I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sports are also one area where merit actually means something. Colleges can't agree on whether they care about test scores but pretty much all but Caltech agree on getting the best athletes they can who the AO will admit.

Yes, there is no merit to any other EC. Only sports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sports are also one area where merit actually means something. Colleges can't agree on whether they care about test scores but pretty much all but Caltech agree on getting the best athletes they can who the AO will admit.

No, Caltech also agrees. Just that their athletes have to be exceptional students (more so than MIT)...however, CalTech still needs kids that know how to play baseball at a decent level if they want to field a baseball team and they want the best possible player they can get (of course, even a really good baseball player with a 1580 will take Stanford in a heartbeat, so they won't waste time pursuing someone too good). So, the baseball kid with a 1580 SAT and some minimal ECs will beat out some kid with a 1600 and much better ECs and awards.

Doesn't mean the baseball player will struggle academically.

Wait, what? If this is true, things have changed remarkably since I was at Caltech in the late 90s, and the basketball team had gone literally decades without winning an in-league game, and anyone who wanted to join got to play on the team regardless of whether they had ever played the game before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sports are also one area where merit actually means something. Colleges can't agree on whether they care about test scores but pretty much all but Caltech agree on getting the best athletes they can who the AO will admit.

Yes, there is no merit to any other EC. Only sports.

I agree that more colleges should give far more weight to other ECs and seek out the best debaters, actors, singers, gamers, coders, and roboticists. I think schools would be better off if they did this versus trying to look too exclusively at grades, sometimes test scores, and leadership for most of their classes.
The problem is more with colleges not valuing other ECs much at all (or at least not enough to involve admissions support outside of edge cases).
DCUM has the problem statement wrong in my opinion, though I would agree that some of the rich-kid sports that never bring people together on campus or generate much positive recognition for a school externally, should be dropped from being considered any different than playing the flute or singing in admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sports are also one area where merit actually means something. Colleges can't agree on whether they care about test scores but pretty much all but Caltech agree on getting the best athletes they can who the AO will admit.

No, Caltech also agrees. Just that their athletes have to be exceptional students (more so than MIT)...however, CalTech still needs kids that know how to play baseball at a decent level if they want to field a baseball team and they want the best possible player they can get (of course, even a really good baseball player with a 1580 will take Stanford in a heartbeat, so they won't waste time pursuing someone too good). So, the baseball kid with a 1580 SAT and some minimal ECs will beat out some kid with a 1600 and much better ECs and awards.

Doesn't mean the baseball player will struggle academically.

Wait, what? If this is true, things have changed remarkably since I was at Caltech in the late 90s, and the basketball team had gone literally decades without winning an in-league game, and anyone who wanted to join got to play on the team regardless of whether they had ever played the game before.

It has changed a little at Caltech. Fear not though, they are not turning into MIT with their athletic recruiting!

[Anonymous]

Good athletes are more likely to be neurologically typical and mainstream/social - this translates well to the working and adult world. Grads become the brand of the school. Some schools are really into this and some are not. The LAVs where jocks rule tend to have a real Hs feel about them which is good for some and not so great for others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sports are also one area where merit actually means something. Colleges can't agree on whether they care about test scores but pretty much all but Caltech agree on getting the best athletes they can who the AO will admit.

No, Caltech also agrees. Just that their athletes have to be exceptional students (more so than MIT)...however, CalTech still needs kids that know how to play baseball at a decent level if they want to field a baseball team and they want the best possible player they can get (of course, even a really good baseball player with a 1580 will take Stanford in a heartbeat, so they won't waste time pursuing someone too good). So, the baseball kid with a 1580 SAT and some minimal ECs will beat out some kid with a 1600 and much better ECs and awards.

Doesn't mean the baseball player will struggle academically.

Wait, what? If this is true, things have changed remarkably since I was at Caltech in the late 90s, and the basketball team had gone literally decades without winning an in-league game, and anyone who wanted to join got to play on the team regardless of whether they had ever played the game before.

Maybe not for basketball...but baseball went 10-30 and BEAT MIT 5-2 (which must count for some kind of sports bragging rights for CalTech).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a very tired topic. Parents without athletes hate the recruited athlete hook. We get it.

I don't care about the hook at all.

I just dislike the vibe at these very small schools that don't really have a sport culture, yet have a student body that is divided by sports!

It's like an upside down michigan or ND where sports bring the students together! and yet they're there to learn shit and not play games.

Thinking that sports provide nothing to learn from shows that you never played sports. Every single school in the country (okay, 99.9%) - K through 12 have sports as part of the curriculum. 30 minutes of very easy research will explain why. Since you are so keen on academics being the focus, do your homework.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sports are also one area where merit actually means something. Colleges can't agree on whether they care about test scores but pretty much all but Caltech agree on getting the best athletes they can who the AO will admit.

