Do not waste ED on a SLAC. Very few unhooked (non-athlete, non-FGLI, non-legacy/donor) get in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From The Tufts Daily:

One study found that at 19 elite colleges, recruited athletes have a 30% higher chance at admittance than their non-athlete peers. At NESCAC schools, the percentage is even higher, with a 50% increased likelihood of receiving an acceptance letter. The effect of this can be all too tangible in many smaller colleges, such as Williams and Amherst, where about one-third of each incoming class is student athletes. At Tufts, this number is about 13%, or one in eight.

On average, student athletes score 100 points lower on the SAT than non-recruited students admitted to the same institution. This underperformance continues into college: At Ivy League institutions 81% of student athletes graduated at the bottom one-third of their class. Meanwhile, a study conducted on athlete admission to Harvard concluded that “being a recruited athlete essentially guarantees admission even for the least-qualified applicants.” It’s understandable that many athletes’ grades would suffer when considering the immense workload that a commitment to athletics requires, but this doesn’t change the fact that they are receiving academic priority for athletic qualifications. This means that numerous academically qualified students are being denied admission to make space for others who largely haven’t made education their first priority.

Notice that there was no mention that any of them were not academically qualified, because they were and they met an institutional priority.

People constantly want these schools to adjust their priorities to meet their preferences. Seems a bit like affirmative action to me.

This needs to stop. 90% of applicants are “academically qualified.” The phrase means nothing. They got in because they were athletes, and “but for” the fact they were athletes, they would not have gotten in — just like the 90% of applicants (80% of whom are “academically qualified”) get rejected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From The Tufts Daily:

One study found that at 19 elite colleges, recruited athletes have a 30% higher chance at admittance than their non-athlete peers. At NESCAC schools, the percentage is even higher, with a 50% increased likelihood of receiving an acceptance letter. The effect of this can be all too tangible in many smaller colleges, such as Williams and Amherst, where about one-third of each incoming class is student athletes. At Tufts, this number is about 13%, or one in eight.

On average, student athletes score 100 points lower on the SAT than non-recruited students admitted to the same institution. This underperformance continues into college: At Ivy League institutions 81% of student athletes graduated at the bottom one-third of their class. Meanwhile, a study conducted on athlete admission to Harvard concluded that “being a recruited athlete essentially guarantees admission even for the least-qualified applicants.” It’s understandable that many athletes’ grades would suffer when considering the immense workload that a commitment to athletics requires, but this doesn’t change the fact that they are receiving academic priority for athletic qualifications. This means that numerous academically qualified students are being denied admission to make space for others who largely haven’t made education their first priority.

Notice that there was no mention that any of them were not academically qualified, because they were and they met an institutional priority.

People constantly want these schools to adjust their priorities to meet their preferences. Seems a bit like affirmative action to me.

But what does that mean? A PP posted a stat that only 11% of them would have been admitted without athletic preference. That suggests many are underqualified, at best.

You do understand that 11% or so is the typical admissions rate for Tufts. It suggests that without athletics they would be admitted like any typical applicant, not that they are underqualified at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you all overstate how many athletes are or aren't recruited.

let's look at Bowdoin.
850 athletes
(668 unduplicated athletes)

Bowdoin is pretty typical in that the largest sport is track and field.

249 track and field athletes.
84 football (male only)
83 lacrosse

together that's a big chunk of the total number.

how many track and field athletes do you think were actually recruited? I'd say 10 a class. Same w football. same with lacrosse

Am I way off? I know lots of kids doing track and field at these schools - more than 20. And I can think of 1 that was recruited. We're not a powerhouse HS sports school so I know our numbers are low. But most track and field kids at these schools are not recruited.

The numbers for Bowdoin are pretty easy because the NESCAC has formal and informal rules. They have 30 teams and they get two slots per team and 14 for football. These are recruits who can be below the mean (they often aren't) and get full recruiting support from the team. so 58=14 equals 72 recruits with full slotted support. Those are what is available per the NESCAC recruiting agreement. Traditionally on top of this there is an equal number of "tips" which are also effectively guarantees of admission for athletes who are above the mean student profile and this is also why people constantly point out that NESCAC athletes are typically highly qualified to attend the school. It is rare for a "tip" to not get in but they are not as strong of a guarantee as a slotted athlete. All of these spots can and are traded among teams and there are circumstances where the AO allows additional "tips". Colby is a school where this is rumored to happen given massive recruiting classes in a few sports over the past few years.

So for Bowdoin in the end, recruited athletes in a typical year are somewhere around 144 give or take one or two.

OK wow, so given that Bowdoin only accepts around 250 students during the ED/early admission season, that means more than 50% are taken by recruited athletes!

Then you have to consider other powerful ED hooks: Legacy, FGLI institutional priority, donor kids/development tags. Questbridge matches aren't ED but also make up part of the early acceptance class. That probably leaves only a small group for fully unhooked ED applicants.

I get what OP is saying now.

Legacy and donor kids are a tiny amount of applicants at LACs- it’s just not that common, since the alumni base is so small, we’re talking maybe 10 kids max, and they don’t have to apply ed. Questbridge takes off a bit from their ed fgli numbers, since they have a guaranteed amount of fgli students from that pool. I will say that this is getting more extreme as you see schools like Pomona accepting 61% of their classes requesting financial aid.

Schools like Swat are exceeding 25% first gen. Add in the 30% athletes (95% not first gen) and the numbers are overwhelming. 10 kids max in terms of legacies/big donors? Maybe (and they of course are expected to apply ED to get that edge). How about 5 more faculty brats? Geographic diversity domestic? The 10% internationals? However you slice it, there is no room at the inn ED.

