<p>Big time college sports are not motivated by a desire to help fund the education of URM’s. If the motivation is school and team spirit and a sense of belonging to a common community, then it makes sense to be competitive and to try to win. To do this, you need the best possible athletes, regardless of their academic capabilities and these athletes need to be dedicated to winning and should not be distracted by academic concerns. The NCAA does have requirements, but these should be considered as rules of the game. To win the idea is to do everything possible within the limits of the rules.</p>
<p>dp, curious doesn’t like getting tied down to the constraints the OP posted. They’d rather make up the scenarios to suit their needs. The OP also clearly stated that they weren’t talking about bigtime programs but I’ll be danged - we sure talk about 'em. LOL.</p>
<p>“think, but am not sure, that a similar system exists with the NCAA generally”</p>
<p>already gave it to you.</p>
<p>"Unless you think that athletes are especially stupid, colleges should not have to accept less academically qualified students to accomplish this. "</p>
<p>Again do research, already done. You guys are complaining about people WHO are able to enroll at the college you want to. You just don’t like they get in ahead of you. But what do you bring to the party? </p>
<p>College atheletes have to meet NCAA standards or they can’t enroll. They don’t get in if they are below standards, doesn’t happen. They are considered ineligible and have to enroll at a JC to meet standards. They cannot enroll until they acedemically qualify for the college you want to get into. If they can’t do the work in HS, they won’t get in. </p>
<p>What you guys are complaining about is somebody getting in ahead of you. You don’t like that, nobody would. However, that’s life. These people bring something you don’t (in the schools opinion) they need on campus. I wonder if you were a music student and somebody was selected ahead of you, you might question the validity of selecting music students for colleges. </p>
<p>You know, really most of you are talking about something you’ve never been a part of. Have you been a recruited athelete? The reason I have taken issue with you two is your automatic assumption of failure. </p>
<p>Failure happens to alot of college students, not just the ones who play ball. </p>
<p>I know of a nmsf who just left a full ride at a major university. Couldn’t deal. And this person never touched a ball in their life. So should we stop letting nmsf in? I mean afterall somebody couldn’t cut it. </p>
<p>The research is out there if you want to know. Knowledge is power kids.</p>
<p>Curmudgeon,</p>
<p>Actually it’s not an argument at all but two statements, one possibly true; the other probably false. The first statement is that Vango and I don’t value athletic ability in students, I don’t remember saying that nor do I remember Vango saying it. What I object to is disproportionately valuing it over other comparably demanding EC’s. The second statement is, implicitly, that Vango and I don’t value academic prowess as highly as you do. Well, duh, brilliant observation.</p>
<p>As far as the Rhodes scholarship committee is concerned. I’ve met a number of Rhodes Scholars, all brilliant people that would be an asset at any college or university, some were recruited athletes, some were walkons. The Rhodes Scholarship Committee requires that they have some athletic ability because that is the way Cecil Rhodes set up the scholarship. He also required that they be white but the committee for legal reasons has been excused from the obligation of following that rule. I’m not sure that the opinions of an 19th century colonialist and racist should drive this debate.</p>
<p>“The NCAA does have requirements, but these should be considered as rules of the game. To win the idea is to do everything possible within the limits of the rules.”</p>
<p>Wha??? go to the NCAA clearinghouse to start. You’ll find your statement isn’t the best. I’d call it a dumb statement, but really it’s uninformed. Start at the clearinghouse.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Vango wasn’t smart enough to figure out that Princeton prefers lacrosse players to ballerinas. End of story.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>curmudgeon:</p>
<p>Actually, this description of academically strong students has done a lot to change my mind–about you.</p>
<p>And the value of a discussion board dominated by the likes of you.</p>
<p>The reason your diatribe doesn’t change anyone else’s mind is because your “portrait” is wholly inaccurate; it describes no student and no school I have ever seen. </p>
