Amherst College Paper Article on Athletic Recruiting.

[Anonymous]

Last time I looked, athletes also help with diversity? Am I missing something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The article was anti recruiting athletes. As an experiment Amherst should just forgo recruiting athletes and fill all of their varsity sports with walk-ons. I suspect that they would lose very game, Donations would plummet, and school spirit would die.

There is no school spirit. Other than the Williams game, no one attends football games. The athletic department offers bribes to the first 100 students in attendance and they’ve never reached 100.

This is false.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Also every so often these slac schools use sports to increase their chances of gettting a top student.

My kids has 1580 SAT, 4.7 GPA, and will have 15 AP courses after senior year. Great leadership in a few different other areas besides the sport. Great service. Definitely a narrative. Ivy legacy.

But the kid wants to play the sport so it is looking like NESCAC or UAA league as not good enough to play at the Ivy.

This happens, but I doubt that often. More anecdata: a student-athlete classmate was talking about their 32 ACT and 3s on AP exams, in the context of saying how well prepared they felt for Amherst. Shortly after, they dropped the upper-level science class both had signed up for. My kid was a little perplexed about how the classmate was admitted in the first place. I had to explain athletes aren't necessarily held to the same standard they were. This was not a FGLI or URM.

Yea, well, your kid needs to get over their jealousy or insecurity or whatever it is when it comes to athletes. There’s no shame in having to drop an “upper level science class” at any top school no matter what your ACT score is.

+1

It's not that such a student is incapable of attaining a Bachelor's Degree from Amherst College. It's the idea that this college is academically elite in the way that MIT is, when perhaps 20-30% of students fit that profile.
Yeah, meanwhile my 1570 DC with nearly perfect GPA, published researched (not canned), etc. got waitlisted.

So what? That doesn't mean the 32 didn't deserve to get in.

You mean the 32 who had "3s on AP exams" and "dropped the upper-level science class" they were taking? Yes, there is indeed a question of whether they deserve to get in over someone who has clearly demonstrated the ability to handle more academic rigor.

Amherst (like other elite colleges) presents a brand that their students are the intellectual cream of the crop. Cutting corners for the athletes undermines that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you really believe what the admissions office tells you, what they publish? I bet Amherst cooks the books better than Enron.

No. Not at all. Colleges can manipulate data just like anyone else, and they do. Yet parents fight over why they lost, and others won, when none of these schools guarantees any discernible outcome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also every so often these slac schools use sports to increase their chances of gettting a top student.

My kids has 1580 SAT, 4.7 GPA, and will have 15 AP courses after senior year. Great leadership in a few different other areas besides the sport. Great service. Definitely a narrative. Ivy legacy.

But the kid wants to play the sport so it is looking like NESCAC or UAA league as not good enough to play at the Ivy.

This happens, but I doubt that often. More anecdata: a student-athlete classmate was talking about their 32 ACT and 3s on AP exams, in the context of saying how well prepared they felt for Amherst. Shortly after, they dropped the upper-level science class both had signed up for. My kid was a little perplexed about how the classmate was admitted in the first place. I had to explain athletes aren't necessarily held to the same standard they were. This was not a FGLI or URM.

Yea, well, your kid needs to get over their jealousy or insecurity or whatever it is when it comes to athletes. There’s no shame in having to drop an “upper level science class” at any top school no matter what your ACT score is.

Yeah, meanwhile my 1570 DC with nearly perfect GPA, published researched (not canned), etc. got waitlisted.

Because the research they published was not in the 1% of published research, it's just another article nobody will read and no new therapies will come from it. Athletes are performing in the 1% of the nation.

And yet no one cares about or attends their games at the D3 level.

Yet they raise more money for the school than your kid does. They have lower drop out rates. They give the school name recognition. They excel after graduation. They create community. They have high GPA’s. They recruit away from the Ivy League.

These are all generic talking points, with little data to back them up. Give the school name recognition, what?? Who was the last famous Amherst athlete? I'll wait. Create community with so few game attendees, how exactly? They don't recruit away from the Ivy League, that's absurd.

They literally have a NESCAC network. It doesn’t matter if there is a “famous athlete” people learn anbout Amherst through sports.

Just because you are not part of that community doesn’t mean one isn’t built. The sports team have a community… they have community during their time there and it extends into the working world.

My son’s team (T30 not NESCAC) had a guy accepted to Harvard and one accepted to MIT. My other son had similar students.

Yes all the athletes are a big community that extend far and wide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Last time I looked, athletes also help with diversity? Am I missing something?

Yes your missing there is jealousy when it comes to athletes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Last time I looked, athletes also help with diversity? Am I missing something?

Guess you didn't read the article. Yes, you missed something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reasonably balanced article on athletic recruiting at Amherst. The process will be similar at all of the top NESCAC schools, it's harder than people believe.

https://amherststudent.com/article/a-look-into-amhersts-athletic-admissions-process/

I'm glad this was called out. It really is systemic across the high academic D3 schools:

"According to Reyes, “the [college’s] mission is about education, thriving, personal growth, community, doing good in the world. And diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are crucial to that, but one of the things that is crucial [is to not] amplify privilege. I think there are lots of ways forward, but I don’t think that any equitable future for Amherst involves a massive set aside that benefits rich white men.”"

