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<p>Though it’s not quite the same thing, I have a D who graduated from Harvard a year ago and became a goat herder! :)</p>
<p>(Actually, she’s interning with an artisan cheese producer who makes expensive goat cheeses - “haute goat” if you will - but that involves gettin’ down and dirty with the herd.)</p>
<p>gadad - sounds lovely! How did she choose this profession?</p>
<p>I don’t want to debate the merits of athleticism on this thread, as it has been debated to death elsewhere. I am surprised though, that anyone living America cannot see the value of it to the individual, to the university, and to our society.</p>
<p>If the world economy goes to h*ll in a hand basket, I will sleep better knowing there are Stanford-educated goat herders, rutabaga growers, and marksmen in our midst. Seriously.</p>
<p>Deborah
my first post was crossed with yours, so it wasn’t your fault.
I just thought you might be an art people after I read the link.
never mind</p>
<p>momofwild
You mean you don’t find any connections or interest after football talk done here?
There were articles about rival Nike pumping new uniform design onto other school and it could become athlete’s criteria on choosing which offer to take, if school’s caliber /offer are comparable.
^again, not totally unrelated to the topic, for elite kids would get to choose, no?
If you don’t want it, just skip the post. my username is rather easy to spot to skip.</p>
<p>Bay, I am not really asking for a debate, but I would like some information as to why you think sports are valuable to the university or to society–no question they are valuable to the individual, especially if the individual is good at the sport. </p>
<p>I imagine Donna Shalala would gladly have done without the “benefits” of the football team at her school.</p>
<p>QuantMech, As I indicated a couple of pages back,even Caltech cares about sports at some level. When Caltech finally did win a game, I would imagine it was great for school spirit.And what’s so wrong with that?</p>
<p>sevmom, it’s great to hear to the letter from Caltech to the highly qualified student, who also happened to be a basketball player! I suspect, though, that Caltech makes admissions decisions exclusively on academic qualifications–just that the coach is trying to get more HS varsity players into the applicant pool. I doubt that the win had much impact on “school spirit.” I don’t think Caltech has anything that exactly corresponds to “school spirit,” in the big athletic conference version of it.</p>
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<p>I don’t want to go there, it is too far off-topic and has already been discussed ad nauseum elsewhere. Let me just say that there are hundreds of millions of people in the world who are interested in and touched by sports and athleticism in some way, shape or form. For universities not to acknowledge this human interest would be strange, to say the least.</p>
<p>Hopefully, Caltech has some version of “school spirit.” The kids certainly looked pretty excited by that win to me.</p>
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<p>I’d actually answer the original question in a different way and a way that I think points back to the OP. From the times of the ancient Greeks the goal was to be educated, athletic, and spiritual … and the interest in all 3 certainly took hold in the British public schools (private here in the US) and US private schools where athletics is often required. For centuries many schools (western at least) thought developing both the mind and body were an educational mission. To me QM has the inquiry pointing the wrong direction … rather than defending a preferred educational approach centuries old I think the more relevant question is why should schools leave this established model?</p>
<p>PS - I also think this whole conversation breaks down because of differing goals of the parties involved. Those who believe students should admit the applicants with the highest academic “merit” and focused on pure academics … while schools are looking for those with the most “merit” but across a broader range of criteria; having some of the absolute brightest is definitely a goal but so is having some incredible leaders (who might only have 2300/3.8 stats, etc).</p>
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<p>Indeed, Deborah. Among the 8-15 elements “considered” for admission, for anyone to zero in on one tangential or provocative comment, whether by a parent, an ad rep at a talk, or in a piece of promotional literature, or anonymous rumor, and project a mere comment into a new admissions priority is really not using one’s common sense and powers of reasoning & observation, it seems to me.</p>
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<p>Hi, performersmom. (Shortened the quote from your post due to length ;)) I don’t at all regard your reply as a flame, btw. 