Schools insisting on 40% athletes and another 25% first gen are hurting themselves in this sense: the top kids apply elsewhere (no ED boost, so might as well apply to Brown or Cornell and get an ED boost there). Whatever the top kids do, they are not around anymore in the RD round when the Williams’ of the world might admit them. They never go to Williams and the quality of the undergrads (slightly, but this is a feedback loop) declines. These schools are getting what they deserve: you can’t have that many athletes and first gen and top students. You can only have 2 of the 3….

You cant assume the FGLIs and athletes don’t have the stats. Oftentimes these athletes and FGLI kids have the same perfect stats as the regular high stats kids, so they are in fact among the “top students” you are referencing. They just happen to have something beyond stats. And that’s how they end up getting in vs a kid with just the stats.

All statistical evidence to the contrary...

I can give you that some athletes get a boost. But far fewer than you believe and it is much smaller than you believe.

Really? Per the Harvard Crimson:

"Controlling for differences between applicants, athletes are thousands of times more likely to be admitted than similar non-athletes. Recent research finds that only 11 percent of admitted athletes at Ivy League and similarly elite schools would have been accepted without athletic preference."

Phew that quote from Harvard's newspaper, and this whole thread is bleak reading indeed.

I really don't understand why any non-revenue generating sports are giving such high advantages. Why do colleges need to recruit and give a leg up to top of the line discus throwers?

Institutional priorities, most college athletics originated at theses schools and have a long history. Athletes from Elite colleges also graduate at higher rates than non-athletes, earn more more than non-athletes, and give at higher percentages than non-athletes. All good reasons for athletics to be an institutional priority.

History is not a reason for this to be an institutional priority to the extent it is in SLACs. Historically, these teams had lots of walk ons, the vast majority of athletes were not recruited, and the proportion of the class — even one to two generations ago - that were recruited athletes was much smaller. So, yeah, consistent with your “history” point, cut recruited athletes in half. Today.

As for your wealthy donor nonsense, recruited athletes come from wealthy families: you have a correlation-causation problem.

It is true that athletes tend to get the best jobs coming right out of college. Besides wealth and nepotism, a “normal” middle-class kid who is an athlete can get this kind of job through athlete recruiting networks. But think about it: athletes are favored in admissions because they are athletes; then athletes are favored in job networks because they were athletes; then you are saying, “See, athletes are successful. It should be an institutional priority.”

Perverse is what it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From The Tufts Daily:

One study found that at 19 elite colleges, recruited athletes have a 30% higher chance at admittance than their non-athlete peers. At NESCAC schools, the percentage is even higher, with a 50% increased likelihood of receiving an acceptance letter. The effect of this can be all too tangible in many smaller colleges, such as Williams and Amherst, where about one-third of each incoming class is student athletes. At Tufts, this number is about 13%, or one in eight.

On average, student athletes score 100 points lower on the SAT than non-recruited students admitted to the same institution. This underperformance continues into college: At Ivy League institutions 81% of student athletes graduated at the bottom one-third of their class. Meanwhile, a study conducted on athlete admission to Harvard concluded that “being a recruited athlete essentially guarantees admission even for the least-qualified applicants.” It’s understandable that many athletes’ grades would suffer when considering the immense workload that a commitment to athletics requires, but this doesn’t change the fact that they are receiving academic priority for athletic qualifications. This means that numerous academically qualified students are being denied admission to make space for others who largely haven’t made education their first priority.

Notice that there was no mention that any of them were not academically qualified, because they were and they met an institutional priority.

People constantly want these schools to adjust their priorities to meet their preferences. Seems a bit like affirmative action to me.

But what does that mean? A PP posted a stat that only 11% of them would have been admitted without athletic preference. That suggests many are underqualified, at best.

You do understand that 11% or so is the typical admissions rate for Tufts. It suggests that without athletics they would be admitted like any typical applicant, not that they are underqualified at all.

It means nearly 90% of athletes currently attending elite schools would not have been admitted. Not the same thing!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From The Tufts Daily:

One study found that at 19 elite colleges, recruited athletes have a 30% higher chance at admittance than their non-athlete peers. At NESCAC schools, the percentage is even higher, with a 50% increased likelihood of receiving an acceptance letter. The effect of this can be all too tangible in many smaller colleges, such as Williams and Amherst, where about one-third of each incoming class is student athletes. At Tufts, this number is about 13%, or one in eight.

On average, student athletes score 100 points lower on the SAT than non-recruited students admitted to the same institution. This underperformance continues into college: At Ivy League institutions 81% of student athletes graduated at the bottom one-third of their class. Meanwhile, a study conducted on athlete admission to Harvard concluded that “being a recruited athlete essentially guarantees admission even for the least-qualified applicants.” It’s understandable that many athletes’ grades would suffer when considering the immense workload that a commitment to athletics requires, but this doesn’t change the fact that they are receiving academic priority for athletic qualifications. This means that numerous academically qualified students are being denied admission to make space for others who largely haven’t made education their first priority.

Notice that there was no mention that any of them were not academically qualified, because they were and they met an institutional priority.

People constantly want these schools to adjust their priorities to meet their preferences. Seems a bit like affirmative action to me.

Exactly. Athletics is affirmative action for white kids. 90% of athletes at top SLACs are white. Get rid of this affirmative action.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you all overstate how many athletes are or aren't recruited.

let's look at Bowdoin.
850 athletes
(668 unduplicated athletes)

Bowdoin is pretty typical in that the largest sport is track and field.

