Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Duke, Northwestern, other Ivies What Does It Take ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody grows up from kindergarten I want to go to Chicago or Northwestern. Or even Amherst or Williams or Pomona. They are forced into it. They dream about going to Ivies. Only exception is somebody who may have grown up as a Duke or Georgetown basketball fan.

Absolutely nobody grows up from kindergarten saying they want to go to UPenn or Columbia or Cornell or Dartmouth or Brown.

Also, why is your grammar so poor?

The grammar is fine--it is a chat board. Not a dissertation. Secondly, I can't help you if you take everything so literally. You are missing the point. People want to go to Ivies. Period. End of story. Chicago, Northwestern, etc. happen when they can't make Ivies.

Curious what kind of background this poster has. Perhaps they’re an immigrant whose sole understanding of American universities comes from watching YouTube videos or reading College Confidential? Or maybe they’re 70+ years old. Or grew up in Hanover, New Hampshire. Intriguing, the makings of a parochial mind!

Perhaps you need to go back to your MAGA rallies. Again this is a chat board not an academic paper. If you cannot see the difference, I question your judgment.

How did you get “MAGA” from that comment?

And way to cover for your inability to be truthful or accurate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody grows up from kindergarten I want to go to Chicago or Northwestern. Or even Amherst or Williams or Pomona. They are forced into it. They dream about going to Ivies. Only exception is somebody who may have grown up as a Duke or Georgetown basketball fan.

Absolutely nobody grows up from kindergarten saying they want to go to UPenn or Columbia or Cornell or Dartmouth or Brown.

Also, why is your grammar so poor?

The grammar is fine--it is a chat board. Not a dissertation. Secondly, I can't help you if you take everything so literally. You are missing the point. People want to go to Ivies. Period. End of story. Chicago, Northwestern, etc. happen when they can't make Ivies.

Curious what kind of background this poster has. Perhaps they’re an immigrant whose sole understanding of American universities comes from watching YouTube videos or reading College Confidential? Or maybe they’re 70+ years old. Or grew up in Hanover, New Hampshire. Intriguing, the makings of a parochial mind!

Perhaps you need to go back to your MAGA rallies. Again this is a chat board not an academic paper. If you cannot see the difference, I question your judgment.

How did you get “MAGA” from that comment?

And way to cover for your inability to be truthful or accurate.

Typical MAGA behavior to assume foreigner. Next time I will review like I am submitting a memo to President Trump on the January 6 rally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody grows up from kindergarten I want to go to Chicago or Northwestern. Or even Amherst or Williams or Pomona. They are forced into it. They dream about going to Ivies. Only exception is somebody who may have grown up as a Duke or Georgetown basketball fan.

Absolutely nobody grows up from kindergarten saying they want to go to UPenn or Columbia or Cornell or Dartmouth or Brown.

Also, why is your grammar so poor?

The grammar is fine--it is a chat board. Not a dissertation. Secondly, I can't help you if you take everything so literally. You are missing the point. People want to go to Ivies. Period. End of story. Chicago, Northwestern, etc. happen when they can't make Ivies.

Curious what kind of background this poster has. Perhaps they’re an immigrant whose sole understanding of American universities comes from watching YouTube videos or reading College Confidential? Or maybe they’re 70+ years old. Or grew up in Hanover, New Hampshire. Intriguing, the makings of a parochial mind!

Perhaps you need to go back to your MAGA rallies. Again this is a chat board not an academic paper. If you cannot see the difference, I question your judgment.

How did you get “MAGA” from that comment?

And way to cover for your inability to be truthful or accurate.

Typical MAGA behavior to assume foreigner. Next time I will review like I am submitting a memo to President Trump on the January 6 rally.

The fact that you are equating “immigrant” with something bad is problematic on your behalf. What a tool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Williams and Amherst have single digit admissions rates. The rates you cite can only possibly by ED and if so, as a PP said, are very skewed by atheltes which they probably recruit in the same raw numbers as ivies but the colleges themselves are much smaller. At my
kids’ mcps high school, many more students were admitted to Cornell than either of these.

In the world of kids I know, the ones who were admitted to H/Y/P were true superstars. Not just perfect gpa, perfect sat and the most rigorous classes (and when I say most rigorous, I really mean it - not just thru MV but also took all of the english and social studies APs, took multiple hard science APs, and finished world language AP junior year). But also excelled in other things - music, science competitions, quizbowl or debate. These were the 2-3 kids in a class of 500 who you “knew” would one day go to H/Y/P. There are of course other students every year who get into Penn,Columbia, Dartmouth - these kids are also terrific students but don’t have that “extra” and so there are a lot more of them so it actually seems less predictable to me why Lola got into Penn and Larla
did not.

