Getting into top 20 college is nearly impossible without

[Anonymous]

All athletes.

[Anonymous]

Or, to be more precise, athletes of all races. And not every athlete, by any means. Often the least capable students were recruited for a sport the particular university is especially good at/invested in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Or, to be more precise, athletes of all races. And not every athlete, by any means. Often the least capable students were recruited for a sport the particular university is especially good at/invested in.

Which sport would that be?

[Anonymous]

IME, it varied by school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IME, it varied by school.

Name two specific sports by way of example.

[Anonymous]

Baseball and lacrosse

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Baseball and lacrosse

That's what I figured you'd say.

[Anonymous]

I noticed it because at the first school, problem students played baseball and the only lax player I taught was a really exceptional student. Second school, the pattern was reversed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Baseball and lacrosse

That's what I figured you'd say.

Why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I noticed it because at the first school, problem students played baseball and the only lax player I taught was a really exceptional student. Second school, the pattern was reversed.

That's not really a statistically sound analysis, though. Or enough of a basis to extrapolate about "athletes."

[Anonymous]

Which is why I said IME in the original post. And, in subsequent posts pointed out that I also had exceptionally good students that were athletes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Which is why I said IME in the original post. And, in subsequent posts pointed out that I also had exceptionally good students that were athletes.

You said athletes and then all athletes. You're stereotyping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It just seems so unfair to me that some parents are spending a lot of money for college counselors to package their kids for acceptance into college.
Just wondering if this really gives them any advantage over the rest of our kids - or if the admission committees can spot these applicants ans that is why the counselors are bemoaning the low acceptance rates for their clients. If our kids stats were golden (including a major talent) why would we need you anyway?

Typical suburbanite UMC white lady here who spent the longest meal of my life seated next to another UMC white lady whose kid got into HYP with stats that were very strong but indistinguishable from those of her classmates. They used a counselor, and she was really pushing me to use the same person. So maybe there is some magic with the resultant packaging? Or maybe the university had a track record with this counselor?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they're a URM, they're a shoo-in, even without great grades.

This is wrong.

Harvard admitted 2,056 applicants this year - of those admitted, 14.6 percent were African-American. That's 300 students. 300 African-Americans in the entire US of A were admitted by Harvard last year.

How many of them were recruited athletes? According to the NY Times, HYP admit about 200 recruited athletes over 35 sports each year. Let's guess that 20 percent of those athletes are African-American - that's 40 students. So now we're down to 260 African-American students who were admitted to Harvard last year. How many of them are legacy kids? The Crimson reported that 30 percent of the Class of 2021 were legacy students. If the African-American legacy enrollment rate is even only half that of the entire Class, that would be another 39 kids.

At that point, you're looking at 221 African-Americans admitted who are neither athletes nor legacy. Hardly a shoo-in.

What I have seen, as others have mentioned, is that to get into HYP you have to have impeccable credentials, and then something extra. For African-Americans, that something extra is their URM status - but only if they're in that 4.0, 1550, strong extracurricular category. For others, that something extra might be a national award, or whatever. And if you have the impeccable everything, but not the something extra, then you end up at Duke or Brown or Penn.

There might not be 300 URM kids in the US that have those stats. Only a couple of hundred AA kids each year score above 750 on either section, you would need both above that. I looked at ACT scores for AA kids a few years back and there were 31 AA kids who scored 35 and above on the ACT. Good but not great credentials will get an AA kid into an Ivy League school.

There are also many white kids that get into HYP with scores of 32-33. The only population that would be majority 35 and above is Asian.

From Naviance data I can tell you that this is not remotely true. Without a 34+ you don't have a prayer.

[Anonymous]

I responded to a question — URM athletes or all athletes — on its own terms, then quickly clarified to make it clear I wasn’t saying all athletes were at the bottom of the class. What I’m saying is, to the extent that I noticed a pattern wrt which hooks lead to admission of academically weak students, it was athletics rather than URM.

Interesting you didn’t make the same objections (re stereotypes and statistical soundness) when the claim was made that URM students were the bottom of the class at elite schools.