Recruited College Athletes from Big-3 Type Schools?

[Anonymous]

The Academic Index, created in the 1980s and never disclosed publicly by the institutions themselves, uses a formula that assigns each recruit a number based on his or her standardized tests scores and high school grade point average.

http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/ivy-academic-index/

Approximately two-thirds of it is based on your standardized test score (SAT or ACT); the other third is based on your class rank (or GPA, if your school does not provide class rank).

http://home.comcast.net/~charles517/ivyai.html
http://www.satscores.us/MyChances/AI_Calculator.asp

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let me join the conversation as someone who actually has a clue.

In order to understand how athletic recruitment and admissions to the Ivies for athletes you have to understand the Ivy League "Academic Index".

It is a system that assigns index numbers to potential recruits based on their SAT scores and their class rank. GPA's are not included and have no weight. Only the SAT scores and the Class Rank percentile are considered.

The universities must balance their entire incoming class of athletes against the Academic Index. And to make it even more complicated, the Academic Index distribution varies by university such that Penn, for example, can admit more athletes in the lowest Academic Index band than can Harvard.

If you want to understand the Academic Index, you can look it up on the Internet. Or you can blather on about that which you have little understanding.

You're spot on. I know an athlete who was accepted at Penn with extremely low SAT scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let me join the conversation as someone who actually has a clue.

In order to understand how athletic recruitment and admissions to the Ivies for athletes you have to understand the Ivy League "Academic Index".

It is a system that assigns index numbers to potential recruits based on their SAT scores and their class rank. GPA's are not included and have no weight. Only the SAT scores and the Class Rank percentile are considered.

The universities must balance their entire incoming class of athletes against the Academic Index. And to make it even more complicated, the Academic Index distribution varies by university such that Penn, for example, can admit more athletes in the lowest Academic Index band than can Harvard.

If you want to understand the Academic Index, you can look it up on the Internet. Or you can blather on about that which you have little understanding.

You're spot on. I know an athlete who was accepted at Penn with extremely low SAT scores.

Which sport, and does the sport make a difference?

[Anonymous]

I don't think it is unreasonable to ask questions when athletes are being recruited as 10th graders. There is NO WAY that a student's academic potential is accurately estimated at the beginning of 10th grade. Other students are assessed at the middle of 12th grade. Sorry if you think that I should just keep my mouth shut. I find recruiting at the beginning of 10th grade ridiculous, and evidence that our sports obsessions are leading schools to admit students who should not be there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let me join the conversation as someone who actually has a clue.

In order to understand how athletic recruitment and admissions to the Ivies for athletes you have to understand the Ivy League "Academic Index".

It is a system that assigns index numbers to potential recruits based on their SAT scores and their class rank. GPA's are not included and have no weight. Only the SAT scores and the Class Rank percentile are considered.

The universities must balance their entire incoming class of athletes against the Academic Index. And to make it even more complicated, the Academic Index distribution varies by university such that Penn, for example, can admit more athletes in the lowest Academic Index band than can Harvard.

If you want to understand the Academic Index, you can look it up on the Internet. Or you can blather on about that which you have little understanding.

You're spot on. I know an athlete who was accepted at Penn with extremely low SAT scores.

Which sport, and does the sport make a difference?

Sport does make a difference.

Since the entire athletic department must meet the overall requirement of the Academic Index, the school will most frequently use its lower tier spots in the sports it cares most about. And usually that is football, and men's basketball and lacrosse. I have seen some really surprising acceptances of recruited mens lacrosse players and football players.


If they bring in a high SAT, high class rank swimmer, that frees up a spot for a football player with a lower academic index score.

You have to understand the academic index. The schools can't go below a certain level and they have to average a certain score.

As I recall, the lowest Academic Index band requires a 1200 SAT and a class rank in the 50th percentile. But the don't get a lot of these lowest band spots to hand out.

There isn't any weighting of schools. That is, a student in the 50th percentile from St Albans is the same as a student in the 50th percentile from Anacostia High.

Class is out. If you want to understand how it works, do the research and reading.

[Anonymous]

When our DD was being recruited by several Ivies...we bought 2 really good books on Amazon.com ... just got to Amazon and type in "Ivy Recruiting" and the 2 books will pop up. You'll learn everything you need to know about Ivy recruiting and the athletic index. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

You also need to understand what the following article tells you.

http://thedartmouth.com/2012/01/06/opinion/verbumultimum

Many recruited athletes face a huge gulf between their academic abilities and the rest of the student body. And the careers that the rest of the student body goes on to will also be vastly different.

About 10 years ago, a Princeton professor did a study that showed that the post college careers of Ivy League athletes closely resembled those with similar academic abilities who had gone to State universities.

Be careful. You may not be getting what you think you are getting.

[Anonymous]

Very untrue pp. You need to do some more cucrrent reading. Forbes Magazine did a recent great story showing that Ivy athletes in 4 sports did better in NYC in the financial district than non-athletes and that some firms will only hire athletes in those 4 sports:
lacrosse, field hockey, crew and squash.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let me join the conversation as someone who actually has a clue.

