I am far from that … however I am a frustrated 1) jock and 2) IVY league grad whose tolerance level for poorly formed arguments is pretty low at this point. </p>
<p>While a bunch of people tell there anecdotal stories about the horrible IVY admissions decisions for a paricular student for some minor sport (the story often includes an athletic scholarship (which the IVY league does not allow)) the reality is that the IVY league has strict regulations around the admissions of athletes (the IVY league created the academic index for this purpose) and there are very-very few students admitted as athletes with credentials far below typical students … and while not being privy to their admissions commitees I doubt they use there 3-4-5 significant bullets on back-up setters for the volleyball team … they are using them on star players in high profile sports … and virtually none of the anecdotal stories fit this bill … and these 3-4-5 real exceptions to typical admissions are mere noise in overall student population. </p>
<p>Do the IVYies (or virtually any school) line up the students purely on academic achievements and accept them? … no they do not. Athletics is just one of many ways they pick kids from the masses of qualified appliacants. This is the point I was raising earlier … Harvards admissions finds the qualified candidates (which is 75%+ of the applicants) and among those builds the class it wants. This is the process has evolved over time, become more inclusive, and has made the Harvard experience what it is. If a student disagrees with such an approach I would think they would go to a school which follows a solection process with which they agree … and there are schools more academically focussed during the admissions process than others.</p>
<p>That’s basically one of my beefs with the constant ragging on the IVY league. The jock beef is the general compaining about the “advantages” that jocks get in sports which are typically very general ill-formed arguments. </p>
<p>Do a some athletes who otherwise have chance of admission get into big-time D1 football and bball programs … absolutely … and these kids are noise at these big/huge schools and in no way effect any other students application for admission. Fo you really think Ohio State drops a kid with 2300 SATs from their 10,000 person freshman class because they just signed the top QB prospect in the country? Many stories of abuses (graduation rates of D1 basketball programs) are situations like these … there are certainly issues with the athletic programs but they do not effect the admissions of other candidates. </p>
<p>The one place I would say other applicant are affected is at smaller LACs where athletes make up a large percentage of the students … much like the IVYies the athletes tend to be solid candiates who are pulled from the pool of qualified candidates. This is pretty interesting argument IMO … however these discussion seldom get this specific or deal with facts such as these.</p>
<p>I’m pretty frustrated with ill formed arguments myself. First, it is just wrong that Harvard and other selective colleges are happy with the current preferences offered to recruited athletes. I refer you to Derek Bok’s book “Universities in the Marketplace” which I have referred to a couple of times before on this thread. Bok, former president of Harvard, makes it clear, in his book, that the current situation is, in his opinion and that of many other university presidents, an unfortunate accident of history, one that they would gladly change if they felt they could. Second, if you look at the limits that the Academic Index places on Ivy league recruitment, it is clear that either these constraints are totally irrelevant or that many recruited athletes are academically second-class citizens on these campuses.</p>
<p>Well Curious we may not be as far apart as it seems.</p>
<p>I am not focused on schools self-analysis of their admissions policies … which evolve over time and overall have evolved in a mostly positive way (IMO) … and I applaud schools reviewing their processes and striving to make them better match their mission. My complaint is with the stream of postings about “knowing” a sub-standard applicant was accepted only because of athletics and how this spot was taken from a more deserving student … even if athletics were taken out of the equation the top tier schools would still be selecting a class from among the qualified students and those turned down (which would not change dramtically) would have to find another cause on which they can blame their rejection.</p>
<p>
I’m not sure the basis of your argument. The (somewhat dated) info I’ve seen on the IVYies use of the academic index, the average grades. and the graduation rates of athletes in the IVY league would not support an argument about athletes in general being second class citizens on campus; actually it would say the opposite … in general athletes on IVY league campuses are comparable and do about as well as their classmates. Are there exceptions to this general case where particular students or groups of students are not doing as well as their classmates … absolutely but that is not the typical case given the info I’ve seen.</p>