And again, I think from our HS the students have an easier time getting into Penn and Dartmouth than Williams and Amherst where the 1-2 admits are usually sports recruits (and terrific students).

My answer expands on this but generally tracks. Top 10 schools are for the very top kids at a high school. Truly, top 3-5 in class (not 5%), above 1550 test scores, major leadership (President of class, captain of championship winning team sort of stuff). They will likely get rejected to some places too but I have seen most of those kids get into 1 top 10 school that is considered the long shot - particularly if they can apply SCEA/ED.

I think where DCUM gets confused is many of us have a kid who is awesome but not quite that level: maybe 1550 SAT and near perfect grades but only top 10 kids in class. Maybe President if a smaller club. And, that kid is awesome but there are so many out there like that. I have one of these. He is not going to get into an Ivy (maybe he would have in my generation, but that is not relevant) and he is not sad about it. He knows he is accomplished but there are more qualified candidates. He has found a few schools beyond the top 20 he would be excited to attend. They are tremendous colleges.

We can all believe our kids are great and worked hard but rationally understand they are not worthy of a spot where only 6/100 kids get in. And be proud of them and excited for college!

I am sure Northwestern is a good school, but the students from our private DC high school who apply and get in NU are not the top students in the grade. Probably top 25-30%

Which private DC high school ?

I find this hard to believe. Northwestern University reports that slightly over 95% of matriculated (Fall 2020 entering class) students who graduated high school in 2020 were in the Top 10% of their HS class.

For a relative comparison, US News reports the percentage of Fall 2020 entering class who graduated in the top 10% of their high school class:

Princeton 89%
Columbia 96% (but not sure if this was part of the fraudulent date submitted by Columbia to US News)
Harvard 94%
MIT 100%
Yale 94%

Stanford 96%
U Chicago 99%
U Penn 96%
CalTech 96%
Duke 95%

Johns Hopkins 99%
Northwestern 95%
Dartmouth College 93%
Brown 95%
Vanderbilt 90%

WashUStL 86%
Cornell 84%
Rice 92%
Notre Dame 90%
Emory 83%

Georgetown 83%
Michigan 77%
Carnegie Mellon 89%
U Virginia 90%
NYU 82%

Tufts 84%
UNC-Chapel Hill 74%
Wake Forest 73%
Boston College 79%
Georgia Tech 88%

William & Mary 77%
Boston University 66%
Tulane 63%

SLACs:

Williams 95%
Amherst 855
Swarthmore 93%
Pomona 90%
Wellesley 85%

Bowdoin 84%
Claremont McKenna 73%
Carleton College 70%
Middlebury 80%
Wash & Lee 80%

Davidson 76%
Grinnell 72%
Hamilton 86%
Haverford 94%
Barnard 90%

Colby 74%
Colgate 65%
Wesleyan 67%
U Richmond 50%
Vassar 73%

Bates College 60%
Colorado College 73%
Macalester 66%
Kenyon 55%
Bucknell 54%

Skidmore 33%
Furman 44%

At many schools, only 20% of so of enrolled students had class rank reported, so this can be highly misleading. Class rank is not known or reported in Common Data Sets for the remaining 70-80%.

Sure. Look, mit is not admitting kids that are not at the top of their class. Maybe the high school won't rank the students but you can sure that MIT is directly comparing all the students applying from the same school. And guess what ..they are admitting the ones at the top of the pile. Sorry

I didn't comment on MIT specifically. Why are you responding with MIT specifically and then saying "sorry"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Williams and Amherst have single digit admissions rates. The rates you cite can only possibly by ED and if so, as a PP said, are very skewed by atheltes which they probably recruit in the same raw numbers as ivies but the colleges themselves are much smaller. At my
kids’ mcps high school, many more students were admitted to Cornell than either of these.

In the world of kids I know, the ones who were admitted to H/Y/P were true superstars. Not just perfect gpa, perfect sat and the most rigorous classes (and when I say most rigorous, I really mean it - not just thru MV but also took all of the english and social studies APs, took multiple hard science APs, and finished world language AP junior year). But also excelled in other things - music, science competitions, quizbowl or debate. These were the 2-3 kids in a class of 500 who you “knew” would one day go to H/Y/P. There are of course other students every year who get into Penn,Columbia, Dartmouth - these kids are also terrific students but don’t have that “extra” and so there are a lot more of them so it actually seems less predictable to me why Lola got into Penn and Larla
did not.

