Why do elite SLACs and Small R1s value athletic recruits

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is to say the recruited athletes also don’t have strong academic stats? Athletes demonstrate hard work, perseverance, dedication, and leadership skills.

They also have higher graduation rates, donate more as alumni, and the stronger teams are good PR for the schools and build school spirit, some sports are revenue generating while others have higher overall GPAs.

Schools want diverse communities that include athletes, artists, and musicians. If you don’t like that model, many European colleges offer straight academics.

If the athletes had the academic stats, there would be no reason to recruit them, and schools could just have a walk-on team for each sport. There's a reason universities don't do this and instead recruit for NCAA sports.

Playing team esports also demonstrates hard work, perseverance, dedication, and leadership skills, but virtually no one recruits for that. So does FIRST robotics. No recruitment. So does polo. No recruitment. Clearly, none of these factors are the cause for why a very small set of extracurricular activities are so much more highly valued than others.

The only thing that seems to distinguish these activities from others is that they fall under NCAA. But what that has to do with why universities recruit for them is still a mystery to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is to say the recruited athletes also don’t have strong academic stats? Athletes demonstrate hard work, perseverance, dedication, and leadership skills.

They also have higher graduation rates, donate more as alumni, and the stronger teams are good PR for the schools and build school spirit, some sports are revenue generating while others have higher overall GPAs.

Schools want diverse communities that include athletes, artists, and musicians. If you don’t like that model, many European colleges offer straight academics.

Exactly. These colleges like the kind of people these athletes tend to be and want them on their campuses. They know that kids involved in athletics frequently go on to be successful in life.

“A strong mind in a strong body” is a common saying that expresses characteristics that many western colleges highly value. Thus, it is not the least bit surprising that liberal arts colleges recruit athletes to be part of their college community.

This is a great reason for admissions highly valuing all kinds of sports as a valuable EC in a holistic context. It does not explain why there needs to be a special backdoor for a specific set of sports but not others.

Why wrestling, but not Judo or Brazillian Jiu Jitsu? Why lacrosse, but not polo? Why swimming, but not synchronized swimming or water polo? Why skiing and ice skating but not luging or speed skating? Why snowboarding but not skateboarding? Why ice hockey but not curling?

Is there a significant difference in who the former vs the latter tend to be? Obviously not. Are only the former capable of building a strong body? Obviously not. Your justification clearly does not work.

[Anonymous]

Many jobs/employers also want athletes. For example I know NASA prefers athletes (at any level) because it demonstrates the ability to work on a team.

[Anonymous]

Our kid is being recruited by some highly selective slac schools. 1550 SAT, top 5 percent in highly selective public, most rigorous curriculum, other extracurricular and leadership besides the sport. Basically the kid has the stats to have a chance anywhere, and without the sport, probably would end up at an Ivy. But I have a feeling the kid will choose the slac the kid wants to keep competing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Athletics have been a fabric of these colleges since they were founded. An important part of American culture. Who wouldn’t want that at their campus.

This. "Mens sana in corpore sano" . . . also a thing in the elite prep schools that traditionally fed elite colleges (and pedagogical canon that dates back to ancient times).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is to say the recruited athletes also don’t have strong academic stats? Athletes demonstrate hard work, perseverance, dedication, and leadership skills.

They also have higher graduation rates, donate more as alumni, and the stronger teams are good PR for the schools and build school spirit, some sports are revenue generating while others have higher overall GPAs.

Schools want diverse communities that include athletes, artists, and musicians. If you don’t like that model, many European colleges offer straight academics.

Exactly. These colleges like the kind of people these athletes tend to be and want them on their campuses. They know that kids involved in athletics frequently go on to be successful in life.

“A strong mind in a strong body” is a common saying that expresses characteristics that many western colleges highly value. Thus, it is not the least bit surprising that liberal arts colleges recruit athletes to be part of their college community.

This is a great reason for admissions highly valuing all kinds of sports as a valuable EC in a holistic context. It does not explain why there needs to be a special backdoor for a specific set of sports but not others.