249 track and field athletes.
84 football (male only)
83 lacrosse

together that's a big chunk of the total number.

how many track and field athletes do you think were actually recruited? I'd say 10 a class. Same w football. same with lacrosse

Am I way off? I know lots of kids doing track and field at these schools - more than 20. And I can think of 1 that was recruited. We're not a powerhouse HS sports school so I know our numbers are low. But most track and field kids at these schools are not recruited.

The numbers for Bowdoin are pretty easy because the NESCAC has formal and informal rules. They have 30 teams and they get two slots per team and 14 for football. These are recruits who can be below the mean (they often aren't) and get full recruiting support from the team. so 58=14 equals 72 recruits with full slotted support. Those are what is available per the NESCAC recruiting agreement. Traditionally on top of this there is an equal number of "tips" which are also effectively guarantees of admission for athletes who are above the mean student profile and this is also why people constantly point out that NESCAC athletes are typically highly qualified to attend the school. It is rare for a "tip" to not get in but they are not as strong of a guarantee as a slotted athlete. All of these spots can and are traded among teams and there are circumstances where the AO allows additional "tips". Colby is a school where this is rumored to happen given massive recruiting classes in a few sports over the past few years.

So for Bowdoin in the end, recruited athletes in a typical year are somewhere around 144 give or take one or two.

OK wow, so given that Bowdoin only accepts around 250 students during the ED/early admission season, that means more than 50% are taken by recruited athletes!

Then you have to consider other powerful ED hooks: Legacy, FGLI institutional priority, donor kids/development tags. Questbridge matches aren't ED but also make up part of the early acceptance class. That probably leaves only a small group for fully unhooked ED applicants.

I get what OP is saying now.

Legacy and donor kids are a tiny amount of applicants at LACs- it’s just not that common, since the alumni base is so small, we’re talking maybe 10 kids max, and they don’t have to apply ed. Questbridge takes off a bit from their ed fgli numbers, since they have a guaranteed amount of fgli students from that pool. I will say that this is getting more extreme as you see schools like Pomona accepting 61% of their classes requesting financial aid.

Schools like Swat are exceeding 25% first gen. Add in the 30% athletes (95% not first gen) and the numbers are overwhelming. 10 kids max in terms of legacies/big donors? Maybe (and they of course are expected to apply ED to get that edge). How about 5 more faculty brats? Geographic diversity domestic? The 10% internationals? However you slice it, there is no room at the inn ED.

Schools insisting on 40% athletes and another 25% first gen are hurting themselves in this sense: the top kids apply elsewhere (no ED boost, so might as well apply to Brown or Cornell and get an ED boost there). Whatever the top kids do, they are not around anymore in the RD round when the Williams’ of the world might admit them. They never go to Williams and the quality of the undergrads (slightly, but this is a feedback loop) declines. These schools are getting what they deserve: you can’t have that many athletes and first gen and top students. You can only have 2 of the 3….

That’s an ivy thing. Most faculty get rejected at DD’s lac. It doesn’t make you some next level applicant. Geographic diversity is literally 1 person per state accepted, and it isn’t the leading thing colleges care about.

Schools insisting on 40% athletes and another 25% first gen are hurting themselves in this sense

absolute bs. There happens to be a lot of top students, they dont just have to be upper middle class dc kids, just because it makes your life easy to assume that’s where all the top students are. The assumption that first gen people cant be intelligent is really appealing but not unexpected on this forum.

Whatever your kids SLAC, if you think each class does not have 5 faculty or staff offspring, I have a bridge to sell you. The actual number is probably at least double.

Think about it, folks. The whole premise of this thread is that a top unhooked kid applying ED to WASP-B has no advantage whatsoever — and might even be at a disadvantage. By definition, these top unhooked kids should ED elsewhere. By definition, these top kids are less likely to attend WASP-B as a result (whether ED or RD). By definition, WASP-B is missing out on these top kids. At what point is athletics not worth it, when not only are the athletes lower, but it brings down the quality of the rest of the non-athlete applicant pool?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Athletic kids applying/recruited by Ivies are also looking at Patriot League schools Holy Cross, Colgate etc. Big drop off in athletic talent to Div3 NESCAC schools.

That is true for some sports like Football and Basketball but not most. There is a lot of overlap among the three conferences in many sports and a rough guideline is that for a given sport the top half of the Ivy league leads with overlap between the bottom half of the Ivy League and the top of the Patriot League. This repeats it self with the Patriot League and the NESCAC and there is enough variation in Ivy League sports that the top NESCAC schools are often better than the weakest Ivy league teams.

There are many kids in the NESCAC who were shooting for the Ivy league and then chose NESCAC schools for the academics over Patriot League schools. They are not the norm but they are not at all uncommon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From The Tufts Daily:

One study found that at 19 elite colleges, recruited athletes have a 30% higher chance at admittance than their non-athlete peers. At NESCAC schools, the percentage is even higher, with a 50% increased likelihood of receiving an acceptance letter. The effect of this can be all too tangible in many smaller colleges, such as Williams and Amherst, where about one-third of each incoming class is student athletes. At Tufts, this number is about 13%, or one in eight.