<p>I’ve known a lot of brilliant students at both the high school and college level. Not one has ever been jealous of someone else’s athletic ability. I’ve known plenty of athletes who perform poorly in the classroom, and many of them resort to the sort of snide, jealousy-prompted insult slinging to which you have descended, in order to feel better about themselves. I don’t need to wonder what this says about you.</p>
<p>For those of you who think it is a myth that many academically under-prepared athletes are representing public colleges in the big-money sports, I suggest you volunteer to tutor them in the special tutoring programs provided by the athletic departments. A few minutes is about all it will take to wake you up. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If I had to choose between spending time with a brain in a jar and a hunk of meat, I’d go with the former (unless I were really hungry).</p>
<p>oh, midmo, say it ain’t so. <em>sniff</em> .</p>
<p>
Yeah. That’s believable. LOL. Get real.</p>
<p>You’ve known a lot of brilliant students because there ARE a lot of them. What is far rarer is finding an athlete that is also capable of doing the demanding work at a super selective school. They are rare and admired . Except by those who are jealous of the position our society and every society for a few thousand years has granted them.</p>
<p>“What I object to is disproportionately valuing it over other comparably demanding EC’s.”</p>
<p>:) What do you bring to the party? If the place you want to go doesn’t value what you’ve done with your free time, IS IT REALLY A REASON TO BLAME THE OTHER STUDENT FOR WHAT THEY DO WITH THEIRS? </p>
<p>Everybody’s “passion” is demanding. Not everybody can appreicate that aspect. You guys are putting down someone else’s passions as not being worthy compared to yours. Pretty shallow kids. </p>
<p>The problem is you aren’t the person evaluating the EC’s. Which maybe is a good thing.</p>
<p>midmo,</p>
<p>Sure there are kids who are atheletes that don’t make it through college or need help. ARE atheletes the only ones? ;)</p>
<p>All through this darn thing I’ve been pointing out that student atheletes are just kids, and just like kids some are going to make it and some aren’t. This has become about sterotyping a class of person and projecting failure upon them. </p>
<p>Now it’s coming out that there is some jealousy over EC’s. </p>
<p>"My EC’s are more important than yours. Why can’t they see that? That jock must be stupid. "</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>“I’d be a better girlfriend than she is, why can’t he see that? She must be a slut.”</p>
<p>I’m pretty real, curmudgeon. Why on earth would you assume smart people are so lacking in self-confidence they would waste their time pining away that they can’t play sports at the highest level?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Whoa midmo, you really need to get out more.</p>
<p>Fantasy camps are full of smart successful people who pined away for some athletic fame.</p>
<p>This post is about selective colleges. It may or may not be applicable to big time sports schools. </p>
<p>I think some of y’all need to spend some time around high school athletes. I’ll give you a little data. In Texas we have something called Academic All State for Basketball. Last year 126 girls in our top 3 classes 3A to 5A made the cut (400 kid to 5000+ kid school 9-12th). 126 doesn’t sound like a lot of seniors, huh? Now let’s see what horrendous requirements they had to meet : a 90% average, All-District First or Second Team, and one of the following - a 1000/1600 on the SAT, a 20 on the ACT, or top 10%. </p>
<p>Only 126 met those p’dinkly requirements. How many above 1100? 1200? 1300? Above a 92 average ? above 95? There were probably 20 girls in my kid’s graduating class of 140 that could eclipse those lowest numbers, ten of them in the band . </p>
<p>Just how rare do you think that lacrosse girl the OP speaks of is? 1 in a 100,000?</p>
<p>I know full well my D got noticed by being a state championship winning athlete in an aggressive sport with a 35 ACT and being the (only) val (even though she could not possibly be recruited to play D1 ball - way too slow to be under 6 feet) . [How many of those 35 val, all-district, state champion captains do you think existed last year? ;)] The Yale adcom was well aware because she told me she was inundated by phone calls and e-mailed news clippings throughout the playoffs (February) by my kid’s alum interviewer. He thought she was a pretty rare bird and it might have bought her a point or two. Maybe. Oh, yeah - she was a state qualifier on the tuba , too in solo/ensemble - one of two varsity athletes in the performing arts at her school.</p>
<p>Scholar/athlete . Mind/body balance. It is an ideal, I’ll admit that but there are kids who can get there and the selective schools boost them . I think they should.</p>
