NARP experience at SLACs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never heard of a NARP before but that describes my kid who is looking at SLACs.

Can we start naming names? Name SLACs that are good for NARPs and don't have the divide. Name SLACs that have the divide. Thanks!

Agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never heard of a NARP before but that describes my kid who is looking at SLACs.

Can we start naming names? Name SLACs that are good for NARPs and don't have the divide. Name SLACs that have the divide. Thanks!

I've never heard of NARP either. But, my kid qualifies. He's at Davidson and absolutely thriving. Friends with a wide variety of athletes. All are integrated -- no separate living spaces, eating spaces or classes. The school does a superb job of making sure that there is not a divide between athletes and non-athletes.

[Anonymous]

My DC is athletic, but is choosing not to play their sport in college. They plan on doing club or intramural. We are looking at smaller LAC’s, and now I’m worried they will be out of place. What schools do not have this divide? Which ones notoriously do?

[Anonymous]

I would not trust DCUM on this subject. There are a group of posters who hate both SLACs generally and athletes specifically. They post incessantly, and a few have been disclosed by Jeff over time as the insane trolls (for instance, it turns out that the crazy Ivy Mom poster is also an anti-SLAC hater). I’d never trust DCUM on anything like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is an athlete who just went through the recruiting process and looked at a lot of D3 SLACs. At many schools, the athlete/non-athlete divide was very apparent, which was something my kid was trying to avoid. Bowdoin was the school that, in my kid’s view, had a much more integrated student body with a lot of athlete/non-athlete crossover (esp compared to Williams & Amherst).

This post is spot-on correct.

Same is true at Bates. Very integrated student body. Only one dining hall for everybody. No separate dorms for athletes. And my DC who is there has athletic and non athletic friends.

[Anonymous]

My kid attends Amherst College. Not an athlete. Roommate is an athlete. High % of the students are athletes (40-50%) which makes sense at smaller SLACs with about 10 sports teams for each gender ranging in roster size. Some kids will naturally form strong bonds with their teammates. That being said, that has not impaired my kid's experience in any way. DC has made plenty of friends and attended social events that are in both camps which meant getting out there and meeting people. What DC has found consistently is a pretty smart, interesting student body across the board.

[Anonymous]

Amherst College - we may be getting revealing data regarding admission of athletes:

https://amherststudent.com/article/faculty-votes-to-release-discuss-data-on-athletic-recruitment-policies/

The faculty voted 105-47 at their regular meeting on Monday to release data on athletic recruitment and hold a discussion on the potential inequities of the policy. This will be the first public evaluation of the athletic recruitment policy since 2016.

The motion was introduced by Professor of Economics Jessica Reyes several minutes into President Michael Elliott’s opening remarks, after he reflected on the Supreme Court’s overturning of affirmative action this June.

Reyes framed the motion as a necessary response to the ruling, citing data from Amherst and other peer institutions to suggest that athletic recruitment favored wealthy white applicants, who are more likely to have the time and resources to excel in sports.

“The demise of affirmative action poses an existential threat to a vibrant, diverse, and inclusive liberal arts institution,” Reyes said. “To lament this terrible event, and simultaneously to continue athletic admissions that preference rich white people, is racist.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:kinda hate this term, and that it's used derogatorily to describe non-athletes. Schools which foster such strong athlete/non-athlete divides should reconsider what they're doing

Whether or not you like the term NARP, the divide is very rael at many--probably most--LACs/SLACs. Certainly the case at Middlebury & Amherst & Williams--although some experiences may be different.

It wasn't the case at my midwestern SLAC.

Meaningless without the name of the college.

I think the key thing is that it's not a big issue at midwestern SLACs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only school that we felt had a strong divide (visible in the dining hall) was Dickenson. At my kid's overnight visit, the host confirmed it is pretty cliquey.

If this is a concern, pick a school that is not known for sports or Greek life. That suggests a more equal playing field, socially.

It seems possible though that fraternities/sororities offer an opportunity to be part of a tight knit social group for a student who isn't on a team.

'

NP. Wow, so the world is divided into sports team members and Greek members. Not.

Any decent college or university of any size, SLAC or not, is going to have ample clubs, volunteer organizations, religious organizations, political organizations, arts groups etc. etc. Students can form their own groups if they don't find one they want to join. Too many opportunities for the world to be merely "jocks or Greeks" if you want a "tight knit social group," PP. And maybe they'll even find, you know, friends who don't come pre-packaged by being in ANY group/team/club/house and they'll be tightly knit anyway, eh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only school that we felt had a strong divide (visible in the dining hall) was Dickenson. At my kid's overnight visit, the host confirmed it is pretty cliquey.

If this is a concern, pick a school that is not known for sports or Greek life. That suggests a more equal playing field, socially.

It seems possible though that fraternities/sororities offer an opportunity to be part of a tight knit social group for a student who isn't on a team.

'

NP. Wow, so the world is divided into sports team members and Greek members. Not.