On average, student athletes score 100 points lower on the SAT than non-recruited students admitted to the same institution. This underperformance continues into college: At Ivy League institutions 81% of student athletes graduated at the bottom one-third of their class. Meanwhile, a study conducted on athlete admission to Harvard concluded that “being a recruited athlete essentially guarantees admission even for the least-qualified applicants.” It’s understandable that many athletes’ grades would suffer when considering the immense workload that a commitment to athletics requires, but this doesn’t change the fact that they are receiving academic priority for athletic qualifications. This means that numerous academically qualified students are being denied admission to make space for others who largely haven’t made education their first priority.

Notice that there was no mention that any of them were not academically qualified, because they were and they met an institutional priority.

People constantly want these schools to adjust their priorities to meet their preferences. Seems a bit like affirmative action to me.

This needs to stop. 90% of applicants are “academically qualified.” The phrase means nothing. They got in because they were athletes, and “but for” the fact they were athletes, they would not have gotten in — just like the 90% of applicants (80% of whom are “academically qualified”) get rejected.

What are you trying to say "needs to stop"?

If you mean the propagation that recruited athletes are somehow unqualified to attend you are absolutely correct.

If you mean people trying to impose their preferences on private institutions because as institutions they have every right to their priorities again you would be correct.

If you mean anything else then you are incorrect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you all overstate how many athletes are or aren't recruited.

let's look at Bowdoin.
850 athletes
(668 unduplicated athletes)

Bowdoin is pretty typical in that the largest sport is track and field.

249 track and field athletes.
84 football (male only)
83 lacrosse

together that's a big chunk of the total number.

how many track and field athletes do you think were actually recruited? I'd say 10 a class. Same w football. same with lacrosse

Am I way off? I know lots of kids doing track and field at these schools - more than 20. And I can think of 1 that was recruited. We're not a powerhouse HS sports school so I know our numbers are low. But most track and field kids at these schools are not recruited.

The numbers for Bowdoin are pretty easy because the NESCAC has formal and informal rules. They have 30 teams and they get two slots per team and 14 for football. These are recruits who can be below the mean (they often aren't) and get full recruiting support from the team. so 58=14 equals 72 recruits with full slotted support. Those are what is available per the NESCAC recruiting agreement. Traditionally on top of this there is an equal number of "tips" which are also effectively guarantees of admission for athletes who are above the mean student profile and this is also why people constantly point out that NESCAC athletes are typically highly qualified to attend the school. It is rare for a "tip" to not get in but they are not as strong of a guarantee as a slotted athlete. All of these spots can and are traded among teams and there are circumstances where the AO allows additional "tips". Colby is a school where this is rumored to happen given massive recruiting classes in a few sports over the past few years.

So for Bowdoin in the end, recruited athletes in a typical year are somewhere around 144 give or take one or two.

OK wow, so given that Bowdoin only accepts around 250 students during the ED/early admission season, that means more than 50% are taken by recruited athletes!

Then you have to consider other powerful ED hooks: Legacy, FGLI institutional priority, donor kids/development tags. Questbridge matches aren't ED but also make up part of the early acceptance class. That probably leaves only a small group for fully unhooked ED applicants.

I get what OP is saying now.

Legacy and donor kids are a tiny amount of applicants at LACs- it’s just not that common, since the alumni base is so small, we’re talking maybe 10 kids max, and they don’t have to apply ed. Questbridge takes off a bit from their ed fgli numbers, since they have a guaranteed amount of fgli students from that pool. I will say that this is getting more extreme as you see schools like Pomona accepting 61% of their classes requesting financial aid.

Schools like Swat are exceeding 25% first gen. Add in the 30% athletes (95% not first gen) and the numbers are overwhelming. 10 kids max in terms of legacies/big donors? Maybe (and they of course are expected to apply ED to get that edge). How about 5 more faculty brats? Geographic diversity domestic? The 10% internationals? However you slice it, there is no room at the inn ED.

Schools insisting on 40% athletes and another 25% first gen are hurting themselves in this sense: the top kids apply elsewhere (no ED boost, so might as well apply to Brown or Cornell and get an ED boost there). Whatever the top kids do, they are not around anymore in the RD round when the Williams’ of the world might admit them. They never go to Williams and the quality of the undergrads (slightly, but this is a feedback loop) declines. These schools are getting what they deserve: you can’t have that many athletes and first gen and top students. You can only have 2 of the 3….

That’s an ivy thing. Most faculty get rejected at DD’s lac. It doesn’t make you some next level applicant. Geographic diversity is literally 1 person per state accepted, and it isn’t the leading thing colleges care about.

Schools insisting on 40% athletes and another 25% first gen are hurting themselves in this sense

absolute bs. There happens to be a lot of top students, they dont just have to be upper middle class dc kids, just because it makes your life easy to assume that’s where all the top students are. The assumption that first gen people cant be intelligent is really appealing but not unexpected on this forum.

Whatever your kids SLAC, if you think each class does not have 5 faculty or staff offspring, I have a bridge to sell you. The actual number is probably at least double.

Think about it, folks. The whole premise of this thread is that a top unhooked kid applying ED to WASP-B has no advantage whatsoever — and might even be at a disadvantage. By definition, these top unhooked kids should ED elsewhere. By definition, these top kids are less likely to attend WASP-B as a result (whether ED or RD). By definition, WASP-B is missing out on these top kids. At what point is athletics not worth it, when not only are the athletes lower, but it brings down the quality of the rest of the non-athlete applicant pool?

My NARP kid attending a WASP had a funny point about this. Less academic competition, they said!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you all overstate how many athletes are or aren't recruited.

let's look at Bowdoin.
850 athletes
(668 unduplicated athletes)

Bowdoin is pretty typical in that the largest sport is track and field.

