Recruited athletes don’t have lower stats!

[Anonymous]

Pre-reads at D3 are super helpful. My kids were all recruited D3 and they were told what tier they were "A" or "B" list based on their athletic performance and their grades. My daughter moved up to "A" list once she took her SAT and got a 1550.

Grades and scores matter to tip top performing athletes in, and this tips other kids out because the class size it finite.

[Anonymous]

Do NESCAC schools issue likely letters just like the Ivys or is there a difference? I thought recruiting was softer in the NESCAC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Multitasking while getting screamed at... that's good.

So line cooks would be best suited for Wall Street.

What a pathetic explanation.

Jeff Bezos worked the line at McDonald's.

So did many other successful people. You seem to be quite blind to your classist arrogance.

Hardly.

I’m not the one who was using a basic description of most jobs to justify why athletes are oh so suited for Wall Street.

They’re the probably yelled at as much in a year as a line cook in a week. But oh let’s lionize them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
My DC is an athlete at a NESCAC. DC had pre-reads at a couple of NESCACs and SLACs. Several of these schools, including the one DC is at, have been TO for years (pre-pandemic). DC had to have an ACT for pre-reads. Passed all of them. DC is an academic high-flyer - took most rigorous courseload available at high school. Ultimately, when DC applied ED, coach came back and said don't submit ACT score of 33. Admissions doesn't want it. Clearly part of their data manipulation. They only wanted 34s and higher.

We learned in this process that NESCACs and many other SLACs have a band system for their recruits (at least in the sport my DC plays).

Of the 10-12 recruits coach gets 5-6 may be green band (at the high end of the general applicant pool - superior grades/test scores/strong athlete). Yellow band may be 3-4 recruits - some aspect of their profile is not as high. Red banded athletes are limited to 1, maybe 2. Coach really wants them for their athletic skills, but the recruit is below the average in either gpa or test score.

Never heard of the band system. Very interesting! So the red bands get in, but they’re limited to 1 or 2 spots? I’m guessing the red bands are the best players out of the group?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do NESCAC schools issue likely letters just like the Ivys or is there a difference? I thought recruiting was softer in the NESCAC.

Softer in that they consider the "whole", there is no formula like in the Ivies (where it's GPA + test score). But it's not exactly easy, and it varies a bit from school to school and sport to sport. My kid was being recruited for football by the NESCACs. For instance, they took into consideration that he was coming from an extremely rigorous New England boarding school rather than a grade inflated rural public. The ivies just take GPA. Trinity is easier to get into (academically) than Amherst but harder to be recruited for football. Hope that makes sense.

He ended up at an FCS D1 with pretty rigorous academics, but some of his teammates clearly had a bit more leeway in the admissions process than they would have had at the NESCACs or Ivies

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sports are a hook like NO other.

Some sports parents seem to have a complex about this for some reason. It's not that the kids are unqualified, it's that they have the boost from "maybe" to "yes". When you are talking 5% admit rates this is obviously a huge help.

It is a great hook. I think the problem arises when non-athlete parents think the athletes shouldn't have been admitted at all almost exclusively referencing comparative GPA and/or test scores.
I agree some sports (think sailing and fencing) should be treated more like orchestra by admissions since they hardly draw spectators, don't raise the school's profile in a meaningful way, and have a minimal ability to bring the campus community together. Others though (think football and basketball as the big ones but also hockey, soccer, lax, and baseball at many places) bring students, alumni, and locals together in a unique way. Schools would be crazy not to try to be competitive in at least those sports. Even in the Ivy League, look at the atmosphere and attendees (and fundraising ops) for the Harvard Yale football game or Princeton Penn basketball at the Palestra. I've never seen so much pride and gear wearing from my non-athlete Princeton friends, who mostly don't even follow college sports much, as during the runs their basketball teams had this year in the NCAA tournament.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sports are a hook like NO other.

Some sports parents seem to have a complex about this for some reason. It's not that the kids are unqualified, it's that they have the boost from "maybe" to "yes". When you are talking 5% admit rates this is obviously a huge help.

