Friend just announced her junior DD has committed to play lax at a top school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Playing a sport at a level high enough to commit while maintaining grades, etc. deserves to be rewarded just as much as the kid who fiends 20 hours a week in the lab or practicing an instrument.

I think some of people's frustration with the process is that athletes are rewarded more than scientists and musicians. (Know any juniors who are biochemists or pianists who have been recruited?)

Musicians? Absolutely. Any other questions?

Men too. I know 1 person recruited for 1 instrument for the marching band and was playing piano in the student union and the head of the music department offered him 25% more scholarship to play in the orchestra.

Plus they traveled with the football team for bowl games!!! Coed travel with no curfew like athletes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sports crazy parents need to add up all the roster spaces at the top private colleges. Far less than lottery odds your kid is one of them. And all of teams give the nod to filthy rich families over random joe blow striver from the DMV. Talent is a secondary consideration.

I bet you all laugh and make fun of “dumb” poor people for wasting money on scratch off lottery tickets.

If your good not great athlete plays at “the next level” it’s prob going to be some podunk crap college nobody has ever heard of. And they’ll most likely quit the team after a year and transfer to the state university all their friends are at. I’ve seen this play out hundreds of times.

You think there are a lot of posters (any posters?) on the DCUM College and University forum who show up to post at all if their kid ends up at a “podunk crap college” for whatever reason? Is this your first time on DCUM?

Delusional strivers lie to themselves until the very end that their kid will con their way into a "T20" and/or play "at the next level." Well, for 99% of student-athletes, the next level is some backwater degree mill in some podunk town. I've seen it happen hundreds of times.

I’m sure this happens in some communities where sports are valued over academics and the parents are uneducated, and/or unsophisticated, and/or can only afford to send their kids to college with the help of an athletic scholarship. That community is very far removed from the communities where posters on this particular DCUM forum live. 90+% of the people here complaining about admissions hooks for athletes are p*ssed because an athletic UMC kid who attends the same school as the UMC poster’s child will be waltzing into an Ivy-level school as an athletic recruit while their little genius is “stuck” going to UVA, William & Mary or some other great but not as brag-worthy school. So, while you are welcome to mock whomever you please, I don’t know why you are addressing your mockery to this group.

Go add up all the current Ivy League student-athletes from the DMV, then subtract URMs, legacies and filthy rich. That is how many spots for random Joe Blows from the DMV you're talking about. I'd guess maybe a few dozen out of a couple million DMV kids? Again, most student-athletes end up degree mills. You're focusing on the handful who essentially win a lottery, while ignoring the big picture. You're probably some coach or schemer in the travel sports racket. Freeloading off selling false hope to delusional sports crazy parents who piss away every weekend for 10 years so their kid can end up playing in front of 10 people at Podunk College in Ghost town, USA.

Lol, OK crazy dude. If you want to rant about deluded parents who are victimized by the youth sports complex and end with kids in no name schools, have at it. The rest of us are talking about the actual topic of this thread, which is whether it is unfair that talented athletes with imperfect stats can breeze through admissions and end up the tippy top schools coveted by non-athlete striver parents. Get it? The reason we are “focusing on the handful who essentially win a lottery” is because the parents of the non-athletes want the better odds their kids if there were no athletic preferences.

[Anonymous]

This thread is so deep I may have missed something similar and apologize if so but representing a college athlete recruited Junior year for a top Ivy college who also had the grades and course difficulty and ACT test scores to maybe be considered without the sport commitment hook but that sport also represented all the time she could have spent on a Ivy level extra curricular like working in a lab in her area of interest. The sport ended up giving her a big leg up but she worked very hard to get that and she also has strong other interests that will carry through college and I think too many people on this thread think athletes "waltzing" into great schools are not also great students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is so deep I may have missed something similar and apologize if so but representing a college athlete recruited Junior year for a top Ivy college who also had the grades and course difficulty and ACT test scores to maybe be considered without the sport commitment hook but that sport also represented all the time she could have spent on a Ivy level extra curricular like working in a lab in her area of interest. The sport ended up giving her a big leg up but she worked very hard to get that and she also has strong other interests that will carry through college and I think too many people on this thread think athletes "waltzing" into great schools are not also great students.

It's not that some of the athletes are not very bright and hardworking students. It's the fact that athletic prowess is over emphasized relative to other attributes.

I understand why this system has developed, with the cash cows of entertaining football and basketball and then title 9 and so on. It is what it is but it makes no logical or practical sense to favor athletes for preferred access to our top academic institutions. No other country does this because it makes no sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dude, being a top athlete is hard work. Good for her. Congratulate them instead of begrudging their dedication

+1
My DS plays a sport on a high level. People do not realize how many hours go into such a commitment. While your kid may be at the Friday night football game having a great time with their friends (and as they should), mine is on a field until 10 p.m. The sacrifice is there and the reward should be as well.

+2. I WAS guilty of thinking sports its easy but after following Simon Biles ... I realized the immense discipline it takes. Discipline that most human beings don't have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You’re not being a very good friend. Celebrate your friends and their kids and achievements! I say this as a mom to a very average kid who has friends recruited to a bunch of top schools.