249 track and field athletes.
84 football (male only)
83 lacrosse

together that's a big chunk of the total number.

how many track and field athletes do you think were actually recruited? I'd say 10 a class. Same w football. same with lacrosse

Am I way off? I know lots of kids doing track and field at these schools - more than 20. And I can think of 1 that was recruited. We're not a powerhouse HS sports school so I know our numbers are low. But most track and field kids at these schools are not recruited.

The numbers for Bowdoin are pretty easy because the NESCAC has formal and informal rules. They have 30 teams and they get two slots per team and 14 for football. These are recruits who can be below the mean (they often aren't) and get full recruiting support from the team. so 58=14 equals 72 recruits with full slotted support. Those are what is available per the NESCAC recruiting agreement. Traditionally on top of this there is an equal number of "tips" which are also effectively guarantees of admission for athletes who are above the mean student profile and this is also why people constantly point out that NESCAC athletes are typically highly qualified to attend the school. It is rare for a "tip" to not get in but they are not as strong of a guarantee as a slotted athlete. All of these spots can and are traded among teams and there are circumstances where the AO allows additional "tips". Colby is a school where this is rumored to happen given massive recruiting classes in a few sports over the past few years.

So for Bowdoin in the end, recruited athletes in a typical year are somewhere around 144 give or take one or two.

OK wow, so given that Bowdoin only accepts around 250 students during the ED/early admission season, that means more than 50% are taken by recruited athletes!

Then you have to consider other powerful ED hooks: Legacy, FGLI institutional priority, donor kids/development tags. Questbridge matches aren't ED but also make up part of the early acceptance class. That probably leaves only a small group for fully unhooked ED applicants.

I get what OP is saying now.

Legacy and donor kids are a tiny amount of applicants at LACs- it’s just not that common, since the alumni base is so small, we’re talking maybe 10 kids max, and they don’t have to apply ed. Questbridge takes off a bit from their ed fgli numbers, since they have a guaranteed amount of fgli students from that pool. I will say that this is getting more extreme as you see schools like Pomona accepting 61% of their classes requesting financial aid.

Schools like Swat are exceeding 25% first gen. Add in the 30% athletes (95% not first gen) and the numbers are overwhelming. 10 kids max in terms of legacies/big donors? Maybe (and they of course are expected to apply ED to get that edge). How about 5 more faculty brats? Geographic diversity domestic? The 10% internationals? However you slice it, there is no room at the inn ED.

Schools insisting on 40% athletes and another 25% first gen are hurting themselves in this sense: the top kids apply elsewhere (no ED boost, so might as well apply to Brown or Cornell and get an ED boost there). Whatever the top kids do, they are not around anymore in the RD round when the Williams’ of the world might admit them. They never go to Williams and the quality of the undergrads (slightly, but this is a feedback loop) declines. These schools are getting what they deserve: you can’t have that many athletes and first gen and top students. You can only have 2 of the 3….

You cant assume the FGLIs and athletes don’t have the stats. Oftentimes these athletes and FGLI kids have the same perfect stats as the regular high stats kids, so they are in fact among the “top students” you are referencing. They just happen to have something beyond stats. And that’s how they end up getting in vs a kid with just the stats.

All statistical evidence to the contrary...

I can give you that some athletes get a boost. But far fewer than you believe and it is much smaller than you believe.

Really? Per the Harvard Crimson:

"Controlling for differences between applicants, athletes are thousands of times more likely to be admitted than similar non-athletes. Recent research finds that only 11 percent of admitted athletes at Ivy League and similarly elite schools would have been accepted without athletic preference."

Phew that quote from Harvard's newspaper, and this whole thread is bleak reading indeed.

I really don't understand why any non-revenue generating sports are giving such high advantages. Why do colleges need to recruit and give a leg up to top of the line discus throwers?

Institutional priorities, most college athletics originated at theses schools and have a long history. Athletes from Elite colleges also graduate at higher rates than non-athletes, earn more more than non-athletes, and give at higher percentages than non-athletes. All good reasons for athletics to be an institutional priority.

History is not a reason for this to be an institutional priority to the extent it is in SLACs. Historically, these teams had lots of walk ons, the vast majority of athletes were not recruited, and the proportion of the class — even one to two generations ago - that were recruited athletes was much smaller. So, yeah, consistent with your “history” point, cut recruited athletes in half. Today.

As for your wealthy donor nonsense, recruited athletes come from wealthy families: you have a correlation-causation problem.

It is true that athletes tend to get the best jobs coming right out of college. Besides wealth and nepotism, a “normal” middle-class kid who is an athlete can get this kind of job through athlete recruiting networks. But think about it: athletes are favored in admissions because they are athletes; then athletes are favored in job networks because they were athletes; then you are saying, “See, athletes are successful. It should be an institutional priority.”

Perverse is what it is.

That is straight from a study at Amherst. Super easy to control for so I'm sure that they did. Highly unlikely that there is a correlation-causation problem but there is it says something about the quality of work by Amherst's faculty committee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From The Tufts Daily:

One study found that at 19 elite colleges, recruited athletes have a 30% higher chance at admittance than their non-athlete peers. At NESCAC schools, the percentage is even higher, with a 50% increased likelihood of receiving an acceptance letter. The effect of this can be all too tangible in many smaller colleges, such as Williams and Amherst, where about one-third of each incoming class is student athletes. At Tufts, this number is about 13%, or one in eight.