I wouldn't die on that hill if I was you. Reyes is waaaaay left of center, so far left that she has zero credibility on the issue. I get really annoyed with all of the "woke" idiocy that some MAGA tools drop into these conversations but in the case of Reyes she actually is a poster child for "woke".

https://www.amherst.edu/people/facstaff/jwreyes

The clip that you should have used (but one that doesn't fit you desired narrative is this one); For others, such as Professor of American Studies Robert Hayashi, dismantling the stereotypes associated with athletics is crucial to addressing its issues. In the past, Hayashi noted that discussions have felt divisive and accusatory, rather than constructive. “What’s been disappointing to me is that a lot of this has been framed as athletics versus academics, professors versus the coaches. That’s a false narrative that I would push [back] on,” he said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also every so often these slac schools use sports to increase their chances of gettting a top student.

My kids has 1580 SAT, 4.7 GPA, and will have 15 AP courses after senior year. Great leadership in a few different other areas besides the sport. Great service. Definitely a narrative. Ivy legacy.

But the kid wants to play the sport so it is looking like NESCAC or UAA league as not good enough to play at the Ivy.

This happens, but I doubt that often. More anecdata: a student-athlete classmate was talking about their 32 ACT and 3s on AP exams, in the context of saying how well prepared they felt for Amherst. Shortly after, they dropped the upper-level science class both had signed up for. My kid was a little perplexed about how the classmate was admitted in the first place. I had to explain athletes aren't necessarily held to the same standard they were. This was not a FGLI or URM.

Yea, well, your kid needs to get over their jealousy or insecurity or whatever it is when it comes to athletes. There’s no shame in having to drop an “upper level science class” at any top school no matter what your ACT score is.

Yeah, meanwhile my 1570 DC with nearly perfect GPA, published researched (not canned), etc. got waitlisted.

So what? That doesn't mean the 32 didn't deserve to get in.

You mean the 32 who had "3s on AP exams" and "dropped the upper-level science class" they were taking? Yes, there is indeed a question of whether they deserve to get in over someone who has clearly demonstrated the ability to handle more academic rigor.

Amherst (like other elite colleges) presents a brand that their students are the intellectual cream of the crop. Cutting corners for the athletes undermines that.

The problem with affirmative action cuts across all categories. The students themselves are undermined, primarily due to the presumption they are less qualified. If Amherst would like to counter than presumption, which would be very beneficial to those students, they should provide the data, right?

I completely agree with this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've heard being an athlete at Bucknell is a free pass to any job you want on Wall Street because of the famous Bucknell pipeline.

They stack a lot of cheddar I've heard

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Last time I looked, athletes also help with diversity? Am I missing something?

The last time I was at a basketball showcase, the Amherst men's team was quite diverse from top to bottom.

[Anonymous]

I went to a SLAC and am married to an athlete from that school. SLACs need athletes to make their student bodies more normal. It's not hard. They do a disproportionate amount of work in driving culture, and many of them end up in very successful careers. These schools need athletes, and the athletes need them. I don't know why this is so hard. Yes, they are slightly less smart than the brainiacs. Who cares?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it ok to lower standards for diversity but not for athletes? Which one do you want? Can you not have both?

I think the issue is the large percentages. If, say, 10% athletes and 10% diversity (broadly defined) categories were admitted with lowered admissions standards, that would leave 80% admitted strictly for academic merit. Far more reasonable. It is hard to justify shutting out so many top academic performers in favor of athletes whose games have pitiful attendance. Maybe you make some exceptions for football and lacrosse, and whatever the two most competitive women's teams are but for squash etc.? Come on.

Its not that many "top academic performers". NESCAC schools are limited to a max of 2 players per team plus 14 more who can receive a slot. Their is also a general but non-binding agreement that an equal number can be "tipped" which basically means auto admit as long as they are above the student mean. There are a few schools like Colby who ignore limits on tips and in those cases I have a bit of sympathy for argument. The vast majority of athletes have academic credentials that are above the mean so it is hard to say that they are taking any slots away from top academic performers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The article was anti recruiting athletes. As an experiment Amherst should just forgo recruiting athletes and fill all of their varsity sports with walk-ons. I suspect that they would lose very game, Donations would plummet, and school spirit would die.

There is no school spirit. Other than the Williams game, no one attends football games. The athletic department offers bribes to the first 100 students in attendance and they’ve never reached 100.

The athletic department bribes us to go to games???? Maybe I should start going...

Yeah, my kid wants to know more.

No more to know. Every game is free swag for the first 100 students. All you have to do is show up!

Every athletics game, or just football?

They did it for men’s and women’s soccer and I think field hockey for the first few games this past season. Football was for every game but Williams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it ok to lower standards for diversity but not for athletes? Which one do you want? Can you not have both?

I think the issue is the large percentages. If, say, 10% athletes and 10% diversity (broadly defined) categories were admitted with lowered admissions standards, that would leave 80% admitted strictly for academic merit. Far more reasonable. It is hard to justify shutting out so many top academic performers in favor of athletes whose games have pitiful attendance. Maybe you make some exceptions for football and lacrosse, and whatever the two most competitive women's teams are but for squash etc.? Come on.

Its not that many "top academic performers". NESCAC schools are limited to a max of 2 players per team plus 14 more who can receive a slot. Their is also a general but non-binding agreement that an equal number can be "tipped" which basically means auto admit as long as they are above the student mean. There are a few schools like Colby who ignore limits on tips and in those cases I have a bit of sympathy for argument. The vast majority of athletes have academic credentials that are above the mean so it is hard to say that they are taking any slots away from top academic performers.

Sounds like you agree Amherst should provide stats data, then?