<p>PD:</p>
<p>Do you really think Stanford has trouble finding 20+ football players a year with absolutely top notch academic scores to recruit? Especially when these students are considering the much less competitive Ivy conference? </p>
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<p>No doubt but baseline academic talent is a given when when there is a 92% rejection rate. It would be an extraordinary exception for someone to get into Stanford with national sports recognition who would not get into a top 50 USNWR school with typical EC’s not including sports. You could count those on one hand but they are certainly not typical of the vast number of student athletes or even the recruited ones. There are surely more non-athletes in your class afforded that status (multi-million dollar development admits, children of national politicians or heads of industry, celebrities) than B student jocks. No school that has 10% of its students doing varsity athletics (not my figure) is using sports as a litmus test for admission.</p>
<p>To the OP:</p>
<p>I would suggest you not apply to Brown ED. That lingering “what if?” feeling you have reported is very real and not worth a forced commitment so early in the process.</p>