On average, student athletes score 100 points lower on the SAT than non-recruited students admitted to the same institution. This underperformance continues into college: At Ivy League institutions 81% of student athletes graduated at the bottom one-third of their class. Meanwhile, a study conducted on athlete admission to Harvard concluded that “being a recruited athlete essentially guarantees admission even for the least-qualified applicants.” It’s understandable that many athletes’ grades would suffer when considering the immense workload that a commitment to athletics requires, but this doesn’t change the fact that they are receiving academic priority for athletic qualifications. This means that numerous academically qualified students are being denied admission to make space for others who largely haven’t made education their first priority.

Notice that there was no mention that any of them were not academically qualified, because they were and they met an institutional priority.

People constantly want these schools to adjust their priorities to meet their preferences. Seems a bit like affirmative action to me.

But what does that mean? A PP posted a stat that only 11% of them would have been admitted without athletic preference. That suggests many are underqualified, at best.

You do understand that 11% or so is the typical admissions rate for Tufts. It suggests that without athletics they would be admitted like any typical applicant, not that they are underqualified at all.

It means nearly 90% of athletes currently attending elite schools would not have been admitted. Not the same thing!

It means that their results would look the same as the general pool. Pretty basic math mom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you all overstate how many athletes are or aren't recruited.

let's look at Bowdoin.
850 athletes
(668 unduplicated athletes)

Bowdoin is pretty typical in that the largest sport is track and field.

249 track and field athletes.
84 football (male only)
83 lacrosse

together that's a big chunk of the total number.

how many track and field athletes do you think were actually recruited? I'd say 10 a class. Same w football. same with lacrosse

Am I way off? I know lots of kids doing track and field at these schools - more than 20. And I can think of 1 that was recruited. We're not a powerhouse HS sports school so I know our numbers are low. But most track and field kids at these schools are not recruited.

The numbers for Bowdoin are pretty easy because the NESCAC has formal and informal rules. They have 30 teams and they get two slots per team and 14 for football. These are recruits who can be below the mean (they often aren't) and get full recruiting support from the team. so 58=14 equals 72 recruits with full slotted support. Those are what is available per the NESCAC recruiting agreement. Traditionally on top of this there is an equal number of "tips" which are also effectively guarantees of admission for athletes who are above the mean student profile and this is also why people constantly point out that NESCAC athletes are typically highly qualified to attend the school. It is rare for a "tip" to not get in but they are not as strong of a guarantee as a slotted athlete. All of these spots can and are traded among teams and there are circumstances where the AO allows additional "tips". Colby is a school where this is rumored to happen given massive recruiting classes in a few sports over the past few years.

So for Bowdoin in the end, recruited athletes in a typical year are somewhere around 144 give or take one or two.

OK wow, so given that Bowdoin only accepts around 250 students during the ED/early admission season, that means more than 50% are taken by recruited athletes!

Then you have to consider other powerful ED hooks: Legacy, FGLI institutional priority, donor kids/development tags. Questbridge matches aren't ED but also make up part of the early acceptance class. That probably leaves only a small group for fully unhooked ED applicants.

I get what OP is saying now.

Legacy and donor kids are a tiny amount of applicants at LACs- it’s just not that common, since the alumni base is so small, we’re talking maybe 10 kids max, and they don’t have to apply ed. Questbridge takes off a bit from their ed fgli numbers, since they have a guaranteed amount of fgli students from that pool. I will say that this is getting more extreme as you see schools like Pomona accepting 61% of their classes requesting financial aid.

Schools like Swat are exceeding 25% first gen. Add in the 30% athletes (95% not first gen) and the numbers are overwhelming. 10 kids max in terms of legacies/big donors? Maybe (and they of course are expected to apply ED to get that edge). How about 5 more faculty brats? Geographic diversity domestic? The 10% internationals? However you slice it, there is no room at the inn ED.

Schools insisting on 40% athletes and another 25% first gen are hurting themselves in this sense: the top kids apply elsewhere (no ED boost, so might as well apply to Brown or Cornell and get an ED boost there). Whatever the top kids do, they are not around anymore in the RD round when the Williams’ of the world might admit them. They never go to Williams and the quality of the undergrads (slightly, but this is a feedback loop) declines. These schools are getting what they deserve: you can’t have that many athletes and first gen and top students. You can only have 2 of the 3….

That’s an ivy thing. Most faculty get rejected at DD’s lac. It doesn’t make you some next level applicant. Geographic diversity is literally 1 person per state accepted, and it isn’t the leading thing colleges care about.

Schools insisting on 40% athletes and another 25% first gen are hurting themselves in this sense

absolute bs. There happens to be a lot of top students, they dont just have to be upper middle class dc kids, just because it makes your life easy to assume that’s where all the top students are. The assumption that first gen people cant be intelligent is really appealing but not unexpected on this forum.

Whatever your kids SLAC, if you think each class does not have 5 faculty or staff offspring, I have a bridge to sell you. The actual number is probably at least double.

Think about it, folks. The whole premise of this thread is that a top unhooked kid applying ED to WASP-B has no advantage whatsoever — and might even be at a disadvantage. By definition, these top unhooked kids should ED elsewhere. By definition, these top kids are less likely to attend WASP-B as a result (whether ED or RD). By definition, WASP-B is missing out on these top kids. At what point is athletics not worth it, when not only are the athletes lower, but it brings down the quality of the rest of the non-athlete applicant pool?

There’s not that many faculty members. Especially not enough to consistently have 20 across 4 classes, let alone 40, in a given year. How do you people reach such ridiculous conclusions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you all overstate how many athletes are or aren't recruited.

let's look at Bowdoin.
850 athletes
(668 unduplicated athletes)

Bowdoin is pretty typical in that the largest sport is track and field.