<p>GFG, running is very different from team sports, though. A great runner can shine anywhere with his individual times. A great QB or foreward or goalie needs a great team around him. I think that’s why runners often look to the academic elites knowing their sports goals can still be reached.</p>
<p>I can see your point stickershock. While having a good team around you is important for training purposes to push a runner to his/her fastest perfomance, it may not be reason enough for a track athlete to choose a better sports program over a better academic one. Still, I did notice that the truly elite (Tauro and Forys) went to UMich.</p>
<p>OK, here’s an honest question. Every time this topic comes up, so does the issue of scholarship money. Supposedly the Ivies do not offer athletic scholarships. Still, anecdotes abound of how they have nonetheless “sweetened the pot” for those athletes they wish to recruit for their teams. For example, a girl on my D’s team is being offered a reduced price to an Ivy so that her cost to attend will be less than than attending the other choice she is considering. So is the absence of an official signing contract what makes this not an athletic schlolarship? If there is no contract, then what’s to keep the Ivy from removing the price break if the student decides not to play, just like a recruited athlete would lose their scholarship if s/he quit the team? Is this just semantics?</p>
<p>Sounds like she may have asked the ivy for a finanncial review or an early read, using the other school’s offer (in other words she may have said, I really want to attend here but, school B is the more financially feasible option for my family, what can you do to help us out)? This process would be no different if a non-athlete’s family was asking the same question during the RD process.</p>
<p>I have seen this with an elite private h.s. near me. They offer financial aid, but are forbidden from offering athletic scholarships. Yet time after time, when an athletic kid chooses the school, his parents claim it is an athletic scholarship. They seem embarassed to admit that they indeed qualify for aid, and want to embelish their kid’s story. </p>
<p>At another private K-12, a family I know got their kid admitted and $20K off the yearly tuition was awarded in financial aid. (This family has plenty of off-the-books income, so they looked poor on paper.) The mom was telling everyone about the “scholarship” and I know two families who started the application process in the hope of getting $$$. I told them not to expect any $$$, because the school, in fact, offered no merit money at all. Hard feelings arose between them & the lying mom. </p>
<p>I suspect that many college “scholarships” are actually financial aid awards.</p>
<p>Naturally we only know what the girl is tellling us, which may be embellished/inaccurate, but what she is saying is that University A is her first choice, but Ivy B really wants her badly for their team and so they are trying to pull her away from A by offering more money than A did.</p>
<p>SS, although I am a firm believer that preferential packaging of need based aid exists for any student who is wanted badly by any of the need only colleges, this statement of your’s</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>is so true.</p>
<p>You can also include academic/talent scholarships as in “Little Johnny got a cello scholarship to Yale.” </p>
<p>Parent’s ego won’t let them admit anything different. That is why I challenge assertions of full ride and $35K scholarships to schools I know don’t give them. It creates the same misinformed decisions that you speak of where there are folks applying based on the untruths of the “scholarship” parents. Kind of sad really.</p>
<p>With the exception of the 2 big revenue sports, most sports teams lose $$$ (and for certain programs, the 2 big revenue sports lose $$ as well).</p>
<p>The biggest $$-maker is collegiate FB and those with successful programs use the proceeds to pay for the other sports teams.</p>
<p>For non-revenue sports like lax - it has to do with “prestige” more than anything else.</p>
<p>My data on the AI is also somewhat dated. It is from Michele Hernandez’s book, “A is for Admission.” She was Assistant Director of Admissions at Dartmouth. She indicates that out of a maximum score of 240 an average Dartmouth student scored about 212 in 2001. In that year the minimum required score for a recruited athlete was 169. There are a lot of ways to represent this difference but it is roughly equivalent to the difference between a student that averages 750 on his SAT I’s and SAT II’s and is in the top 10% of his class and another student who averages less than 600 and is not quite in the top half of his class.</p>
<p>I love this post. The opposite could certainly (and in my opinion would most likely) be true. If all the brain-in-jar applicants decided not to apply to Harvard, imagine what a more interesting, inspiring place it would be! So many more well-rounded individuals! Those brain-in-jars would hardly be missed. My guess is that only about 1/3 of the Harvard student body is currently made up of “those” brain-in-jar people, so the void would easily be filled with more scholar-athletes, scholar-musicians, scholar-artists, scholar-actors, etc.</p>
