<p>I keep seeing people talk about “Lowering the standard” for athletes. Why does this keep getting brought up. The truth is; the vast majority of the time, the standards aren’t being lowered. I even mentioned in an earlier post how one of the students in my town’s high school was considered one of the best athletes in his sport in the ENTIRE COUNTRY. He was recruited by just about every college in the country. Even though he chose a particular college, very high profile and well known school nationally, he had to work extra hard retaking SAT/ACT and getting his gpa to meet the school’s standards.</p>
<p>So no; I don’t think the majority of schools are “lowering” their standards for athletes. What I do believe is happening is that a school can only allow so many students a year to attend their school. There are only so many resources; e.g. dorms, classrooms, teachers, etc… Colleges regularly set a certain number of students that can be admitted to the school. If any state funding is used for the school, then the school has a certain number of state residents they will allow. Certain departments like the athletic department are also allowed a certain amount of students. The students they recruit still meet the standards for the school. The standards aren’t lower.</p>
<p>I think the problem is as the schools get smaller and more difficult to get into; e.g. ivy league, private schools, etc… there are less available slots for the upcoming year. Some students are upset that because certain applicants; e.g. recruited athletes; have a separate set of slots. They, the non athlete, doesn’t get to compete for those slots. Therefor, they could have been the very first rejected student. but their score could have been higher than an athlete that do get in. The point is however, the athlete didn’t need a LOWER standard. They met the school’s standard. It’s just that the standard was lower than most who applied. </p>
<p>This is not abnormal. The question was asked if anyone has experience dealing with a military service academy. Well, I actually have first hand experience with that. The MINIMUM standards they set for the military academies is pretty rigorous. The minimum requirements and the actual average scores and such for those who get accepted are usually very different. If you MET the minimum standards, you might have a difficult time getting accepted unless you were an exceptional standout in another area. Maybe sports; maybe music; maybe you aced the SAT/ACT; etc… Approximately 10,000 people will start applying to each of the Air Force, Navy, and Army academies. When the dust settles, about 1300 will actually be accepted to each. That ranks as one of the most sought after and most difficult colleges to get into. Now, the military academies are a little unique because it’s going to lead to becoming a military officer and physical fitness is extremely important. As such, most if not all of the applicants, also played high school varsity sports. But the percentage of “Recruited Athletes” is not much different than any other school. Those recruited athletes MUST meet all the minimum requirements of the academy. Does this mean that there will probably be an applicant who was #1301 who had higher gpa or sat/act than an athlete that did make the cut? Yes, most definitely. But as with all schools, your application is weighted. Your test scores aren’t everything. One thing about the military academies is that you can see every percentage and every point total for the entire application. GPA, Class Ranking, SAT/ACT, recommendations, physical fitness test, nominations, leadership, extra curriculum, volunteer time, essays, sports, etc… You get rated for each individual part of the application. Because of discussions like this, where there is obviously a lot of envy, jealousy, dissent, animosity, or any other non positive feeling; I was very excited that my son was accepted to the majority of his choice during early admissions. This allowed the acceptance to be completed before athletics became an issue. He can honestly sit back and say he got accepted based totally on academics, test scores, ec, etc… Not that there is anything wrong with being a recruited athlete; just that being selected initially from the “General Pool” doesn’t allow anyone to have those negative feelings.</p>
<p>But whether it is a service academy, Yale, Harvard, UCLA, or UT Austin, each school has their application process. Different schools have different “Slot Counts”. Did you know that most schools ask you what you want to major in for a reason. There are some schools that have a really low population majoring say; “Engineering”. If you want to major in engineering, you are almost guaranteed to get accepted. Even if your scores are lower than someone who didn’t get accepted. The individual departments and colleges in a university sometimes get slots; same with athletics, music, art, etc… Sometimes it’s to keep a school balanced. Sometimes it’s to maintain diversity. Sometimes it’s to keep a department open for all the students. I.e. There’s a lot of students that might take a particular class like arch or an engineering class but not be majoring in engineering. If there isn’t an engineering department, it would be difficult to keep these classes available for the rest of the student body.</p>
<p>The point is; the overwhelming majority of athletes have met the school’s standards. They weren’t lowered for the athlete. Just as with many other departments in the school, many are given slots for the upcoming freshman class. If you didn’t get accepted to the school and you met the minimum standards, then it’s because whatever area you fell into, there were more people ahead of you for the available slots.</p>