<p>
Because that is exactly what y’all are doing on this thread. The jealousy is so thick you’d have to eat it with a spoon. Smart people who can play sports at a high level is what we are talking about, at least as far as the selective school part of this thread goes. And that is the part that interests me. </p>
<p>I thing Vango’s lacrosse girl example had a B average at a tough school. Pretty dang smart, I’d say. But still, Vango is jealous and angry. That’s one who is pining, want to go for two?</p>
<p>A friend’s son was interested in playing football for an Ivy. He had a decent GPA (upper 3’s weighted); was told if he could get his SAT into the 1200’s he’d be in. Another football player was admitted to an Ivy with a high 1200; another with a 1300+. By the same token, we’ve had several students with SATs in the 1400-1500’s get rejected. They didn’t bring anything else to the table. Some may protest that it’s not fair, but the bottom line is that all three football players are doing fine after several years. They were “qualified,” and the schools wanted something they could bring. Apparently they had enough “brain in jar” students.</p>
<p>Schools are trying to build a student body “culture.” They want so many of this, so many of that. Maybe the school the OP was talking about already had its quota of dancers and actors. Maybe it needed one more lacrosse girl, and all the other lacrosse girls with A averages were taken. Maybe there are more schools with lacrosse teams than ballet companies, and therefore they dig a little deeper to get lacrosse players. </p>
<p>Anyway, we’re talking about letting a B student into college, for goodness sake.</p>
<p>And anyway, we are not talking about very many kids are we? The lacrosse kid is rare, the 1200 high 3.something GPA football player is rare and the schools themseleves have rules. Nescac strictly limits the kids a couple of width’s down. It is literally single digits. I know Ivy schools limit, and I’m pretty sure Patriot and maybe UAA, too.</p>
<p>This thread is becoming amazingly similar to the “Asian kid gets mistreated at Princeton because he had a high GPA and Perfect SAT and didn’t get in” threads, isn’t it? LOL. Just change it to non-athlete instead of Asian and URM instead of athlete. Or as I noticed from curious14’s prior posts - legacy instead of athlete. </p>
<p>As much as you try to explain the concept of building a class or making a quilt, some just want it to be about SAT scores and GPA’s and they think of that as “the way it should be”. Telling the colleges what to value or more precisely to value what THEY value over all else. </p>
<p>doubleplay, I think you have it about right. ;)</p>
<p>Bay, post 272:</p>
<p>Does it make you feel like you’ve strengthened your argument when you lob insults? I haven’t entered the debate about whether or not athletes are taking someone else’s “place” in college. My objections center on the ridiculous and insulting (and pathetically unrealistic) picture some of you have of students who have chosen not to spend a huge amount of time on team athletics. My son played three sports in 9th grade, then walked away when he realized he had no time for his many other activities. He would have liked to continue with tennis, but it took up too much time. He does not envy those with more athletic prowess, he is not jealous. He happens to be very popular at his huge public sports-minded school. Your assumptions about my personal motivations are very far off base.</p>
<p>I get out quite a lot, bay. Mostly I get out with successful people who have made their mark on the world in the academic sphere, except for my family members and business associates who give my husband large amounts of money to consult for them despite his “brain in a jar” persona. Many of the profs I know are big sports fans, and spend their free time playing pick-up basketball, bicycle racing, mountain climbing (real mountains). None of them spend one minute wishing they’d played varsity sports in college–sorry if that doesn’t fit the image you have conjured. Maybe you need to get out more.</p>
<p>midmo, to be a fine college you need some brain-in-a-jar folks. It’s just that a quilt of them wouldn’t be that appealing and that’s why we have a holistic admissions system at the selective schools. Like it or not, brainpower alone doesn’t get you all the way in.</p>
<p>and anyway, I still think likening athletes to rapists is a bit harder to swallow than booger picker. But hey, think what you will. If you read the posts you will see that it was hyperbole meant to counteract their flame argument of athletes as ruinous of a school. But go ahead and misinterpret all you want.</p>