And again, I think from our HS the students have an easier time getting into Penn and Dartmouth than Williams and Amherst where the 1-2 admits are usually sports recruits (and terrific students).

My answer expands on this but generally tracks. Top 10 schools are for the very top kids at a high school. Truly, top 3-5 in class (not 5%), above 1550 test scores, major leadership (President of class, captain of championship winning team sort of stuff). They will likely get rejected to some places too but I have seen most of those kids get into 1 top 10 school that is considered the long shot - particularly if they can apply SCEA/ED.

I think where DCUM gets confused is many of us have a kid who is awesome but not quite that level: maybe 1550 SAT and near perfect grades but only top 10 kids in class. Maybe President if a smaller club. And, that kid is awesome but there are so many out there like that. I have one of these. He is not going to get into an Ivy (maybe he would have in my generation, but that is not relevant) and he is not sad about it. He knows he is accomplished but there are more qualified candidates. He has found a few schools beyond the top 20 he would be excited to attend. They are tremendous colleges.

We can all believe our kids are great and worked hard but rationally understand they are not worthy of a spot where only 6/100 kids get in. And be proud of them and excited for college!

I am sure Northwestern is a good school, but the students from our private DC high school who apply and get in NU are not the top students in the grade. Probably top 25-30%

Which private DC high school ?

I find this hard to believe. Northwestern University reports that slightly over 95% of matriculated (Fall 2020 entering class) students who graduated high school in 2020 were in the Top 10% of their HS class.

For a relative comparison, US News reports the percentage of Fall 2020 entering class who graduated in the top 10% of their high school class:

Princeton 89%
Columbia 96% (but not sure if this was part of the fraudulent date submitted by Columbia to US News)
Harvard 94%
MIT 100%
Yale 94%

Stanford 96%
U Chicago 99%
U Penn 96%
CalTech 96%
Duke 95%

Johns Hopkins 99%
Northwestern 95%
Dartmouth College 93%
Brown 95%
Vanderbilt 90%

WashUStL 86%
Cornell 84%
Rice 92%
Notre Dame 90%
Emory 83%

Georgetown 83%
Michigan 77%
Carnegie Mellon 89%
U Virginia 90%
NYU 82%

Tufts 84%
UNC-Chapel Hill 74%
Wake Forest 73%
Boston College 79%
Georgia Tech 88%

William & Mary 77%
Boston University 66%
Tulane 63%

SLACs:

Williams 95%
Amherst 855
Swarthmore 93%
Pomona 90%
Wellesley 85%

Bowdoin 84%
Claremont McKenna 73%
Carleton College 70%
Middlebury 80%
Wash & Lee 80%

Davidson 76%
Grinnell 72%
Hamilton 86%
Haverford 94%
Barnard 90%

Colby 74%
Colgate 65%
Wesleyan 67%
U Richmond 50%
Vassar 73%

Bates College 60%
Colorado College 73%
Macalester 66%
Kenyon 55%
Bucknell 54%

Skidmore 33%
Furman 44%

At many schools, only 20% of so of enrolled students had class rank reported, so this can be highly misleading. Class rank is not known or reported in Common Data Sets for the remaining 70-80%.

Sure. Look, mit is not admitting kids that are not at the top of their class. Maybe the high school won't rank the students but you can sure that MIT is directly comparing all the students applying from the same school. And guess what ..they are admitting the ones at the top of the pile. Sorry

I didn't comment on MIT specifically. Why are you responding with MIT specifically and then saying "sorry"?

Substitute any elite school you want. The students at the top of the class have an advantage in admissions. Even if the HS is not ranking the students, the admissions committee is. There was a poster that was implying this is not an extremely important consideration which I think is nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody grows up from kindergarten I want to go to Chicago or Northwestern. Or even Amherst or Williams or Pomona. They are forced into it. They dream about going to Ivies. Only exception is somebody who may have grown up as a Duke or Georgetown basketball fan.

Absolutely nobody grows up from kindergarten saying they want to go to UPenn or Columbia or Cornell or Dartmouth or Brown.

Also, why is your grammar so poor?

The grammar is fine--it is a chat board. Not a dissertation. Secondly, I can't help you if you take everything so literally. You are missing the point. People want to go to Ivies. Period. End of story. Chicago, Northwestern, etc. happen when they can't make Ivies.