Why wrestling, but not Judo or Brazillian Jiu Jitsu? Why lacrosse, but not polo? Why swimming, but not synchronized swimming or water polo? Why skiing and ice skating but not luging or speed skating? Why snowboarding but not skateboarding? Why ice hockey but not curling?

Is there a significant difference in who the former vs the latter tend to be? Obviously not. Are only the former capable of building a strong body? Obviously not. Your justification clearly does not work.

The pejorative and obvious answer is that the school directly funds and sponsors its varsity sports (e.g. there is an ice hockey team but not a curling team) in a way that doesn’t exist for any other extracurricular activity and they further compete directly with other schools in those varsity sports at a different level than any other activity. Many schools are literally *defined* by their membership in an athletic conference, most notably the Ivy League and Big Ten in Division I and even NESCAC at the Division III level. The athletics program is a *core* part of the identity of major universities (far beyond a student-run organization or an individual extracurricular activity), so that’s why there is an emphasis in recruiting for sports. Athletics recruiting at the top level is a zero sum competition for talent with objective wins and losses and elite universities want to show that they can win in every sphere.

That’s why it matters. If you want to argue that sports *shouldn’t* be treated this importantly, then that’s really a broader cultural and societal question as opposed to a university-specific one. Whether people like it or not, sports are very obviously seen as important in society and elite athletes have elevated stature in our culture, so elite universities pretty rationally want to be associated with anything that is connected to the top of society.

When half the threads here are talking about “Ivies”, they’re referring an athletic conference membership. Sports are core to the identity of many major universities and generally seen as important in our broader culture and society, so they are treated with corresponding importance.

[Anonymous]

I posted on another thread. After seeing DC go through the athletic recruiting process, I think that these smaller schools offer athletic recruiting as a way to hook student athletes who have very high academic stats. The hook is the opposite direction from Ivies or D1 powerhouses that let in athletes with lower academic stats.

DC and other recruits have the stats to get in without their sport. The schools are trying to attract these strong students who want to continue playing in college and commit them in ED1.

Just my observation. YMMV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I posted on another thread. After seeing DC go through the athletic recruiting process, I think that these smaller schools offer athletic recruiting as a way to hook student athletes who have very high academic stats. The hook is the opposite direction from Ivies or D1 powerhouses that let in athletes with lower academic stats.

DC and other recruits have the stats to get in without their sport. The schools are trying to attract these strong students who want to continue playing in college and commit them in ED1.

Just my observation. YMMV.

My DS has been aiming for NESCAC and the like, and this has been my impression as well. There were Ivies and a couple of other D1 schools on his college list as a "Plan B" in case recruiting didn't work out, but the possibility of playing varsity baseball in college kept D3 SLACs at the top of his list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:University of Texas (Austin) has 581 athletes — and 39,600 undergrads.
Williams College has 680 athletes — and 2,100 undergrads.

I think you meant 691 athletes at UT Austin, and I wonder how much you know about the costs of and emphasis on the mens’ football program at Texas?

At least that brings in money and has a school spirit benefit. The campus of Williams does not go into a frenzy when the lacrosse team is playing.

That's because half the student body at Williams College is on the lacrosse team.

In summing up this thread, it appears that Williams College & MIT are jock schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted on another thread. After seeing DC go through the athletic recruiting process, I think that these smaller schools offer athletic recruiting as a way to hook student athletes who have very high academic stats. The hook is the opposite direction from Ivies or D1 powerhouses that let in athletes with lower academic stats.

DC and other recruits have the stats to get in without their sport. The schools are trying to attract these strong students who want to continue playing in college and commit them in ED1.

Just my observation. YMMV.

My DS has been aiming for NESCAC and the like, and this has been my impression as well. There were Ivies and a couple of other D1 schools on his college list as a "Plan B" in case recruiting didn't work out, but the possibility of playing varsity baseball in college kept D3 SLACs at the top of his list.