No, Caltech also agrees. Just that their athletes have to be exceptional students (more so than MIT)...however, CalTech still needs kids that know how to play baseball at a decent level if they want to field a baseball team and they want the best possible player they can get (of course, even a really good baseball player with a 1580 will take Stanford in a heartbeat, so they won't waste time pursuing someone too good). So, the baseball kid with a 1580 SAT and some minimal ECs will beat out some kid with a 1600 and much better ECs and awards.

Doesn't mean the baseball player will struggle academically.

Wait, what? If this is true, things have changed remarkably since I was at Caltech in the late 90s, and the basketball team had gone literally decades without winning an in-league game, and anyone who wanted to join got to play on the team regardless of whether they had ever played the game before.

They now count sports as an extracurricular activity. If you spend 15 hours a week on baseball during the season, it is a significant extracurricular activity and you get as much credit for that as a ballet dancer would get for 15 hours a week of ballet. But it received a recruit level preference until recently. https://tech.caltech.edu/2024/11/athletics-admissions-recap/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a very tired topic. Parents without athletes hate the recruited athlete hook. We get it.

I don't care about the hook at all.

I just dislike the vibe at these very small schools that don't really have a sport culture, yet have a student body that is divided by sports!

It's like an upside down michigan or ND where sports bring the students together! and yet they're there to learn shit and not play games.

Thinking that sports provide nothing to learn from shows that you never played sports. Every single school in the country (okay, 99.9%) - K through 12 have sports as part of the curriculum. 30 minutes of very easy research will explain why. Since you are so keen on academics being the focus, do your homework.

I have athletes and was one.

Sports are valuable activities but no more so than lots of other activities. Yet good athletes get special treatment for admissions to schools. Not farm teams or professional leagues. Schools. I understand why. Cash, baby. But let’s not pretend it’s about anything other than money or that sports are so much more valuable than any other activity that they get a special treatment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a very tired topic. Parents without athletes hate the recruited athlete hook. We get it.

I don't care about the hook at all.

I just dislike the vibe at these very small schools that don't really have a sport culture, yet have a student body that is divided by sports!

It's like an upside down michigan or ND where sports bring the students together! and yet they're there to learn shit and not play games.

Thinking that sports provide nothing to learn from shows that you never played sports. Every single school in the country (okay, 99.9%) - K through 12 have sports as part of the curriculum. 30 minutes of very easy research will explain why. Since you are so keen on academics being the focus, do your homework.

I have athletes and was one.

Sports are valuable activities but no more so than lots of other activities. Yet good athletes get special treatment for admissions to schools. Not farm teams or professional leagues. Schools. I understand why. Cash, baby. But let’s not pretend it’s about anything other than money or that sports are so much more valuable than any other activity that they get a special treatment.

This is my biggest thing about the rabid sports defending crowd. Athletics aren’t that special as an activity and can be supplemented by other things.

[Anonymous]

At the top few SLACS you have to be a very academically successful student to get in even with a hook
We were told that for Williams the applicant would have to be a viable candidate without the sport

[Anonymous]

My selective SLAC tour guide back in the day was a varsity athlete. They were so enthusiastic about the college. My parents and I left very impressed. People knock the current athlete-non athlete divide at SLAC’s, but sports play an important role in campus life. Not just varsity sports, but club and intramurals too.

[Anonymous]

https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/05/its-time-to-level-the-playing-field-between-athletics-and-academics#:~:text=The%20effect%20of%20this%20can,%25%2C%20or%20one%20in%20eight.

Excellent breakdown on this topic by Tufts Daily. Good to see perspective of a NESCAC school. Negatives far outweigh the benefits when looked at what is best for the ma y not the few. I’m

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s the problem? How else are they supposed to field their teams?

This is backwards thinking. The mission of a college is not to field athletic teams and then fill in the rest of the academic seats with students as an afterthought. The mission of a school is to educate students. Because you want students to exercise and be fit and develop school spirit, you let them form athletic teams and compete with other schools. This is how college athletics started. You field the teams that current student are interested in playing, and you field those teams with existing students. If no one wants to play a given sport this year, you drop that team until enough kids sign up; but given the number of students athletes in the country, this is unlikely to be a problem anywhere. Pick your college, then try out for the team when you get there.


Yes. Skinny JFK played football at Harvard. It’s ridiculous the advantage athletes have at top academic institutions. Not like this in Europe.

[Anonymous]

Athletic recruitment is certainly not any worse than legacy admits!