People with inherently good grammar don’t make excuses.

[Anonymous]

How about magnet schools like Blair? My DD is in Blair magnet and she tells me that Ivy stats for this past year were very impressive. Many kids got into atleast one of the HYPSM and other Ivy schools. Atleast two kids got into multiple Ivy schools (H,Y,P) and Stanford, MIT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody grows up from kindergarten I want to go to Chicago or Northwestern. Or even Amherst or Williams or Pomona. They are forced into it. They dream about going to Ivies. Only exception is somebody who may have grown up as a Duke or Georgetown basketball fan.

Absolutely nobody grows up from kindergarten saying they want to go to UPenn or Columbia or Cornell or Dartmouth or Brown.

Also, why is your grammar so poor?

The grammar is fine--it is a chat board. Not a dissertation. Secondly, I can't help you if you take everything so literally. You are missing the point. People want to go to Ivies. Period. End of story. Chicago, Northwestern, etc. happen when they can't make Ivies.

People with inherently good grammar don’t make excuses.

Get a life. Look where you are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So my kids went private (two different graduation years) to ivies below HYP. At our top private, Chicago Northwestern etc. was for kids who didn’t think they could make Ivy but wanted a decent rank. They didn’t think they could even get Dartmouth, Brown, or Cornell. So they might have EDed 1 Cornell or Dartmouth say but ED2ed Chicago. Of the ones that ED1ed northwestern, they did so because they saw top of class applying to ivies and knew they would lose out. Don’t get me wrong great schools but most I think would take any Ivy out of our area due to East Coast bias. Duke is more competitive over Brown, Cornell, and Dartmouth.

Ditto. At the top DC privates, Chicago is not for the top 10% of the class.
These schools sen 10% of the class to Chicago, in addition to the 20% to the Ivies.
NCS is another example. 10% last year to Chicago; in addition to the Ivy admits.

I hope you are correct but I think the admissions scene has tightened. My "top" kid at a DC private was told Northwestern, Duke and Vandy were as much of a reach as any Ivy. Same with Amherst, Williams etc. Same with Chicago unless you are ED. He is looking at top schools but less interested in ranking and more interested in the characteristics he is seeking (major, quality of opportunities, vibe of student body, size, location). Some Ivies match perfectly, others don't at all. So it certainly doesn't feel like a shoo-in because many schools are not good fits and getting into the ones that are seems tough. Even the safeties could go wrong. You make it seem easy and I feel like that won't be the case, though I wish it were.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We all know that superb stats are not enough for one to get an offer of admission to Stanford, Harvard, and/or Princeton. At what point are superb stats enough to get one an offer of admission to an elite private National University ?

In another thread, a poster listed Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton as their daughter's top 3 school choices. The poster stated that her daughter had the stats for these schools. Most of us understand that stellar stats (GPA, class rank, and standardized test scores) are not enough to generate an offer of admission to the most elite private National Universities.

Is there a point at which stellar stats are enough for admission to an elite private National University ? If so, where--in terms of US News rank--is that point ?

For a student interested in studying liberal arts whose top choice schools are Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Duke, Northwestern or any Ivy, wouldn't applying ED to a Top 10 SLAC be a wiser path due to the relatively high ED admission rates ? (#1 ranked Williams College and #2 ranked Amherst College have reported ED admission rates above 30% within the past few years.)

Amherst’s early admit rate 25%, not above 30%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Williams and Amherst have single digit admissions rates. The rates you cite can only possibly by ED and if so, as a PP said, are very skewed by atheltes which they probably recruit in the same raw numbers as ivies but the colleges themselves are much smaller. At my
kids’ mcps high school, many more students were admitted to Cornell than either of these.

In the world of kids I know, the ones who were admitted to H/Y/P were true superstars. Not just perfect gpa, perfect sat and the most rigorous classes (and when I say most rigorous, I really mean it - not just thru MV but also took all of the english and social studies APs, took multiple hard science APs, and finished world language AP junior year). But also excelled in other things - music, science competitions, quizbowl or debate. These were the 2-3 kids in a class of 500 who you “knew” would one day go to H/Y/P. There are of course other students every year who get into Penn,Columbia, Dartmouth - these kids are also terrific students but don’t have that “extra” and so there are a lot more of them so it actually seems less predictable to me why Lola got into Penn and Larla
did not.

And again, I think from our HS the students have an easier time getting into Penn and Dartmouth than Williams and Amherst where the 1-2 admits are usually sports recruits (and terrific students).