249 track and field athletes.
84 football (male only)
83 lacrosse

together that's a big chunk of the total number.

how many track and field athletes do you think were actually recruited? I'd say 10 a class. Same w football. same with lacrosse

Am I way off? I know lots of kids doing track and field at these schools - more than 20. And I can think of 1 that was recruited. We're not a powerhouse HS sports school so I know our numbers are low. But most track and field kids at these schools are not recruited.

The numbers for Bowdoin are pretty easy because the NESCAC has formal and informal rules. They have 30 teams and they get two slots per team and 14 for football. These are recruits who can be below the mean (they often aren't) and get full recruiting support from the team. so 58=14 equals 72 recruits with full slotted support. Those are what is available per the NESCAC recruiting agreement. Traditionally on top of this there is an equal number of "tips" which are also effectively guarantees of admission for athletes who are above the mean student profile and this is also why people constantly point out that NESCAC athletes are typically highly qualified to attend the school. It is rare for a "tip" to not get in but they are not as strong of a guarantee as a slotted athlete. All of these spots can and are traded among teams and there are circumstances where the AO allows additional "tips". Colby is a school where this is rumored to happen given massive recruiting classes in a few sports over the past few years.

So for Bowdoin in the end, recruited athletes in a typical year are somewhere around 144 give or take one or two.

OK wow, so given that Bowdoin only accepts around 250 students during the ED/early admission season, that means more than 50% are taken by recruited athletes!

Then you have to consider other powerful ED hooks: Legacy, FGLI institutional priority, donor kids/development tags. Questbridge matches aren't ED but also make up part of the early acceptance class. That probably leaves only a small group for fully unhooked ED applicants.

I get what OP is saying now.

Legacy and donor kids are a tiny amount of applicants at LACs- it’s just not that common, since the alumni base is so small, we’re talking maybe 10 kids max, and they don’t have to apply ed. Questbridge takes off a bit from their ed fgli numbers, since they have a guaranteed amount of fgli students from that pool. I will say that this is getting more extreme as you see schools like Pomona accepting 61% of their classes requesting financial aid.

Schools like Swat are exceeding 25% first gen. Add in the 30% athletes (95% not first gen) and the numbers are overwhelming. 10 kids max in terms of legacies/big donors? Maybe (and they of course are expected to apply ED to get that edge). How about 5 more faculty brats? Geographic diversity domestic? The 10% internationals? However you slice it, there is no room at the inn ED.

Schools insisting on 40% athletes and another 25% first gen are hurting themselves in this sense: the top kids apply elsewhere (no ED boost, so might as well apply to Brown or Cornell and get an ED boost there). Whatever the top kids do, they are not around anymore in the RD round when the Williams’ of the world might admit them. They never go to Williams and the quality of the undergrads (slightly, but this is a feedback loop) declines. These schools are getting what they deserve: you can’t have that many athletes and first gen and top students. You can only have 2 of the 3….

You cant assume the FGLIs and athletes don’t have the stats. Oftentimes these athletes and FGLI kids have the same perfect stats as the regular high stats kids, so they are in fact among the “top students” you are referencing. They just happen to have something beyond stats. And that’s how they end up getting in vs a kid with just the stats.

All statistical evidence to the contrary...

I can give you that some athletes get a boost. But far fewer than you believe and it is much smaller than you believe.

Really? Per the Harvard Crimson:

"Controlling for differences between applicants, athletes are thousands of times more likely to be admitted than similar non-athletes. Recent research finds that only 11 percent of admitted athletes at Ivy League and similarly elite schools would have been accepted without athletic preference."

Phew that quote from Harvard's newspaper, and this whole thread is bleak reading indeed.

I really don't understand why any non-revenue generating sports are giving such high advantages. Why do colleges need to recruit and give a leg up to top of the line discus throwers?

Institutional priorities, most college athletics originated at theses schools and have a long history. Athletes from Elite colleges also graduate at higher rates than non-athletes, earn more more than non-athletes, and give at higher percentages than non-athletes. All good reasons for athletics to be an institutional priority.

History is not a reason for this to be an institutional priority to the extent it is in SLACs. Historically, these teams had lots of walk ons, the vast majority of athletes were not recruited, and the proportion of the class — even one to two generations ago - that were recruited athletes was much smaller. So, yeah, consistent with your “history” point, cut recruited athletes in half. Today.

As for your wealthy donor nonsense, recruited athletes come from wealthy families: you have a correlation-causation problem.

It is true that athletes tend to get the best jobs coming right out of college. Besides wealth and nepotism, a “normal” middle-class kid who is an athlete can get this kind of job through athlete recruiting networks. But think about it: athletes are favored in admissions because they are athletes; then athletes are favored in job networks because they were athletes; then you are saying, “See, athletes are successful. It should be an institutional priority.”

Perverse is what it is.

That is straight from a study at Amherst. Super easy to control for so I'm sure that they did. Highly unlikely that there is a correlation-causation problem but there is it says something about the quality of work by Amherst's faculty committee.

Just link it. Faculty committees can be ideological and wrong, stop the bs and just link the facts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From The Tufts Daily:

One study found that at 19 elite colleges, recruited athletes have a 30% higher chance at admittance than their non-athlete peers. At NESCAC schools, the percentage is even higher, with a 50% increased likelihood of receiving an acceptance letter. The effect of this can be all too tangible in many smaller colleges, such as Williams and Amherst, where about one-third of each incoming class is student athletes. At Tufts, this number is about 13%, or one in eight.

