarter-milers and up.</p>
<p>The only recruited athlete I know of at my S’s school (by Yale, with a likely letter in October) is a URM AND an NMF. 3 in 1, not bad!</p>
<p>You know, I have a nice counter-example to all this “athletes bring in endowment and keep the alums happy” BS. </p>
<p>MIT.</p>
<p>They don’t recruit athletes, they don’t compete at the highest levels (although they’ve had the occasional Olympic athlete and this year have their first major league baseball player (who’s also a rocket scientist)), their football coach has held his job since MIT developed its first football team in 1978, and none of the alumni/ae give a hoot how its teams are doing. (How can you tell MIT doesn’t emphasize athletics? Well, its teams are called “the Engineers.” You might as well call them the “Geek Losers.”)</p>
<p>Oh yeah, and their endowment looks pretty good. And their students can compete with those in the Ivies any day.</p>
<p>Actually he is quite a runner (about 20 miles a week with hubby and however far he can pull my son around the neighborhood). And he’s so smart! He’s also very polite and quite personable. He’s well-liked and respected by his peers and adults. He’s a real BWRD.<br>
Unfortunately he flunked obedience school, but we can just forget to mention that can’t we?</p>
<p>How do dogs take the SATs?</p>
<p>“How do dogs take the SATs?”</p>
<p>Oh, they sign up for The College Board’s latest moneymaker: the Sitting Aptitude Test. </p>
<p>It is really not unique since Carolyn potbelly pig had to take the Pork and Swine Aptitude Test aka PSAT. Both tests costs $41.50 and you cannot bring any food to the testing location.</p>
<p>How do dogs take the SATs? Alumother, according to posters on this thread, dogs take the SAT’s as well as Ivy athletes would. LOL.</p>
<p>Starting varsity lineup from 35 years ago. HYP school</p>
<p>Emergancy Room physician.
Telecommunication executive
Wharton MBA, Insurance CEO
UMich MBA Wall Street Banker
Private Co Chemical Equipment Mfgr exec.
airline mechanic, left school (twice)
Fin’l services exec
engineer, Utility co.
pulmonory specialist, (MD)
hardware store owner, second generation.</p>
<p>Those were the starters. The second tier guys include a prosecutor who got the conviction of Mark Rich, one ophthalmologist (!), one trauma physician, and various other lawyers, , etc., and a University professor at ASU or UA. We had a couple of the mahareshi mahesh yogi types too that some on the board might love, and they were good guys, but the rest of us and our coaches still scratch our heads. We had other guys over a period of time, including the director of Habitat for Humanity programs, a Senate candidate from Ill. </p>
<p>Each admit has to have his own internal fire for something. Its a hard quality to gauge, but athletic success is not a bad proxy for desire and dedication. This is not to say there aren’t mistakes made, but that’s equally true for diversity admits, and “pure” academic admits (a la unabomber–sorry Harvard).</p>
<p>The point of the thread is to see your potential to be disappointed next year, and take steps to prevent it. If you see these threads by September, there should be enought time to figure it out.</p>
<p>[In fairness, I do think that today its tougher to duplicate this, because the ante has been raised at the secondary level, and the kids have a harder time keeping a proper balance.]</p>
<p>I think the idea of a scenerio for admissions dissapointment is misleading. You are referring to people who were simply mis-informed. Dissapointing is a scenerio completly different:</p>
<p>Perfect 4.0 GPA
SAT: 1560
SAT II: 800 IIC 770 WR. 750 Physics</p>
<p>4 Varsity sports (9 letters)
President of clubs
ect. ect.</p>
<p>College Admissions result: Going to the school that was #7 on my list.</p>
<p>Was I accepted to what you would consider a good school - yes. But I am heartbroken that my dream were crushed. Obviously this is me, and I am not trying to get pity or anything, but simply to point of that 1470-1500 not getting in at Harvard is dissapointing, but there is far more heartbreak out there. </p>
<p>The problem is that schools accept classes and not individuals.</p>
<p>Its that simple. They want athletes, and minorities, and latin majors, and pianists. I think everyone would agree that it would be more fair to accept the top X students, but it just doesn’t work that way. </p>
<p>Let me pose you a question:</p>
<p>Why is it that Harvard accepts under 10% of its applicants while Oxford accepts well over 30?</p>
<p>Oxford basis admissions solely on academics, thus A-Level scores of X, Y, and Z. </p>
<p>If Harvard next year decided to only accept the top 1,500 scoring Valedictorians, then the year after that people would know if takes a 4.0 GPA and a (lets say) 1550 to get in. The next year they would recieve a wopping 2000 applications beacsue students would know what it takes to get in. Harvard, by accepting seemingly less-qualified students raises its application numbers. If Harvard announced that they would accept one student this year by randomly drawign a name out of a hat, and offer that student admission even though they have a 450 SAT and a 1.2 , then they could probably raise their apps to well over 30,000. And it would help the US NEWS and WORLD REPORT ranking. </p>
<p>The reason a school accepts 10% is because it either convinces underqualified students to apply, or it rejects completly qualified and innocent teenagers.</p>
<p>Sorry about the ranting and raving, but admissions has problems because it accepts classes and because our most academically prestigious universities don’t offer admissions solely based on Academics.</p>
<p>Even if Harvard admitted solely according to academics, it would still reject a huge proportion of applicants. Oxford has a higher admission rate because fewer British students take A-levels and all sorts of signals are sent to steer some students away, such as letting the public know about the number of available slots in its med program.</p>
<p>Sure, Harvard could use only GPA and board scores, but how boring would the school be if it did not also admit students with first-rate artistic skills , or if they all turned out to be nerds (intellectual diversity was a reason my S chose Harvard over tech schools).</p>
<p>xiggi - LOLSKLU</p>
<p>New abbreviation. It means Laughing Out Loud So Kids Look Up.</p>
<p>Like - Mom, what’s gotten into you?</p>