Top schools where sports *don’t matter*

[Anonymous]

Just looking to collect info, not rehash the role of athletics in higher Ed.

Which well-known schools give no edge to athletes in admissions? Thank you.

[Anonymous]

None. They all recruit and give recruited athletes an admission advantage.

[Anonymous]

None in the US

[Anonymous]

If they have sports at all, they are recruiting for team members

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just looking to collect info, not rehash the role of athletics in higher Ed.

Which well-known schools give no edge to athletes in admissions? Thank you.

Only cal tech clown

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just looking to collect info, not rehash the role of athletics in higher Ed.

Which well-known schools give no edge to athletes in admissions? Thank you.

Only cal tech clown

They even matter some at Cal Tech, but probably less than any other top school.

I think Bennington College has no varsity sports, so that may be the school for your kid.

[Anonymous]

CalTech gives a slight edge to recruited athletes. You still have to have stats to get in but it will get you across the line as opposed to a kid with the same stats but not being recruited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just looking to collect info, not rehash the role of athletics in higher Ed.

Which well-known schools give no edge to athletes in admissions? Thank you.

I would turn this question around. Except for recruited athletes (which are a special case you can do nothing about), which colleges place significant importance on athletics over other ECs? You DO NOT need to have athletics in your application to get accepted to a top school and having athletics as an activity does not significantly increase an applicant's chances (except for being a recruited athlete) any more than any other activity. Participate in sports if that interests you; if it doesn't, don't give it a second thought.

[Anonymous]

Would you really discourage your kid from applying to schools just because they have set asides/different tracks for certain kinds of recruits? That seems cutting off your nose to spite your face.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just looking to collect info, not rehash the role of athletics in higher Ed.

Which well-known schools give no edge to athletes in admissions? Thank you.

I would turn this question around. Except for recruited athletes (which are a special case you can do nothing about), which colleges place significant importance on athletics over other ECs? You DO NOT need to have athletics in your application to get accepted to a top school and having athletics as an activity does not significantly increase an applicant's chances (except for being a recruited athlete) any more than any other activity. Participate in sports if that interests you; if it doesn't, don't give it a second thought.

I agree with this 100%. Why are people so focused on recruited athletes getting in the way of their precious child?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just looking to collect info, not rehash the role of athletics in higher Ed.

Which well-known schools give no edge to athletes in admissions? Thank you.

I would say that Chicago, WashU and Emory don’t pay much attention to athletics. Chicago was a big football school until around 1940, when it dropped football.

[Anonymous]

If you focus on larger schools the percentage of recruited athletes is a tiny fraction of the student population. So a school like Michigan of course recruits, but recruited athletes are probably 2-3% of the students.

Schools like Chicago and Wash U recruit but only among students who have the same or higher stats as other admits.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thank you for the feedback. I’m not looking at this from an admissions pov, fwiw. I went to a SLAC that had no sports culture (at least as far as I could tell!) and was surprised to hear how many SLACs *do* care about athletics.

I thrived in a purely “academic” environment—it was uniformly rigorous with no easy alternatives to tough courses and everyone was all in on the intellectualism, which helped us push ourselves and support each other. I’m sure it sounds pretentious but I loved it. It’s not that I would cross other schools off the list—I just want to understand the landscape in case DCs turn out to be like me.

[Anonymous]

OP again. I should say that I went to a truly huge HS that had every subgroup from jocks to gunners to goths (it was the 90s!) which is why it felt so good to “find my people” at a slac with no sports or frats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just looking to collect info, not rehash the role of athletics in higher Ed.

Which well-known schools give no edge to athletes in admissions? Thank you.

I would say that Chicago, WashU and Emory don’t pay much attention to athletics. Chicago was a big football school until around 1940, when it dropped football.

Chicago still had football as recently as the mid 2000s, I had a familY member who was recruited to play there. As far as I know, the team still exists.