My answer expands on this but generally tracks. Top 10 schools are for the very top kids at a high school. Truly, top 3-5 in class (not 5%), above 1550 test scores, major leadership (President of class, captain of championship winning team sort of stuff). They will likely get rejected to some places too but I have seen most of those kids get into 1 top 10 school that is considered the long shot - particularly if they can apply SCEA/ED.

I think where DCUM gets confused is many of us have a kid who is awesome but not quite that level: maybe 1550 SAT and near perfect grades but only top 10 kids in class. Maybe President if a smaller club. And, that kid is awesome but there are so many out there like that. I have one of these. He is not going to get into an Ivy (maybe he would have in my generation, but that is not relevant) and he is not sad about it. He knows he is accomplished but there are more qualified candidates. He has found a few schools beyond the top 20 he would be excited to attend. They are tremendous colleges.

We can all believe our kids are great and worked hard but rationally understand they are not worthy of a spot where only 6/100 kids get in. And be proud of them and excited for college!

I am sure Northwestern is a good school, but the students from our private DC high school who apply and get in NU are not the top students in the grade. Probably top 25-30%

Which private DC high school ?

I find this hard to believe. Northwestern University reports that slightly over 95% of matriculated (Fall 2020 entering class) students who graduated high school in 2020 were in the Top 10% of their HS class.

For a relative comparison, US News reports the percentage of Fall 2020 entering class who graduated in the top 10% of their high school class:

Princeton 89%
[b]Columbia 96% (but not sure if this was part of the fraudulent date submitted by Columbia to US News)[b]
Harvard 94%
MIT 100%
Yale 94%

Stanford 96%
U Chicago 99%
U Penn 96%
CalTech 96%
Duke 95%

Johns Hopkins 99%
Northwestern 95%
Dartmouth College 93%
Brown 95%
Vanderbilt 90%

WashUStL 86%
Cornell 84%
Rice 92%
Notre Dame 90%
Emory 83%

Georgetown 83%
Michigan 77%
Carnegie Mellon 89%
U Virginia 90%
NYU 82%

Tufts 84%
UNC-Chapel Hill 74%
Wake Forest 73%
Boston College 79%
Georgia Tech 88%

William & Mary 77%
Boston University 66%
Tulane 63%

SLACs:

Williams 95%
Amherst 855
Swarthmore 93%
Pomona 90%
Wellesley 85%

Bowdoin 84%
Claremont McKenna 73%
Carleton College 70%
Middlebury 80%
Wash & Lee 80%

Davidson 76%
Grinnell 72%
Hamilton 86%
Haverford 94%
Barnard 90%

Colby 74%
Colgate 65%
Wesleyan 67%
U Richmond 50%
Vassar 73%

Bates College 60%
Colorado College 73%
Macalester 66%
Kenyon 55%
Bucknell 54%

Skidmore 33%
Furman 44%

Columbia's alleged fraud is that they didn't combine their adult extension school stats With the extension school, Columbia isn't as elite. They are now at the level of Northwestern, UChicago, blah, blah, blah. Columbia should be on every HS kid's radar now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody grows up from kindergarten I want to go to Chicago or Northwestern. Or even Amherst or Williams or Pomona. They are forced into it. They dream about going to Ivies. Only exception is somebody who may have grown up as a Duke or Georgetown basketball fan.

Absolutely nobody grows up from kindergarten saying they want to go to UPenn or Columbia or Cornell or Dartmouth or Brown.

Also, why is your grammar so poor?

The grammar is fine--it is a chat board. Not a dissertation. Secondly, I can't help you if you take everything so literally. You are missing the point. People want to go to Ivies. Period. End of story. Chicago, Northwestern, etc. happen when they can't make Ivies.

People with inherently good grammar don’t make excuses.

Get a life. Look where you are.

Blow me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody grows up from kindergarten I want to go to Chicago or Northwestern. Or even Amherst or Williams or Pomona. They are forced into it. They dream about going to Ivies. Only exception is somebody who may have grown up as a Duke or Georgetown basketball fan.

Absolutely nobody grows up from kindergarten saying they want to go to UPenn or Columbia or Cornell or Dartmouth or Brown.

Also, why is your grammar so poor?

The grammar is fine--it is a chat board. Not a dissertation. Secondly, I can't help you if you take everything so literally. You are missing the point. People want to go to Ivies. Period. End of story. Chicago, Northwestern, etc. happen when they can't make Ivies.

