Swarthmore's fortes

interesteddad
Mon, 20 Mar 2006 01:46:49 +0000

Oops. My bad.

Anyway, that is quite different from the admissions profile of recruited ice hockey players. At the NESCAC and Ivy League schools, varsity ice hockey teams are widely regarded as requiring the most compromised admissions standards of any sport.

For the most part, the players at a place like Williams are nearly exclusively drawn from the ranks of high-profile prep school programs or pro junior development teams. The prep school players were, in turn, admitted to their high schools on the basis of hockey recruiting rather than academics – often as fifth year post-grad “students”. It’s basically a self-contained feeder system with well below average academic profiles, without which these schools could not field ice hockey teams.

This is not a big deal with 6500 undergrads at an Ivy League university. So what? But, when you are talking about reduced standards for football and ice hockey with a total male student population of 750, you are talking significant percentages of male students whose focus is not directed towards academics.

Not surprisingly, these two teams typically stand out as being particularly disengaged from the academic and campus communities. For example, the destructive behavior detailed in the Williams student newspaper over the past few weeks (a fight with serious injuries, feces spreading, and burning of students belongings) has been centered around “the football dorm”. If you took away those two teams, the issues and academic compromises associated with athletic recruiting would disappear at elite colleges. The rest of the teams essentially mirror the student body, both in terms of admissions profiles and academic engagement on campus.

It’s relevant here because football and ice hockey at two schools of fairly similar size and admissions standards (Amherst and Swarthmore) contribute to the differences in campus culture. 10% of the male student body is a significant subset that has a tangible impact.