In order to understand how athletic recruitment and admissions to the Ivies for athletes you have to understand the Ivy League "Academic Index".

It is a system that assigns index numbers to potential recruits based on their SAT scores and their class rank. GPA's are not included and have no weight. Only the SAT scores and the Class Rank percentile are considered.

The universities must balance their entire incoming class of athletes against the Academic Index. And to make it even more complicated, the Academic Index distribution varies by university such that Penn, for example, can admit more athletes in the lowest Academic Index band than can Harvard.

If you want to understand the Academic Index, you can look it up on the Internet. Or you can blather on about that which you have little understanding.

You're spot on. I know an athlete who was accepted at Penn with extremely low SAT scores.

Which sport, and does the sport make a difference?

Cross country-track. Perhaps, it's a flagship sport at this ivy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Very untrue pp. You need to do some more cucrrent reading. Forbes Magazine did a recent great story showing that Ivy athletes in 4 sports did better in NYC in the financial district than non-athletes and that some firms will only hire athletes in those 4 sports:
lacrosse, field hockey, crew and squash.

In other words, scholar-athletes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Very untrue pp. You need to do some more cucrrent reading. Forbes Magazine did a recent great story showing that Ivy athletes in 4 sports did better in NYC in the financial district than non-athletes and that some firms will only hire athletes in those 4 sports:
lacrosse, field hockey, crew and squash.

I know that this is true. Wall Street is loaded with lacrosse players who gained admission to Ivy League schools because of their athletic ability.

But they aren't competing with their smarter Ivy League classmates for these jobs.

Read the Dartmouth article .... or don't. The gulf between these recruited athletes and the rest of the student population is huge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think it is unreasonable to ask questions when athletes are being recruited as 10th graders. There is NO WAY that a student's academic potential is accurately estimated at the beginning of 10th grade. Other students are assessed at the middle of 12th grade. Sorry if you think that I should just keep my mouth shut. I find recruiting at the beginning of 10th grade ridiculous, and evidence that our sports obsessions are leading schools to admit students who should not be there.

Despite the know-it-all prior poster, the SAT score issue does come into play -- the lower the SAT score (and academic index) the more of an absolute superstar you would have to be for them to spend their chips on you in admissions. I know a lacrosse athlete from a local well-known school who had a commitment as a junior from an Ivy, and after he failed to get his SAT score up to what they were looking for, they first told him not to apply early, and later he was rejected in regular admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let me join the conversation as someone who actually has a clue.

In order to understand how athletic recruitment and admissions to the Ivies for athletes you have to understand the Ivy League "Academic Index".

It is a system that assigns index numbers to potential recruits based on their SAT scores and their class rank. GPA's are not included and have no weight. Only the SAT scores and the Class Rank percentile are considered.

The universities must balance their entire incoming class of athletes against the Academic Index. And to make it even more complicated, the Academic Index distribution varies by university such that Penn, for example, can admit more athletes in the lowest Academic Index band than can Harvard.

If you want to understand the Academic Index, you can look it up on the Internet. Or you can blather on about that which you have little understanding.

You're spot on. I know an athlete who was accepted at Penn with extremely low SAT scores.

Which sport, and does the sport make a difference?

Sport does make a difference.

Since the entire athletic department must meet the overall requirement of the Academic Index, the school will most frequently use its lower tier spots in the sports it cares most about. And usually that is football, and men's basketball and lacrosse. I have seen some really surprising acceptances of recruited mens lacrosse players and football players.


If they bring in a high SAT, high class rank swimmer, that frees up a spot for a football player with a lower academic index score.

You have to understand the academic index. The schools can't go below a certain level and they have to average a certain score.

As I recall, the lowest Academic Index band requires a 1200 SAT and a class rank in the 50th percentile. But the don't get a lot of these lowest band spots to hand out.

There isn't any weighting of schools. That is, a student in the 50th percentile from St Albans is the same as a student in the 50th percentile from Anacostia High.

Class is out. If you want to understand how it works, do the research and reading.

Don't forget ice hockey -- at the Ivies that really care about competing at a national level in ice hockey (basically Harvard, Yale, and Cornell), the ice hockey team often had the lowest academic index on campus.

[Anonymous]

Recruited Ivy League athletes fall into two categories: Those recruited for superior athletic ability...and those recruited for their grades who sit on the bench. A Harvard lax player friend of mine jokes about this all the time. He hit the sweet spot of decent athletic ability, but really high SATs and grades. He barely played. Coaches love these kids because they bump up the team AI average and allow coaches to recruit star players with lower AIs. There is an individual minimum, but also a team average minimum. Oh, and said laxer and went to a second tier law school and is now a highly successful lawyer here in DC.

[Anonymous]

I don't disagree with a lot of what has already been said, however, another helpful way to think about what is best for your DC is to really educate yourself, and DC, on what the college experience and expectations are of D1, D2, and D3 athletes. Then, once you have a good understand of the substantial differences, and the tradeoffs among each of these perfectly valid paths, work backwards to see how your DC's portfolio would "sell" in each.