Just curious why UAA and schools like Hopkins are not mentioned. Certainly, much larger school experience (and generally better baseball weather...though Chicago and Brandeis aren't particularly pleasant).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:University of Texas (Austin) has 581 athletes — and 39,600 undergrads.
Williams College has 680 athletes — and 2,100 undergrads.

Important for families & students to understand this aspect of NESCAC schools versus D1/R1 universities. Has a very significant impact on one's daily life at small NESCAC schools even though many large universities are assumed to be focused on college athletics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted on another thread. After seeing DC go through the athletic recruiting process, I think that these smaller schools offer athletic recruiting as a way to hook student athletes who have very high academic stats. The hook is the opposite direction from Ivies or D1 powerhouses that let in athletes with lower academic stats.

DC and other recruits have the stats to get in without their sport. The schools are trying to attract these strong students who want to continue playing in college and commit them in ED1.

Just my observation. YMMV.

My DS has been aiming for NESCAC and the like, and this has been my impression as well. There were Ivies and a couple of other D1 schools on his college list as a "Plan B" in case recruiting didn't work out, but the possibility of playing varsity baseball in college kept D3 SLACs at the top of his list.

Just curious why UAA and schools like Hopkins are not mentioned. Certainly, much larger school experience (and generally better baseball weather...though Chicago and Brandeis aren't particularly pleasant).

We looked at JHU, Emory, and Chicago as well. My DS wanted a smaller school and a less urban setting (we live in NYC and he wanted a change in scenery for a few years).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is to say the recruited athletes also don’t have strong academic stats? Athletes demonstrate hard work, perseverance, dedication, and leadership skills.

They also have higher graduation rates, donate more as alumni, and the stronger teams are good PR for the schools and build school spirit, some sports are revenue generating while others have higher overall GPAs.

Schools want diverse communities that include athletes, artists, and musicians. If you don’t like that model, many European colleges offer straight academics.

If the athletes had the academic stats, there would be no reason to recruit them, and schools could just have a walk-on team for each sport. There's a reason universities don't do this and instead recruit for NCAA sports.

Playing team esports also demonstrates hard work, perseverance, dedication, and leadership skills, but virtually no one recruits for that. So does FIRST robotics. No recruitment. So does polo. No recruitment. Clearly, none of these factors are the cause for why a very small set of extracurricular activities are so much more highly valued than others.

The only thing that seems to distinguish these activities from others is that they fall under NCAA. But what that has to do with why universities recruit for them is still a mystery to me.

NP. The failure of some posters on DCUM to understand the very, very old tradition of valuing athletic achievements at these colleges is always fascinating.

These schools recruit athletes because the schools have a long history of valuing athletics and because those athletes and their families give significantly more back to the school over the years than the non-athletes.

[Anonymous]

I went to a top SLAC. I never appreciated or got much of 90% of the sports our school offered. Maybe I went to one football game a year, but I barely paid attention to what athletes were doing and just was hanging out with friends mostly ignoring the game.

My DD is at my alma mater now and she also isn't getting any direct benefit from all the investments in sports. Yes, I've heard schools can get more donations for fielding certain teams and being competitive, but maintaining a great team, competing, hiring a great coach, updating facilities, equipment, resources for so many sports teams is really expensive too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was watching another thread where moms were arguing back and forth over athletic recruiting and it seemed like both neither side was talking about what I think is the real question. Why do they place so much value on them? It's not just the top SLACs, (they are very heavy on recruits) but it is the smaller R1s as well. MIT, Chicago, JHU, WashU, Rochester, etc. all recruit a large number of athletes. NYU as well. These[b] schools obviously see great value in athletic recruiting, what are we missing?

It is still too much, but JHU is 10% athletes (Rochester is 9%) while Williams is over a third. In that sense, your R1 analogy falls flat.
https://ope.ed.gov/athletics/#/institution/details

JHU listed 60 men's lacrosse player on ope.ed.gov website.

But if you go to the school's roster:
https://hopkinssports.com/sports/mens-lacrosse/roster
There are 99 players.

It's more than 10% athletes.

Please learn how to count. There are 50 players on the roster you linked to and some are graduate students.