DP. You don't see anything wrong with such an extreme advantage to athletes? OP can be a good friend and still question the advantage given to athletes. She doesn't have to be happy about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are PPs so jealous of athletes? I mean, how can you begrudge someone's athletic success just because you don't have that ability? Crazy. This whole thread has a very "shut up and dribble" vibe.

This definitely isn't a shut up and dribble situation. Athletics outside of football and basketball are now the domain of the financially the advantaged who can pay for travel teams for years before and during high school. The vast majority of players on the volleyball team at my kid's school are on travel teams. Poor kids generally are shut out. I'm not impressed by the advantage they get in college admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not that some of the athletes are not very bright and hardworking students. It's the fact that athletic prowess is over emphasized relative to other attributes.

Isn't it a simple matter of supply and demand?

FYI while I am not the parent of a college athlete, I know many, and for every one that "breezes though" admissions there are 10+ that are disappointed that the decade of practice, preparation and expense gives them no better options than they had on academics alone. It leads to heartbreak much more often than not. Read the book Playing the Game: Inside Athletic Recruiting in the Ivy League to really get the story of how these kids are exploited. I did and it changed my opinion on this topic completely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is so deep I may have missed something similar and apologize if so but representing a college athlete recruited Junior year for a top Ivy college who also had the grades and course difficulty and ACT test scores to maybe be considered without the sport commitment hook but that sport also represented all the time she could have spent on a Ivy level extra curricular like working in a lab in her area of interest. The sport ended up giving her a big leg up but she worked very hard to get that and she also has strong other interests that will carry through college and I think too many people on this thread think athletes "waltzing" into great schools are not also great students.

It's not that some of the athletes are not very bright and hardworking students. It's the fact that athletic prowess is over emphasized relative to other attributes.

I understand why this system has developed, with the cash cows of entertaining football and basketball and then title 9 and so on. It is what it is but it makes no logical or practical sense to favor athletes for preferred access to our top academic institutions. No other country does this because it makes no sense.

Please everyone focus on athletes but look at Harvard with the most D1 sports(42 sports) and relatively small number of undergrad. Typically incoming class has 10% athletic admissions, 10% Director’s List(The “Directors List” is top donors and influential families), Z-list 3%(Students who would otherwise qualify for the Director’s List but did not have the minimum stats take a gap year before coming colloquially known as the “Z-list.”), Faculty Children (1%) and Legacies (15%). That’s close to 40% of the class that is not academic admissions.

Legacies and donors always get a pass but make up a larger % of the admissions.

[Anonymous]

Thr admission advantage is pretty much the best it gets. D1 athletes have the equivalent of a full time job— early morning wake ups, travel that requires missing classes, a constant battle for playing time, limited access to certain majors and classes because coaches deem them too demanding, etc. ..

I have three family members who played d1 sports and personally don’t think it’s worth the price, and I say this as a parent with two kids who play club sports.

[Anonymous]

I think what OP is saying is that it's not that athletes get a leg up in admissions, it's that they get a leg up in the admissions process. Why can't they just have to apply like everyone else? and if their athletic prowess is valued by an admissions office, then great, but to have the process essentially done before everyone else in unseemly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think what OP is saying is that it's not that athletes get a leg up in admissions, it's that they get a leg up in the admissions process. Why can't they just have to apply like everyone else? and if their athletic prowess is valued by an admissions office, then great, but to have the process essentially done before everyone else in unseemly.

You expect admissions officers to be able to know how to build a team? For all the sports? They'll have to do scouting in addition to their jobs? Keep depth charts on their wall?

No, they leave it to the coaches, and give them "bands" or the like to allocate. Applicants still have to clear the bar, which is lower than an unhooked kid, yes. As they are for all hooked applicanta.

This is the only way it can work at all. Suggesting otherwise supports the collapse of the entire college sports ecosystem. Which is a legitmate position, if you support that, but just know that's what you are suggesting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think what OP is saying is that it's not that athletes get a leg up in admissions, it's that they get a leg up in the admissions process. Why can't they just have to apply like everyone else? and if their athletic prowess is valued by an admissions office, then great, but to have the process essentially done before everyone else in unseemly.

But they start the process when they are in 8th grade. Their prices is much longer and more grueling than just fill out some forms, write an essay and wait.

[Anonymous]

Process not prices

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think what OP is saying is that it's not that athletes get a leg up in admissions, it's that they get a leg up in the admissions process. Why can't they just have to apply like everyone else? and if their athletic prowess is valued by an admissions office, then great, but to have the process essentially done before everyone else in unseemly.

You expect admissions officers to be able to know how to build a team? For all the sports? They'll have to do scouting in addition to their jobs? Keep depth charts on their wall?

No, they leave it to the coaches, and give them "bands" or the like to allocate. Applicants still have to clear the bar, which is lower than an unhooked kid, yes. As they are for all hooked applicanta.

This is the only way it can work at all. Suggesting otherwise supports the collapse of the entire college sports ecosystem. Which is a legitmate position, if you support that, but just know that's what you are suggesting.

Basically, I am. I am not a fan of the college sports ecosystem and would prefer it worked like high school - you get the team you get and there's no recruiting.