I agree with you about appearances<a href=“of” title=“entertainment” & “marketing”>/u</a>, and the natural frustration/confusion which can result from such impressions by the public, but I’ll refer you back to what Deborah T said in another post: she suspected that the committee had a lot more information about “goatherder,” (used generically in this case) etc. applicants than anyone on the outside does. And that’s true. There’s always a context to this.</p>
<p>A really strained application will look suspiciously “marketed.” That would be versus an otherwise normal looking application that has a surprise twist to it that sounds, to trained readers, to come from a genuine interest, and taken together with all the other elements of the application, to be credible. Try to give the application readers some credit here; they’re not fools. Is it possible that an occasional “marketed” application from Student X, which does not represent greater achievement & fit than mundane application from Student Y who is equally or even a better match, is chosen over Student Y’s? Yes, but, it will not happen very often; it is not “the rule.” That’s because of the number of truly excellent applications on the table, some of which are not polished but which are not only considered but accepted. You just don’t hear about those as often. :)</p>
<p>Plenty of fine students get accepted to Elite schools without marketing themselves, before or in the application itself. They submit straightforward apps & get admitted. I’ve communicated with a lot of them myself on CC. Very often they are modest people who do not exaggerate or “pose,” and sometimes they even under-report on themselves in the app (but luckily such students are sufficiently profiled by their teachers in recs).</p>
<p>The only real problem ensues (for getting noticed) if the student neglects to (a) be specific, either in his/her achievements, and/or statement of purpose; (b) forgets something very important to that personal profile, such as an e.c. which could be important to the academic major; (c) sounds an “off” note (sounds ambivalent, sounds arrogant, sounds entitled, sounds disrespectful, that kind of thing); however, note that (again) trained readers who understand adolescent psychology are pretty forgiving as long as there’s not offense, confusion, or some disturbed mental state involved.</p>
<p>And I’ll just repeat that note of caution about believing everything you hear. Students & parents often brag or distort, or even assume that the reason, singular, such student was admitted was because of something bizarre & tangential, not something central, such as the 9-15 elements considered for admission.</p>
<p>Hope that helps, and thanks for your respectful, direct post. :)</p>
<p>Caltech students are more happy when they were able to control the scoreboard remotely between an UCLA and U Illinois Rose bowl game or pull a major prank on MIT.</p>
<p>I think sports psychology and sports sociology are interesting for academics to follow up. A large number of my relatives are quite interested in sports (keeps them out of CC arguments). </p>
<p>I just don’t see sports as actually helping the academic mission–oh, except for giving the Caltech students the opportunity to hack the score-board display (thanks for reminding me of that, texaspg). Conceivably the football teams are valuable to HYPSM. I think they are a detriment to a lot of the large public universities. They also play better ball at the large publics (with Stanford an occasional exception).</p>
<p>Dudley Herschbach (Nobel Laureate in Chemistry) was a recruited football player at Stanford. Fairly early in his undergraduate years, football practice conflicted with chemistry lab. The coach told him to drop the lab. He quit the team.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>And not so happy when they lose their precious cannon to their smallish neighbors: </p>
<p>[The</a> Caltech Cannon Heist](<a href=“http://people.bu.edu/fmri/somers/cannon.html]The”>The Caltech Cannon Heist)</p>
<p>or when Mudders made a slight modification to a freeway sign from</p>
<p>California Institute of Technology
Pasadena City College
Next Exit</p>
<p>to</p>
<p>California Institute of Technology
(Pasadena City College)
Next Exit</p>
<p>^^^^^^^^Look at all the free PR and advertising from athletics!</p>
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<p>Haute Goat? Perhaps this could inspire a new perfume craze on Wall Street … Eau de Goat!</p>
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<p>The nice thing is, there is enough diversity in the American college experience that you can find a school that offers excellent academics along with nationally relevant spectator sports (Duke, Gtown, Notre Dame as examples) … schools that offer excellent academics along with sports rivalries that are generally more of interest just to the members of their athletic conference (e.g., Ivies) … schools that offer excellent academics and more of a sporty, outdoorsy culture (e.g., Williams) … and schools that offer excellent academics where participatory athletics are just another activity no more or no less than any other (e.g., Chicago, a lot of LAC’s). Something for everybody, as they say. There’s no need to impose a uniform model on everyone. The smart kid who wants to yell himself hoarse at football and basketball games has a lot of choices, as does the smart kid who wouldn’t ever bother attending an athletic meet unless he was participating.</p>
<p>performersmom, #736: That’s an argument that is made a lot. I even acknowledged it earlier, in a post remarking that the money stays with the athletics units, though the recognition does spread. I don’t begrudge the admission of athletes–I just have no interest.</p>
<p>The PR is great as long as the NCAA doesn’t hit the university with “loss of institutional control.”</p>
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<p>A couple years back, adcoms figured out pretty quickly that expensive service trips were ways for rich kids to “buy” life experiences, and downgraded them accordingly. Once something becomes too obvious and widespread, they figure it out. My kids had (relatively) unique EC’s, but they weren’t of the wacky carving-manger-scenes-in-rutabagas variety, and they presented them as part of weaving their overall story. </p>
<p>Storytelling is part of life. The biggest piece of advice I’d given any applicant is to figure out what your story is, your sound bite, and craft everything to support it. Which isn’t inauthentic; it’s positioning, not lying. It’s no more inauthentic than wearing your best suit for an interview.</p>