It is a great hook. I think the problem arises when non-athlete parents think the athletes shouldn't have been admitted at all almost exclusively referencing comparative GPA and/or test scores.
I agree some sports (think sailing and fencing) should be treated more like orchestra by admissions since they hardly draw spectators, don't raise the school's profile in a meaningful way, and have a minimal ability to bring the campus community together. Others though (think football and basketball as the big ones but also hockey, soccer, lax, and baseball at many places) bring students, alumni, and locals together in a unique way. Schools would be crazy not to try to be competitive in at least those sports. Even in the Ivy League, look at the atmosphere and attendees (and fundraising ops) for the Harvard Yale football game or Princeton Penn basketball at the Palestra. I've never seen so much pride and gear wearing from my non-athlete Princeton friends, who mostly don't even follow college sports much, as during the runs their basketball teams had this year in the NCAA tournament.

The problem is some sports parents insist recruited athletes don’t have lower stats. On the whole, they do. Why pretend they don’t when the data are clear.

[Anonymous]

It isn't always about spectators, selling tickets, or broadcast rights. Some schools have crew and sailing just because of their location. Some have tennis because a benefactor paid for a fancy indoor facility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Multitasking while getting screamed at... that's good.

So line cooks would be best suited for Wall Street.

What a pathetic explanation.

Jeff Bezos worked the line at McDonald's.

So did many other successful people. You seem to be quite blind to your classist arrogance.

DP. You are reading comprehension challenged. You must have been an athlete recruit, if you went to college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sports are a hook like NO other.

Some sports parents seem to have a complex about this for some reason. It's not that the kids are unqualified, it's that they have the boost from "maybe" to "yes". When you are talking 5% admit rates this is obviously a huge help.

It is a great hook. I think the problem arises when non-athlete parents think the athletes shouldn't have been admitted at all almost exclusively referencing comparative GPA and/or test scores.
I agree some sports (think sailing and fencing) should be treated more like orchestra by admissions since they hardly draw spectators, don't raise the school's profile in a meaningful way, and have a minimal ability to bring the campus community together. Others though (think football and basketball as the big ones but also hockey, soccer, lax, and baseball at many places) bring students, alumni, and locals together in a unique way. Schools would be crazy not to try to be competitive in at least those sports. Even in the Ivy League, look at the atmosphere and attendees (and fundraising ops) for the Harvard Yale football game or Princeton Penn basketball at the Palestra. I've never seen so much pride and gear wearing from my non-athlete Princeton friends, who mostly don't even follow college sports much, as during the runs their basketball teams had this year in the NCAA tournament.

The problem is some sports parents insist recruited athletes don’t have lower stats. On the whole, they do. Why pretend they don’t when the data are clear.

Students with 99th percentile ACT and SAT scores ~and~ collegiate level athletic ability are rare and special. Schools can casually turn away miles and miles of academically superior applicants. They can do the same with miles and miles of athletes. But finding applicants with the whole packages is a challenge and they ALL have separate offices just to recruit those students.

Why pretend like your star athlete with mediocre academic ability, or your star academic with mediocre athletic ability is more unique than they actually are?

99th percentile test scores? There are at least 75,000 each year.
Top players in football, basketball, etc? There are many hundreds of thousands.

Tops in both areas? RARE RARE RARE

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sports are a hook like NO other.

Some sports parents seem to have a complex about this for some reason. It's not that the kids are unqualified, it's that they have the boost from "maybe" to "yes". When you are talking 5% admit rates this is obviously a huge help.