People with inherently good grammar don’t make excuses.

Get a life. Look where you are.

Blow me

Below you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My question arose after reading another thread about kids top 3 college choices. One parent listed her daughter's top 3 choices as Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton and stated that the daughter had the stats to enter the Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton lotteries. With admission rates below 5%, the concern arose about what opportunities a high stats kid sacrifices by foregoing ED options to target these three ultra selective schools. Many private National Universities with overall admission rates under 10% have RD admission rates much closer to 5% due to the number of spots taken by ED admits. Is it wise to sacrifice ED opportunities to an elite school for an unhooked high stats applicant for a lottery shot at Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton ?

The "stats" are probably top athletes in their sport in the nation.

Not if they’re recruited to play football, basketball, baseball, soccer, track, etc. none of the top recruits in those sports go to HYP except maybe Stanford on rare occasions. They’re very good high school athletes but hardly the top in the nation.

Less than 2% of high school athletes go on to play D1. Even the very bottom of D1 is top one to few percent in the country plus other top international athletes. High-level D3 athletic departments, which most elite D3 schools (MIT, Chicago, Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Hopkins) have, would still be at least top 5% as well.

Well then you’re defining “top” very liberally for athletes in a way you don’t for the skills and abilities of other applicants.

Why were more people on this board not getting their kids involved in sports years ago?! It hasn't been a secret that being a highly recruited athlete is the best hook at almost all of the best schools (at some it is being a legacy). The Varsity Blues scandal shows what parents are willing to give to make their kids "recruited athletes."

From the school's perspective, what other campus activities come close to bringing together the campus community and alumni in the same way? Donations aside, teams are an important part of the campus community at almost every good school, with CalTech being the true exception. Plus, what if a couple of your basketball players end up being the Koch brothers? It still cracks me up knowing that MIT's basketball coach is actually the David H. Koch '62 Head Coach!

Totally agree. I was a recruited college athlete and my preschooler is in a bunch of sports. Sure it’s social and creating body awareness, but I’d like to see what she gravitates to. Sports like running you need to have a lot of natural ability to work with. Something like squash- you can be an ok athlete but have great technique through years of good coaching and that’s hard to replicate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My question arose after reading another thread about kids top 3 college choices. One parent listed her daughter's top 3 choices as Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton and stated that the daughter had the stats to enter the Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton lotteries. With admission rates below 5%, the concern arose about what opportunities a high stats kid sacrifices by foregoing ED options to target these three ultra selective schools. Many private National Universities with overall admission rates under 10% have RD admission rates much closer to 5% due to the number of spots taken by ED admits. Is it wise to sacrifice ED opportunities to an elite school for an unhooked high stats applicant for a lottery shot at Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton ?

The "stats" are probably top athletes in their sport in the nation.

Not if they’re recruited to play football, basketball, baseball, soccer, track, etc. none of the top recruits in those sports go to HYP except maybe Stanford on rare occasions. They’re very good high school athletes but hardly the top in the nation.

Less than 2% of high school athletes go on to play D1. Even the very bottom of D1 is top one to few percent in the country plus other top international athletes. High-level D3 athletic departments, which most elite D3 schools (MIT, Chicago, Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Hopkins) have, would still be at least top 5% as well.

Well then you’re defining “top” very liberally for athletes in a way you don’t for the skills and abilities of other applicants.

Why were more people on this board not getting their kids involved in sports years ago?! It hasn't been a secret that being a highly recruited athlete is the best hook at almost all of the best schools (at some it is being a legacy). The Varsity Blues scandal shows what parents are willing to give to make their kids "recruited athletes."

From the school's perspective, what other campus activities come close to bringing together the campus community and alumni in the same way? Donations aside, teams are an important part of the campus community at almost every good school, with CalTech being the true exception. Plus, what if a couple of your basketball players end up being the Koch brothers? It still cracks me up knowing that MIT's basketball coach is actually the David H. Koch '62 Head Coach!

No one’s contesting that recruited athletes are the most important hook. But claiming that recruited athletes at Ivy League schools are “top”
athletes in their sports is simply blowing smoke.

Attendance at 90% of sporting events that are recruited is minimal. Even Ivy League football is barely attended. How many donations are flowing to the cot all fencing team?

I think the sport matters a lot. For athletes interested in going "pro" after college? No, probably not. However, for sports where college is pretty much the end of the line,
line, there is probably more of a mix. If you're one of the best HS fencers in the country, why not go to an Ivy, if you don't need an athletic scholarship?