Amherst College Paper Article on Athletic Recruiting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DC is an athlete and did not pass the pre-reads at two NESCACs. He had close stats, but not 50%-tile, and would have been at least a B band recruit. Point is, the standards for my athlete we still high for admission - so high he got a polite "no" (again despite the athletic talent being there). No big deal, b/c DC had cast a wide net of various D1 and D3 schools and went elsewhere with no regrets, but just passing along that the two NESCAC schools definitely were keeping high standards even for a top athlete who ultimately went D1.

Also, my athlete practiced 20-ish hours a week (and sometimes many more with weekend long tournaments) and kept his grades up plus participated in all the other school/outside activities like clubs and volunteering that all the high-fliers do these days. Athletes have all the standard academic demands of high school AND hours of practice and athletic talent to add to the mix. These small schools should want to keep this kind of student around. These student athletes are hard working, smart with grit, dedicated and also tend to be sociable and great marketing for the school.

True. Plus, they are always battling pain and injuries while doing all those fantastic things in and out of school. My DC had three big injuries in high school, each kept them off the field for months, but they stayed away from painkillers so they could stay awake, not drowsy at school. Never mind the countless hours spent in PT and trainers office. They didn’t get recruited by a NESCAC school but thankfully got recruited by another top 30 great college. The coach was especially impressed with their grades despite of the injuries.

Give me a break. My kid spends far more time on his year-round activity than any athlete playing a 1-season sport. So do the kids doing original research in high school. Athletes are just not that special and 67% of students do not care about their insular cliques or attend their games.

The copium runs strong in this one.

Copium? My kid has a 4.0 at Amherst. She loves it there, just wishes some of her classmates were smarter and focused more on academics, less on practice and partying. Annoying when she has a group project and has to carry them to preserve her own grade.

Your post is fiction, actually demonstrates that you know nothing about what you are speaking of....because it doesn't happen.

What is more likely is that my athlete kid is tutoring your kid in Math or carrying her in class presentations because she does it like a pro. Her stats were well above the 75th at Amherst and she gives no ground academically to anyone there.

[Anonymous]

Attacking an IQ is a slippery slope. Let me guess! You could not get into Amherst. You got stuck at Bryn Mawr, or better yet, UMass. All your friends went to Andover, St Paul's, or Hotchkiss, and maybe you did, too, but the cookie crumbled on your lap. Your summers were spent in Trenton, not Nantucket, Amagansett, or Europe. Always looking into something that was close yet so far. Now it is time to seek revenge. Your high-IQ child will right the injustices done to you.

[Anonymous]

This is very funny. This is why I sent all my children to Williams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is very funny. This is why I sent all my children to Williams.

At least at Williams, we win the Directors Cup.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is very funny. This is why I sent all my children to Williams.

At least at Williams, we win the Directors Cup.

How do they determine the Directors Cup winners? Look at how each team performs in the national D3 tournaments and then assigns a score based on winning, runner up, make to semis, make to quarters, etc?

How do they reconcile that not all schools offer every sport?

[Anonymous]

If a student can get into a good school on academic merit, why go the recruited athlete route?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Attacking an IQ is a slippery slope. Let me guess! You could not get into Amherst. You got stuck at Bryn Mawr, or better yet, UMass. All your friends went to Andover, St Paul's, or Hotchkiss, and maybe you did, too, but the cookie crumbled on your lap. Your summers were spent in Trenton, not Nantucket, Amagansett, or Europe. Always looking into something that was close yet so far. Now it is time to seek revenge. Your high-IQ child will right the injustices done to you.

As Thackeray said so eloquently, "A man who is born a pig will die a pig."

[Anonymous]

The best way to look at this is that there'd are two completely different admissions processes.

Both are challenging, no one is denying that, but they shouldn't be evaluated side by side.

Apples and oranges, as they say.

But if colleges continue to consider athletics as a valuable contribution to the community, there will be a process for recruiting athletes to campus. Get over it and move on.

[Anonymous]

Directors Cup awards are given, in D3 (Stanford is King D1), based on up to 18 sports, but the core four are required: men's basketball, men's soccer, women's basketball, and women's soccer, and how each school's programs fare in conference and national championships. Williams has been dominant in this space while losing to Emory last year. It is a big deal. There is no cash reward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've just been through it. Yes, it's harder than many people believe. It adds an extra layer of stress and uncertainty to an already difficult process.

Yes, and it starts (in earnest) more than a year before the process starts for NARPs.

Yep. Lots of showcases and camps and travel . . . plus kids really really have to put themselves out there and be proactive in communicating with coaches. There is very little transparency, and coaches are notorious for showing interests and then ghosting potential recruits.

While there are athletes that get tons of attention and interest, many of these kids don't end up having a huge range of options. It's not like they can just pick their favorite school and play there. Then there are the kids who don't get any offers at all.

My high-stats kid ended up with only two real offers and two "get in on your own and you can walk on" promises, and that was after being in front of a LOT of coaches. We are fortunate that one of the two offers was from a stand-out school for him, and he is thrilled knowing that he can play in college. It very easily could have gone the other way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If a student can get into a good school on academic merit, why go the recruited athlete route?

My DS did because he wanted to play his sport in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If a student can get into a good school on academic merit, why go the recruited athlete route?

Because you wanna play the sport. You wanna make sure you’re good enough to play on the team you don’t want to sit the bench.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whoever is putting down athletes, you are a total pompous, feckless, rubber room candidate. My DD spends at least eight hundred hours a year just practicing her sport. That is 33 1/3 days straight of just doing one thing, and she does it well. These are the kids taking your DC spot at Amherst, Williams, Harvard, and Princeton. Kids who have balls. Kids who win. Kids who do not need medication when life takes a crap on them. Kids who can do something other than memorize and regurgitate answers. My monkey BoBo could probably write a better research paper than you.

Crawl back under your rock. Get your blanket and suck your thumb. You lost before the whistle was ever blown.

There are plenty of activities that require extreme grit and time commitment. Why is it that only the ones that involve kicking a ball around get special treatment?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is very funny. This is why I sent all my children to Williams.

At least at Williams, we win the Directors Cup.

Indeed you do. And it is something that so many posters on this thread will never understand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whoever is putting down athletes, you are a total pompous, feckless, rubber room candidate. My DD spends at least eight hundred hours a year just practicing her sport. That is 33 1/3 days straight of just doing one thing, and she does it well. These are the kids taking your DC spot at Amherst, Williams, Harvard, and Princeton. Kids who have balls. Kids who win. Kids who do not need medication when life takes a crap on them. Kids who can do something other than memorize and regurgitate answers. My monkey BoBo could probably write a better research paper than you.

Crawl back under your rock. Get your blanket and suck your thumb. You lost before the whistle was ever blown.

Do you really think that's what high-stats non-athletes are doing?