<p>"My guess is that only about 1/3 of the Harvard student body is currently made up of “those” brain-in-jar people, so the void would easily be filled with more scholar-athletes, scholar-musicians, scholar-artists, scholar-actors, etc. '</p>
<p>Bay, excellent point. I think where people get hung up is that they believe that only the 1600 SAT, 4.0 pluses make for deserving applicants to the Ivies, disregarding that 1300+ is more than adequate for scholastic success and enlightening classroom discussions. Add in other specialized talents and skills and voila, you have a balanced, diversified, and interesting student body. Oh, but I guess you’d be dumbing down the school by adding a defensive back with a 1430, what with all the other more deserving students out there. ;)</p>
That is not any recruited athlete but the (very) few biggest exceptions. I believe it works something like this … the recruits are split into bands distanced from the AI of a typical accepted student … and decreasing numbers of recruits are allowed in each band further from the average AI … and I think the bands are based on standard deviations from the average AI. For example, 80% of the recruits must be in the first band from the average AI (in other words 80% of the recruits must be within 1 standard deviation of the average AI). Another 19% can be in the band 2 deviations from the mean … and the lastfew recruits (the last 1-2%) can be 3 bands or so from the average AI. I’m not sure of the exact percantage in each band but it works roughly like this.</p>
<p>The 169 versus 212 case stated above sounds like the extreme which is 3-4-5 kids in each class of 1000-2500 kids depending on the IVY league school. The vast majoirty of athletic recruits are within 1 standard deviation of the average AI … which would be true of the lion’s share of non-athletic accpeted students also. The IVYies self-report to each each on their recruits … while I don’t doubt they push the edges of their agreement I doubt they are letting in scores of kids below their agreed upon rules.</p>
<p>The anecdotal stories about the softball player with horrible stats who only was accepted because she plays softball do not ring true to me … the 3-4-5 real accpetions are used on prime players on high-visibility sports … there just are not that many slots that they can really move far off a typical student. </p>
<p>Everything I just said are the rules the IVY league schools have adopted which are far more restrictive than the NCAA minimum standard rules … what other top tier schools and conferences do may be quite different. I’d love to know the rules the NESCAC uses for athletic recruits, for example.</p>
<p>I learned the following at an athletic recruiting seminar I attended this past summer. S is a recruited NESCAC athlete and will be attending a NESCAC school this fall as a recruited ice hockey player.
The Nescac banding system gives admissions flexilibity in admitting recruited athletes, but it does restrict the number of lower band athletes that can be taken. A C or D band athlete must be identified as an impact player (all 4 yrs) by the coach</p>
<p>Schools slot a number of players per band over a 4 year period</p>
<p>Schools have different numbers of allottments in each of bands and the bands are not exactly the same for all schools. For example, a C band recruit for Amherst, might be a B band for Trinity or Conn College in terms of academic stats.</p>
<p>Estimates of Banding in the NESCACS(varies with general averages for schools) :
A Band
SATs 700+ average, all above 680
SAT II 720
GPA: Mostly As, top 5%</p>
<p>B Band
SATs 650+ average, all above 610
SAT II 640
GPA: Mix of As and Bs, top 15%</p>
<p>C Band
SATs 630+ average, all above 580
SAT II 600
GPA: B record, top 20%</p>
<p>D Band
SATs below 1880 totall, all greater than 530
SAT II < 560
GPA: Below B average/Top 25-35%</p>
<p>The preread from admissions answers the question–is this applicant “tippable”? If yes, then the coach must decide whether he/she wants to use the tip on this athlete. That being said, the question for an athlete being recruited to a NESCAC school to ask the coach is–“Will you use a tip on me?”</p>
<p>The point of the thought experiment is that the cachet of Harvard and other highly selective schools comes from the assumption that anyone who went there must be smart. If Harvard was full of a bunch of just normally smart 1300+ kids it would loose that cachet.</p>
<p>Momof2sons … thanks for the info … this sounds very similar to the IVY league approach. Did they give any estimates of how many recruits are in each band? Do you know if there are a lot less D band recruits than A band recruits?</p>
<p>As I understand it there is some league pressure to eliminate low band (C and D bands) all together in the NESCACs.
In ice hockey, a coach may get somewhere between 4-6 tips per year and only one may be a C band tip. I think football gets 14 tips per year, but I do not know how the bands are distributed.
In my son’s case, his SATs were solidly within the 25th-75th centile for his college and he is a B student in a highly competitive private high school where kids with 3.3 GPAs go to Ivies, but he did need a tip to gain admission to his school.</p>
<p>One more thing, the lower the band the student-athlete fits into, the better the athlete he/she must be. A C band athletic recruit must be an 4 year “impact player” projected to start all 4 years</p>