Any decent college or university of any size, SLAC or not, is going to have ample clubs, volunteer organizations, religious organizations, political organizations, arts groups etc. etc. Students can form their own groups if they don't find one they want to join. Too many opportunities for the world to be merely "jocks or Greeks" if you want a "tight knit social group," PP. And maybe they'll even find, you know, friends who don't come pre-packaged by being in ANY group/team/club/house and they'll be tightly knit anyway, eh?

(DP than the one to whom you responded.)

Eh ?

LOL !

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only school that we felt had a strong divide (visible in the dining hall) was Dickenson. At my kid's overnight visit, the host confirmed it is pretty cliquey.

If this is a concern, pick a school that is not known for sports or Greek life. That suggests a more equal playing field, socially.

It seems possible though that fraternities/sororities offer an opportunity to be part of a tight knit social group for a student who isn't on a team.

'

NP. Wow, so the world is divided into sports team members and Greek members. Not.

Any decent college or university of any size, SLAC or not, is going to have ample clubs, volunteer organizations, religious organizations, political organizations, arts groups etc. etc. Students can form their own groups if they don't find one they want to join. Too many opportunities for the world to be merely "jocks or Greeks" if you want a "tight knit social group," PP. And maybe they'll even find, you know, friends who don't come pre-packaged by being in ANY group/team/club/house and they'll be tightly knit anyway, eh?

I was just saying fraternities and sororities, like other organizations, provide an opportunity for students to become associated with smaller communities. So sports teams are not the only mechanism to achieve this type of bonding, and the social scene is not just "sports plus others." The PP had suggested avoiding schools that had a greek system and I think the opposite might be true to address the segmentation of campus life between athletes and non-athletes.

[Anonymous]

DS was at Williams and he thought the problem was not so much that the students were divided into "athletes and non-athletes" but that the non-athletes were divided into their own cliques, and if you didn't fit into any of those cliques then you would not enjoy yourself socially.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At NESCAC schools it can make the school feel even smaller, for better or for worse. It’s a problem even at Ivies where there aren’t differentiated meal plans and there aren’t athletic scholarships. It also can create a school-within-a-school vibe that isn’t pleasant. A large proportion of the student body ends up being athletes because of the vast amount of varsity sports offered, and they tend to socialize together because of the time commitments of their sports. Each team gets multiple admits per year who are guaranteed admission outside of the regular admissions process. Even 2-3 of these “likelies” per team means that your class has hundreds of kids in it who were in their own, less rigorous admission process. Those students have dedicated workout facilities, their own access to things like weekend hot breakfast or extended dinner hours, special policies for missing academic obligations, and guess what? You’re paying the same tuition and room and board as them but get less. My then-freshman once showed up at early breakfast on a weekend and got screamed at by an assistant coach because the hot breakfast foods were only for game day athletes! It was the only place to eat early breakfast and he had no way of knowing that the hot line was athletes-only.

So it’s kind of sucky to be a NARP if athletes are pretty integrated into the student body and it’s a small school. The real winners are the ones who use their sport for admissions and then become a NARP!

The admissions process for athletes at NESCAC is not "less rigorous". You are not "guaranteed admission". These athletes are not somehow "gaming the system" by "using their sport for admission" and then quitting. Enough with these stupid falsehoods.

The kids who do quit most likely quit due to an injury, and they are not happy about it. They put years of effort into their sport, they love it, and they actually want to play.

[Anonymous]

“The demise of affirmative action poses an existential threat to a vibrant, diverse, and inclusive liberal arts institution,” Reyes said. “To lament this terrible event, and simultaneously to continue athletic admissions that preference rich white people, is racist.”

lmao talk about hysterical nonsense.

The motion was introduced by Professor of Economics Jessica Reyes

"Currently, my teaching and research energies are almost entirely focused on antiracist work. I believe it is necessary to engage with our role as economists in maintaining the fiction that American capitalism is a system of meritocracy and freedom, rather than a system of oppression and unfreedom – racial patriarchal capitalism... I have incorporated antiracist content and pluralist economic content into the economics thesis process and all of my existing courses, and I have developed three new courses: Economics of Race and Gender, AntiRacist AntiEconomics, and Pluralist Economics."

Yeah so she's a communist zealot just as you'd expect. Imagine paying $80k a year for that nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is an athlete who just went through the recruiting process and looked at a lot of D3 SLACs. At many schools, the athlete/non-athlete divide was very apparent, which was something my kid was trying to avoid. Bowdoin was the school that, in my kid’s view, had a much more integrated student body with a lot of athlete/non-athlete crossover (esp compared to Williams & Amherst).

This post is spot-on correct.

Same is true at Bates. Very integrated student body. Only one dining hall for everybody. No separate dorms for athletes. And my DC who is there has athletic and non athletic friends.

I'm one of the PPs from page 1 who'd never heard the term before but said it hadn't been an issue for my DC, who's also at Bates.