<p>[Jonathan</a> R. Cole: “A Little Secret: Athletics at the Most Selective Colleges and Universities in the Nation”: College and University Admissions, Part III](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>"A Little Secret: Athletics at the Most Selective Colleges and Universities in the Nation": College and University Admissions, Part III | HuffPost College)</p>
<p>If the Ivy League did what he proposed, it would become a joke of an athletic conference (even moreso than it is now).</p>
<p>In addition, I feel the author fails to realize that the athletes have special talents like the musicians, scientists, and mathletes. We have worked hard to develop a special set of skills and are being rewarded by being admitted. However, that is not to say our scores and numbers are much (if at all!!) lower than the average of the rest of the accepted students.</p>
<p>I was amazed at the difference in the percentage of recruited athletes between the Ivy League and their academic/athletic competition at Stanford, for example, which has a similar sized undergraduate population.</p>
<p>Hmm, if what he says is true, then theoretically the student body at Stanford is composed of a greater percentage of students who are academically qualified for an elite school than the student body of the Ivy League colleges and universities, since there are fewer sports at Stanford and thus fewer recruited athletes of supposedly lesser intellect to lower the bar. We like that, don’t we, you fellow CCer who knows who she is?</p>
<p>^The Common Data Set seems to disprove this theory</p>
<p>Sorry, but I can’t buy into this. The author compares Ivy league schools with undergraduate populations of 4000-8000 to PAC10 schools… with populations significantly larger: Washington, 31000… UCLA 26000… CAL 24000… Arizona, 28000 or Arizona State, 36000. Even Michigan, 25000.</p>
<p>If an institution is going to field teams, lets say… oh… football, they need to have enough players to play. Offense… defense… etc. Really. Just because you are an Ivy that does NOT allow the school to base team size on undergraduate size. 7 person football teams don’t cut it. 3 player baseball teams are… rare. 2 man basketball?</p>
<p>It’s hardly a surprise that if a school wants to field teams with a student body 1/10th to 1/4 the size of “PAC10 schools” that the percentage is higher. Sorry, but this appears to be a non-story, much ado about nothing.</p>
<p>
- Lost by whom? Bitter parents of non-athlete Ivy rejects?
- Apt to become talented people? Or already talented people? In a ways, many of us are apt to become stellar athletes if we all work our butts off over the course of, say, 10 years. The Ivies take the kids who have already harnessed their talents as well as demonstrate a capacity for future growth.
- Many of whom will not go out for teams? The actions of a few hardly indicate the overwhelming dedication of thousands of athletes in the Ivy League.
- A back-door entry into the Ivy League? I will concede; long ago, before actually embarking on the quest to become a D1 athlete, I once saw it as such myself. I’m sure that anyone else who has subsequently gone through my or someone else’s path will tell you that reducing Ivy League athletics to such a viewpoint is utter ignorance.</p>
<p>Back door? An ivy coach’s first email to our kid said they were interested but would need transcripts and test scores first.</p>
<p>I guess the same back door is open to anyone who wants to spend a few thousand hours training to become a skilled athlete while keeping a top class rank.</p>
<p>A couple of data points and opinion.</p>
<p>1) According to 2008 Federal numbers reported by the Ivy schools, there were a total of 57,564 Ivy League undergraduate students. 4,591 were men and 3,514 were women. Men and women athletes are approximately 14% of the student athlete population not 20% as suggested. His rounding up skills need some work.</p>
<p>2) Ivys should be applauded for the number of athletic team participation…over 30 teams in a lot of cases. I’m not sure why he thinks this is a bad thing. It is about participation not national championships…and he doesn’t quite grasp that concept.</p>
<p>3) I’m not sure what problem this guy is trying to solve. It appears to be that he upset that too many Ivy recruits are using athletics as a back door for acceptance? Rather than gut the whole system that seems to be working pretty well, why not focus on that problem and possible easy solutions. </p>
<p>4) I’d like to see some data. Specifically, I’d really like to know how many recruited Ivy athletes drop their sport after year 1,2,3 as compared to other D1 and D3 schools. My guess is they are very close.</p>
<p>5) He is under the assumption that there is no recruiting in D3. He is sadly misinformed.</p>
<p>6) He suggests the Ivys withdraw from the NCAA, and presumably become self administered. That would be a lot more trouble than it is worth.</p>
<p>Above ^^^^^ should read:</p>
<p>1) According to 2008 Federal numbers reported by the Ivy schools, there were a total of 57,564 Ivy League undergraduate students. 4,591 were men and 3,514 were women ATHLETES. Men and women athletes are approximately 14% of the student athlete population not 20% as suggested. His rounding up skills need some work.</p>
<p>From the small sample of my d’s recruited athlete friends there are 2 realities:</p>
<p>1) sports was the full proof way they got in (without sports it would have been iffy like any top academic applicant faces)
2) they all had higher gpa’s and sat’s than the median non athlete entering hyps…6 athletes in this sample including my daughter. all had SAT’s above 2200, 8+ ap’s, 3.7+</p>
<p>If athletes to hyps and other ivys have lower stats than non-athletes, like the article states, it’s not from the sport I’m familiar with.</p>
