Hating donut hole life: athletic recruiting version

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Really hard to feel sorry for people when the athletic hook doesn’t work for them.

It’s not hard if you’re not an ahole because you know how much work the kid put into it.

Our kids who study hard, act in plays, win speech & debate competitions, tutor peers, and write for the paper also are kids who put a lot a lot of work in. they just don't feel as entitled to gain admission with lower academic standards!

why should students whose EC is sports gain admission with lower academic standards to play sports that don't bring any benefit to the school's other students? who watches cross-country, volleyball, squash, etc.?

at least diversity helps everyone by not having people in bubbles.

CMU theatre kids don’t need test scores or grades anywhere approaching the non-theatre students. This is true of other schools with strong arts programs.

Perhaps. But the chances of getting into the theater program at CMU are substantially less than the regular admissions percentages.

In addition, drama is an academic major at CMU, with a separate audition component to the admissions process. Not really a good comparison with athletics.

Actually a perfect comparison. The athletic recruiting process fundamentally functions the same as the audition. Sports aren’t a major but so what, they are institutional priorities.

Soft course it’s different.

Athletics are an EC. People don’t study football. Theatre is an academic program. People major in theatre. There are no pre-reads for theatre, no preferred admissions. No recruiting.

Why do parents of athletes try so hard to justify the separate admissions process? Isn’t that what you want?

Ummmmm at most colleges you do submit your theater work as part of the admissions process. Not required but done mostly.

Yes, you do. When applying as a theatre major. You don’t when auditioning for a play on campus that is not part of that major - IOW, an EC. Students doing theatre as an EC in college do not get a pre-read and a separate admissions process.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Really hard to feel sorry for people when the athletic hook doesn’t work for them.

It’s not hard if you’re not an ahole because you know how much work the kid put into it.

Our kids who study hard, act in plays, win speech & debate competitions, tutor peers, and write for the paper also are kids who put a lot a lot of work in. they just don't feel as entitled to gain admission with lower academic standards!

why should students whose EC is sports gain admission with lower academic standards to play sports that don't bring any benefit to the school's other students? who watches cross-country, volleyball, squash, etc.?

at least diversity helps everyone by not having people in bubbles.

Because sports are institutional priorities at many schools, particularly old private schools. And, these schools have every right to their priorities. Nobody complains about athletes at Towson because people don't care about athletes and athletics except when they consume seats at a school they covet. Seems like simple envy and jealousy to me.

It’s a hook, an unearned advantage that gets a student a special admissions process they otherwise wouldn’t have gotten.

It’s part of American athlete worship culture.

Athletics are an institutional priority for these schools and have been for 150 years. Why can't you get that through your head?

That’s exactly what I said. It’s a hook. Something the institution values but is not earned by the student, like legacy or big donor family or faculty child.

That is the dumbest take I've ever heard. Do you have any idea how hard athletes work to earn their skill?

No doubt they work hard doing something they love and they develop skills. But that’s not why they get a thumb on the scale. That thumb is there not because your kid worked hard, it’s there because schools prioritize sports. That’s the unearned part. Your kid could work hard being a volunteer EMT throughout high school but that hard work isn’t considered a priority so no thumb. No other EC is as valuable as being a recruited athlete and it isn’t because the athletes are so much more fabulous than the non-athletes.

Utterly dumb to argue sports recruits didn't "earn" their priority in admission. They earn it by working hard, and only 2% of high school athletes play D1 in college. Fundamentally different from being a legacy or donor child or faculty child, where you are either born into those or not.

Moron.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Really hard to feel sorry for people when the athletic hook doesn’t work for them.

It’s not hard if you’re not an ahole because you know how much work the kid put into it.

Our kids who study hard, act in plays, win speech & debate competitions, tutor peers, and write for the paper also are kids who put a lot a lot of work in. they just don't feel as entitled to gain admission with lower academic standards!

why should students whose EC is sports gain admission with lower academic standards to play sports that don't bring any benefit to the school's other students? who watches cross-country, volleyball, squash, etc.?

at least diversity helps everyone by not having people in bubbles.

CMU theatre kids don’t need test scores or grades anywhere approaching the non-theatre students. This is true of other schools with strong arts programs.

Perhaps. But the chances of getting into the theater program at CMU are substantially less than the regular admissions percentages.

In addition, drama is an academic major at CMU, with a separate audition component to the admissions process. Not really a good comparison with athletics.

Actually a perfect comparison. The athletic recruiting process fundamentally functions the same as the audition. Sports aren’t a major but so what, they are institutional priorities.