On average, student athletes score 100 points lower on the SAT than non-recruited students admitted to the same institution. This underperformance continues into college: At Ivy League institutions 81% of student athletes graduated at the bottom one-third of their class. Meanwhile, a study conducted on athlete admission to Harvard concluded that “being a recruited athlete essentially guarantees admission even for the least-qualified applicants.” It’s understandable that many athletes’ grades would suffer when considering the immense workload that a commitment to athletics requires, but this doesn’t change the fact that they are receiving academic priority for athletic qualifications. This means that numerous academically qualified students are being denied admission to make space for others who largely haven’t made education their first priority.

Notice that there was no mention that any of them were not academically qualified, because they were and they met an institutional priority.

People constantly want these schools to adjust their priorities to meet their preferences. Seems a bit like affirmative action to me.

Exactly. Athletics is affirmative action for white kids. 90% of athletes at top SLACs are white. Get rid of this affirmative action.

Why aren't you spending time whining about athletic recruiting at UVA or UMD? We know why, it's because you would be laughed at.

Lets get rid of institutional financial aid, it is affirmative action for the lower classes of society. It addresses no significant priority for me, why should I support it? This goes both ways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you all overstate how many athletes are or aren't recruited.

let's look at Bowdoin.
850 athletes
(668 unduplicated athletes)

Bowdoin is pretty typical in that the largest sport is track and field.

249 track and field athletes.
84 football (male only)
83 lacrosse

together that's a big chunk of the total number.

how many track and field athletes do you think were actually recruited? I'd say 10 a class. Same w football. same with lacrosse

Am I way off? I know lots of kids doing track and field at these schools - more than 20. And I can think of 1 that was recruited. We're not a powerhouse HS sports school so I know our numbers are low. But most track and field kids at these schools are not recruited.

The numbers for Bowdoin are pretty easy because the NESCAC has formal and informal rules. They have 30 teams and they get two slots per team and 14 for football. These are recruits who can be below the mean (they often aren't) and get full recruiting support from the team. so 58=14 equals 72 recruits with full slotted support. Those are what is available per the NESCAC recruiting agreement. Traditionally on top of this there is an equal number of "tips" which are also effectively guarantees of admission for athletes who are above the mean student profile and this is also why people constantly point out that NESCAC athletes are typically highly qualified to attend the school. It is rare for a "tip" to not get in but they are not as strong of a guarantee as a slotted athlete. All of these spots can and are traded among teams and there are circumstances where the AO allows additional "tips". Colby is a school where this is rumored to happen given massive recruiting classes in a few sports over the past few years.

So for Bowdoin in the end, recruited athletes in a typical year are somewhere around 144 give or take one or two.

OK wow, so given that Bowdoin only accepts around 250 students during the ED/early admission season, that means more than 50% are taken by recruited athletes!

Then you have to consider other powerful ED hooks: Legacy, FGLI institutional priority, donor kids/development tags. Questbridge matches aren't ED but also make up part of the early acceptance class. That probably leaves only a small group for fully unhooked ED applicants.

I get what OP is saying now.

Legacy and donor kids are a tiny amount of applicants at LACs- it’s just not that common, since the alumni base is so small, we’re talking maybe 10 kids max, and they don’t have to apply ed. Questbridge takes off a bit from their ed fgli numbers, since they have a guaranteed amount of fgli students from that pool. I will say that this is getting more extreme as you see schools like Pomona accepting 61% of their classes requesting financial aid.

Schools like Swat are exceeding 25% first gen. Add in the 30% athletes (95% not first gen) and the numbers are overwhelming. 10 kids max in terms of legacies/big donors? Maybe (and they of course are expected to apply ED to get that edge). How about 5 more faculty brats? Geographic diversity domestic? The 10% internationals? However you slice it, there is no room at the inn ED.

Schools insisting on 40% athletes and another 25% first gen are hurting themselves in this sense: the top kids apply elsewhere (no ED boost, so might as well apply to Brown or Cornell and get an ED boost there). Whatever the top kids do, they are not around anymore in the RD round when the Williams’ of the world might admit them. They never go to Williams and the quality of the undergrads (slightly, but this is a feedback loop) declines. These schools are getting what they deserve: you can’t have that many athletes and first gen and top students. You can only have 2 of the 3….

That’s an ivy thing. Most faculty get rejected at DD’s lac. It doesn’t make you some next level applicant. Geographic diversity is literally 1 person per state accepted, and it isn’t the leading thing colleges care about.

Schools insisting on 40% athletes and another 25% first gen are hurting themselves in this sense

absolute bs. There happens to be a lot of top students, they dont just have to be upper middle class dc kids, just because it makes your life easy to assume that’s where all the top students are. The assumption that first gen people cant be intelligent is really appealing but not unexpected on this forum.

Whatever your kids SLAC, if you think each class does not have 5 faculty or staff offspring, I have a bridge to sell you. The actual number is probably at least double.

Think about it, folks. The whole premise of this thread is that a top unhooked kid applying ED to WASP-B has no advantage whatsoever — and might even be at a disadvantage. By definition, these top unhooked kids should ED elsewhere. By definition, these top kids are less likely to attend WASP-B as a result (whether ED or RD). By definition, WASP-B is missing out on these top kids. At what point is athletics not worth it, when not only are the athletes lower, but it brings down the quality of the rest of the non-athlete applicant pool?

WASP-B is a figment of your imagination. Please do not insert that nonsense into a different childish squabble.