<p>Many athletes I know at Ivies and currently being recruited have SAT’s in the 1800-1900 range and GPA’s ranging from 3.2-3.6 (the lower range from a tough prep school, 3.5 and 3.6 are two public school athletes we know). Sport is mens basketball and soccer. Yes, the scores are below average for an Ivy, but they are indicative of the fact that these are good students who will be able to the work once admitted.</p>
<p>Perhaps it’s different with soccer and basketball, but for the sports I’m familiar with, even with top recruits, PYS wanted to see a 700 on each SAT subtest (Harvard actually said 650+). Can’t remember the other ivies.</p>
<p>Right, the 700+ on our state finalist’s SATs made him jump from “we’re interested” to highly sought after.(Not my S)</p>
<p>The Ivies are noted for the high number of varsity sports they offer. Harvard offers the country’s largest number with 41 sports - 21 mens and 20 womens. Putting football aside, which is under a different requirement, the Ivy League requires that the total remaining pool of recruited athletes have an average AI no less than one standard deviation below the average AI of their entering class as a whole. </p>
<p>The Ivy minimum AI is 171. All non-football athletes as a group have to average 1 standard deviation below the AI of the school’s freshman class as a whole. HYP’s freshman class AI averages are estimated to be in the 220 range. That would put their average AI less 1 standard deviation in the 200 - 210 range. This would indicate that a whole lot of fencing/swimming/squash/tennis/track/other athletes are “boosting” the averages of the players recruited for the helmet sports, basketball, and other sports that a school puts a priority on for its heritage or other reasons. Cornell’s recent basketball success has led several of the Ivies to put new focus (and more flexible admissions criteria) on basketball recruits. Keylyme is right. I am familiar with a recruit that recently received a likely letter with a GPA hovering around 3.0 with mixed junior year performance and SATs that yielded an AI in the low 180s - permissible under the Ivy rules, but requiring a “booster” athlete - either on his team or in another sport to offset his score and maintain the AI average less 1 standard deviation in the 200 range.</p>
<p>The good news for the athlete’s in “booster” sports is that even with superior scores and SATs, they emerge with admission to an Ivy from thousands of other applicants with similar scores that do not gain admission - their hard work in school and in their sport helped them win the lottery.</p>
<p>The athlete’s with the lower AIs in “preferred” sports win the lottery too. Their hard work in their sport, their genes, picking the “right” sport, and an academic record still credible gets them in the Ivy door.</p>
<p>Just ran across this article after I posted the last comment. This is supposed to be a high academic kid, but how many of the kids of the posters on this board had a visit with the president of their target Ivy as a part of their official visit.</p>
<p>[NERR</a> - New England Basketball Recruiting Report](<a href=“http://www.newenglandrecruitingreport.com/news/article/1736/NMH-Sends-Another-Ivy.php]NERR”>http://www.newenglandrecruitingreport.com/news/article/1736/NMH-Sends-Another-Ivy.php)</p>
<p>It all depends on what the school’s priorities are.</p>
<p>bballdad - Interesting article. I doubled checked our OV agendas from last year. I’m 99.5% sure we didn’t meet with any University Presidents. 
However, in my professional capacity I’ve met with many University Presidents. Those meetings always centered around a “partnership” and how much money my company would invest/donate/grant to the school for research or other venture. We referred to those meetings as the “High Ed Handshake” and it is all about raising funds. In a similiar manner, this basketball player is going to bring some revenue in for “Big Green”. </p>
<p>I agree there are some areas of this Ivy recruiting/AI implementation that could be improved. You could say that about almost anything. IMHO, it works better than D1college recruiting as a whole. The Ivys have a pretty good system, but it is not perfect. What Jonathna Cole is proposing goes way past what is needed to improve it. Tweaks are needed not wholesale change.</p>
<p>One thing I do know, athletes bring diversity to a campus just like minorities, musicians, and brainiacs, etc. This makes the campus interesting. The athletes provide a form of entertainment. All you have to do is go to a sporting event and you will see the stadium filled with students cheering their team on. Let’s face it the sat is a test to indicate whether a student can handle the work at a particular university. Once a student scores 1900 or higher he/she is capable of doing the work. The only reason everybody is hung up on the sat is because usnwr uses the sat as a determining factor in publishing the best schools. If they dropped that indicator and the schools did not post this information it would be a non issue. </p>
<p>In the US we place value on many attributes and athletic ability is one of them.</p>
<p>Whenever this topic comes up, the scores keylyme cites for athletes s/he knows seem to come in on the lower end. I’m assuming this is due to the gender and sport in question. In our experience, though, the Ivies seemed to want over 700 on each section and on the SAT 2’s, though of course the greater the talent the greater the leeway I’m guessing. The recruits my D met on her OV’s who talked about their scores, all had scores 2100 and up for the SAT 1. However, there are a limited number of high-scoring, talented athletes, so I’d imagine come compromises are made if necessary on either the athletic ability or the academic qualifications.</p>