Soft course it’s different.

Athletics are an EC. People don’t study football. Theatre is an academic program. People major in theatre. There are no pre-reads for theatre, no preferred admissions. No recruiting.

Why do parents of athletes try so hard to justify the separate admissions process? Isn’t that what you want?

Parents don't need to justify it. They have no control over it. Go whine to your alma mater about it, and see how far it gets you.

[Anonymous]

So can I read this threat to believe that if I have a kid who is smart enough to get into a SLAC on academics, is a decent varsity athlete (certainly not a D1 recruit), and we are full pay, they have a chance at making the team?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So can I read this threat to believe that if I have a kid who is smart enough to get into a SLAC on academics, is a decent varsity athlete (certainly not a D1 recruit), and we are full pay, they have a chance at making the team?

Depends on the SLAC and the sport. I don’t think Williams and Amherst is in the cards for just decent. For track and XC, the Williams recruited athletes had D1 options if they wanted them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I saved $10K/yr by not doing UMC sports, so I can afford tuition

I saved more than that each year from the scholarship. It comes down to the athlete.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So can I read this threat to believe that if I have a kid who is smart enough to get into a SLAC on academics, is a decent varsity athlete (certainly not a D1 recruit), and we are full pay, they have a chance at making the team?

Depends on the SLAC and the sport. I don’t think Williams and Amherst is in the cards for just decent. For track and XC, the Williams recruited athletes had D1 options if they wanted them.

true for about 2 kids per year at each school - those are the kids with D1 - Patriot League or Ivy - options

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So can I read this threat to believe that if I have a kid who is smart enough to get into a SLAC on academics, is a decent varsity athlete (certainly not a D1 recruit), and we are full pay, they have a chance at making the team?

Depends on the SLAC and the sport. I don’t think Williams and Amherst is in the cards for just decent. For track and XC, the Williams recruited athletes had D1 options if they wanted them.

true for about 2 kids per year at each school - those are the kids with D1 - Patriot League or Ivy - options

Every one of them could run D1 somewhere if they were more interested in D1 than an academic experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So can I read this threat to believe that if I have a kid who is smart enough to get into a SLAC on academics, is a decent varsity athlete (certainly not a D1 recruit), and we are full pay, they have a chance at making the team?

Depends on the SLAC and the sport. I don’t think Williams and Amherst is in the cards for just decent. For track and XC, the Williams recruited athletes had D1 options if they wanted them.

How about for football or lacrosse? And is their entire track team that deep, or is it just the stars?

[Anonymous]

My DD was in the same position. We couldn’t afford what the NESCAC schools said we could, and she wasn’t P5 material. In the end, she had to choose between being a non-athlete at a selective state flagship or playing her sport at lower academic schools. She is currently at the state flagship studying a major that will lead to a lucrative job. I truly believe the leadership roles and honors she acquired through her sport are part of what got her accepted. It wasn’t the path she was expecting, but I think it is working out for the best.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:DD is at an Ivy playing her sport. She got zero financial aid. She's now a sophomore and has been a really hard road. She doesn't get much playing time and doesn't get along with her teammates very much. The students at the school are a little weird because they are so so smart and she still working on making friends. The grass is not always greener. In hindsight, I would have encouraged her skip to D1 and just go in-state as a regular applicant.

this is the problem when Ivies and other top schools relax the academic standards too much for athletes. Then if the kid doesn’t continue with the sport then they also don’t really fit in/match the level of the rest of the kids who got in on academic merit. This was my experience at one of the Ivies.

You weren't smart enough but somehow got in?

Academic standards at the Ivies are relaxed somewhat but still plenty high enough. I have to call Bull.

No, I went to Harvard, not as an athlete. Two of my freshman roommates were varsity athletes. I have other friends of friends/ roommates who were athletes. you almost never saw athletes in STEM majors. Athletes suffered from an image as “dumb jocks” who couldn’t keep up intellectually or in other extracurricular pursuits. They just kind of kept to their own cliques.

I guess that we are lucky then because my pre med kid running at Brown doesn’t feel like a “dumb jock” at all.

Without running, kid would not be at Brown. Or do you insist kid would have gotten in anyway?

JHC, you people really don't get it. Maybe he wouldn't be at Brown without the running, but that doesn't mean he can't thrive there. People have this notion that the educational environment at the most elite schools is navigable only by true geniuses, but that simply isn't true.

Also, some of the athletes - especially some of the distance runners and fencers - are also academic stars in high school and college.