It is a great hook. I think the problem arises when non-athlete parents think the athletes shouldn't have been admitted at all almost exclusively referencing comparative GPA and/or test scores.
I agree some sports (think sailing and fencing) should be treated more like orchestra by admissions since they hardly draw spectators, don't raise the school's profile in a meaningful way, and have a minimal ability to bring the campus community together. Others though (think football and basketball as the big ones but also hockey, soccer, lax, and baseball at many places) bring students, alumni, and locals together in a unique way. Schools would be crazy not to try to be competitive in at least those sports. Even in the Ivy League, look at the atmosphere and attendees (and fundraising ops) for the Harvard Yale football game or Princeton Penn basketball at the Palestra. I've never seen so much pride and gear wearing from my non-athlete Princeton friends, who mostly don't even follow college sports much, as during the runs their basketball teams had this year in the NCAA tournament.

The problem is some sports parents insist recruited athletes don’t have lower stats. On the whole, they do. Why pretend they don’t when the data are clear.

I know the data from the Harvard case (limited in scope year wise and by school) but other than that and the dated The Shape of the River, what are the datasets you are referring to? I think it is worth sharing the sources people are referring to since many people here are probably not as aware either. I've seen this topic on DCUM a few times but with almost no data beyond the Harvard case.

[Anonymous]

I have less of an issue with the hook that athletics provides and more with the signing process. I think it's sh!tty all around. For the athletes, they have to put all their eggs in one basket early, and could possibly be reneged on. For everyone else, they see their athlete friends basically done with the college process while they still have to do the slog of multiple visits, applications, essays, etc..
You don't see college orchestras signing oboists in their junior year.
It's ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sports are a hook like NO other.

Some sports parents seem to have a complex about this for some reason. It's not that the kids are unqualified, it's that they have the boost from "maybe" to "yes". When you are talking 5% admit rates this is obviously a huge help.

It is a great hook. I think the problem arises when non-athlete parents think the athletes shouldn't have been admitted at all almost exclusively referencing comparative GPA and/or test scores.
I agree some sports (think sailing and fencing) should be treated more like orchestra by admissions since they hardly draw spectators, don't raise the school's profile in a meaningful way, and have a minimal ability to bring the campus community together. Others though (think football and basketball as the big ones but also hockey, soccer, lax, and baseball at many places) bring students, alumni, and locals together in a unique way. Schools would be crazy not to try to be competitive in at least those sports. Even in the Ivy League, look at the atmosphere and attendees (and fundraising ops) for the Harvard Yale football game or Princeton Penn basketball at the Palestra. I've never seen so much pride and gear wearing from my non-athlete Princeton friends, who mostly don't even follow college sports much, as during the runs their basketball teams had this year in the NCAA tournament.

The problem is some sports parents insist recruited athletes don’t have lower stats. On the whole, they do. Why pretend they don’t when the data are clear.

The problem with your statement is the "on the whole" characterization.

[Anonymous]

I still think the differences are crazy to spend so much time going back and forth on. The legacy detractors also have to deal with Harvard and Princeton showing higher scores for legacies than non-legacies.

Admitted students from the Class of 2025 had an average SAT score of 1494 and an average ACT score of 34. These numbers varied significantly along athlete and income status. Recruited athletes had an average SAT score of 1397, whereas non-athletes averaged 1501. The average SAT score of students with family income under $40,000 was 1443, while those with a family income of more than $500,000 averaged 1520. Legacy students also had a higher average SAT score than non-legacy students, at 1523 for legacy students and 1491 for non-legacy students.
https://features.thecrimson.com/2021/freshman-survey/academics-narrative/

[Anonymous]

Have US colleges ever said they are looking to admit a class with the highest possible test score and GPA stats? I wasn't aware that it was ever a goal of any selective school. Many schools are straightforward in saying they value athletics.
Dartmouth specifically references athletes in their admissions FAQs on applying early:
Keep in mind that the published higher percentage of applicants accepted early is somewhat misleading because it includes recruited Division 1 athletes, whose credentials have been reviewed in advance. With recruited athletes removed from the Early Decision numbers, the statistical advantage isn’t as large.
https://admissions.dartmouth.edu/glossary-question/do-i-have-better-chance-being-admitted-if-i-apply-early#:~:text=Keep%20in%20mind%20that%20the,advantage%20isn%27t%20as%20large.