They are white; it is affirmative action for whites. For example, Brown:
19/19 on Brown XC are white. Don’t believe me? Take a look. It’s downright embarrassing…
https://brownbears.com/sports/mens-cross-country/roster

You do realize you could get your non-white or poor kid into XC. It's not some easy glamorous sport and requires almost nothing to start training. You won't do that because it's much harder than some BS EC.

And the times are the times for XC and track so it's not the political who-does-your-club-coach know game that can happen in other sports.

Thank you and yes it's completely objective, but that goes against the narrative the prior poster was painting. Get your kid to run XX:XX and you're golden!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD is at an Ivy playing her sport. She got zero financial aid. She's now a sophomore and has been a really hard road. She doesn't get much playing time and doesn't get along with her teammates very much. The students at the school are a little weird because they are so so smart and she still working on making friends. The grass is not always greener. In hindsight, I would have encouraged her skip to D1 and just go in-state as a regular applicant.

this is the problem when Ivies and other top schools relax the academic standards too much for athletes. Then if the kid doesn’t continue with the sport then they also don’t really fit in/match the level of the rest of the kids who got in on academic merit. This was my experience at one of the Ivies.

You weren't smart enough but somehow got in?

Academic standards at the Ivies are relaxed somewhat but still plenty high enough. I have to call Bull.

No, I went to Harvard, not as an athlete. Two of my freshman roommates were varsity athletes. I have other friends of friends/ roommates who were athletes. you almost never saw athletes in STEM majors. Athletes suffered from an image as “dumb jocks” who couldn’t keep up intellectually or in other extracurricular pursuits. They just kind of kept to their own cliques.

I guess that we are lucky then because my pre med kid running at Brown doesn’t feel like a “dumb jock” at all.

Without running, kid would not be at Brown. Or do you insist kid would have gotten in anyway?

JHC, you people really don't get it. Maybe he wouldn't be at Brown without the running, but that doesn't mean he can't thrive there. People have this notion that the educational environment at the most elite schools is navigable only by true geniuses, but that simply isn't true.

Also, some of the athletes - especially some of the distance runners and fencers - are also academic stars in high school and college.

They are white; it is affirmative action for whites. For example, Brown:
19/19 on Brown XC are white. Don’t believe me? Take a look. It’s downright embarrassing…
https://brownbears.com/sports/mens-cross-country/roster

You do realize you could get your non-white or poor kid into XC. It's not some easy glamorous sport and requires almost nothing to start training. You won't do that because it's much harder than some BS EC.

And the times are the times for XC and track so it's not the political who-does-your-club-coach know game that can happen in other sports.

Thank you and yes it's completely objective, but that goes against the narrative the prior poster was painting. Get your kid to run XX:XX and you're golden!

Spoiler alert - it's not easy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So can I read this threat to believe that if I have a kid who is smart enough to get into a SLAC on academics, is a decent varsity athlete (certainly not a D1 recruit), and we are full pay, they have a chance at making the team?

At many schools this might be true but not at a NESCAC or UAA type of school. Both conferences are full of mid level D1 players in many sports. Not in the helmet sports but sports like LAX, Volleyball, T&F, etc. typically overlap with the lower Ivy and Patriot League teams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Really hard to feel sorry for people when the athletic hook doesn’t work for them.

It’s not hard if you’re not an ahole because you know how much work the kid put into it.

Our kids who study hard, act in plays, win speech & debate competitions, tutor peers, and write for the paper also are kids who put a lot a lot of work in. they just don't feel as entitled to gain admission with lower academic standards!

why should students whose EC is sports gain admission with lower academic standards to play sports that don't bring any benefit to the school's other students? who watches cross-country, volleyball, squash, etc.?

at least diversity helps everyone by not having people in bubbles.

CMU theatre kids don’t need test scores or grades anywhere approaching the non-theatre students. This is true of other schools with strong arts programs.

Do they get pre reads? I didn’t think so.

I am sure that they do. They are called auditions.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So can I read this threat to believe that if I have a kid who is smart enough to get into a SLAC on academics, is a decent varsity athlete (certainly not a D1 recruit), and we are full pay, they have a chance at making the team?

Depends on the SLAC and the sport. I don’t think Williams and Amherst is in the cards for just decent. For track and XC, the Williams recruited athletes had D1 options if they wanted them.

How about for football or lacrosse? And is their entire track team that deep, or is it just the stars?

Football probably not, size difference is too much. Men’s lax also mostly no. More overlap in Women’s sports. Multiple girls on my D’s volleyball team with D1 offers from Patriot and A10 teams mostly.