Athletes are the real reason your kid can't get into the elite colleges

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Ivy League schools apply something called the academic index which ensures that recruited athletes are within range for admission. It's calculated by weighting grades and scores.

4.66 percent of Harvard scored below 30 on the ACT and equivalent SAT score. That's 90 students. For Stanford, it's 10.7 percent or 225 students. That's substantial.

[Anonymous]

From the Atlantic in 2018 https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/10/college-sports-benefits-white-students/573688/

..."Put another way, college sports at elite schools are a quiet sort of affirmative action for affluent white kids, and play a big role in keeping these institutions so stubbornly white and affluent. What makes this all the more perplexing, says John Thelin, a historian of higher education at the University of Kentucky, is that “no other nation has the equivalent of American college sports.” It’s a particular quirk of the American higher-education system that ultimately has major ramifications for who gets in—and who doesn’t—to selective colleges.

When it comes to college athletics, football and basketball command the most public attention, but in the background is a phalanx of lower-profile sports favored by white kids, which often cost a small fortune for a student participating at a top level. Ivy League sports like sailing, golf, water polo, fencing, and lacrosse aren’t typically staples of urban high schools with big nonwhite populations; they have entrenched reputations as suburban, country-club sports. According to the NCAA, of the 232 Division I sailors last year, none were black. Eighty-five percent of college lacrosse players were white, as well as 90 percent of ice-hockey players.

And the cost of playing these sports can be sky high. “There are high economic barriers to entering in this highly specialized sports system,” Hextrum says. “White people are concentrated in areas that are resource rich and have greater access to those economic resources.” Getting good enough at a sport to have a shot at playing collegiately often necessitates coaching, summer camps, traveling for tournaments, and a mountain of equipment. One in five families of an elite high-school athlete spend $1,000 a month on sports—the average family of a lacrosse player spends nearly $8,000 a year. Kids from low-income families participate in youth sports at almost half the rate of affluent families, according to a report from the Aspen Institute. It’s no surprise, then, that per The Harvard Crimson’s annual freshman survey, 46.3 percent of recruited athletes in the class of 2022 hail from families with household incomes of $250,000 or higher, compared with one-third of the class as a whole. ..."

[Anonymous]

ROTC also gets kids into the Ivy League with less-than-stellar stats. I'm a teacher and have seen this happen multiple times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/06/12/varsity-athletes-admissions-enrollment-top-colleges/?utm_term=.282712c7fa13

The amazing stats that jumped out to me are that 23% of Caltech and 15% of MIT slots are reserved for recruited athletes! So much for their vaunted "pure" race-neutral meritocracy.

Wait, are you implying that all athletes are the same race?! So I really need to tell you that there are successful athletes of all races. A racist rant is. It what I expected of this header.

+1.

What is the proportion of recruited athletes who are black?

I suspect it's higher that the merit-based general student population.

About 2/3 of recruited athletes in the Ivy League are white. This is higher than the overall student population. This means whites are disproportionately benefiting from these lower admission standards.

Nope, it's not higher --- remember the vast majority of Hispanics is racially white/ half white.

I'd like to see the actual stats.

Demographics of each Ivy League school as of 2017 can be found here

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/24/us/affirmative-action.html

More recent information here:

https://blog.collegevine.com/the-demographics-of-the-ivy-league/

For the percentage of athletes:

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/10/college-sports-benefits-white-students/573688/?utm_source=twb

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MIT football has been pretty stellar the past couple of years.

And so what, why not take kids who excel in the classroom and on a field or court?

OP makes an assumption that recruited athletes are somehow lesser students.

Why assume URMs are lesser students?

They usually are. Elite schools have a hard time making their quota with URMs with high stats.

Same could be said for athletes. Evidence says athletes are admitted with lesser scores.

+1. But PPs are ok with athletes being admitted with lower scores because many sports are now dominated by white athletes because athletes are recruited from expensive club teams. When are you going to learn, PP. As long as you're white, it's ok to have lower scores because of course you bring something unique to the table. If you are a URM, your diversity or what you bring to the table is automatically subpar.

White athlete had to excel at being an athlete. (And oh by the way, you can't just "pay money" as a white parent to have your kid excel at athletics.)

URM had to excel at nothing. All they did was get born with a skin color. Clearly subpar compared to an athlete.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
White athlete had to excel at being an athlete. (And oh by the way, you can't just "pay money" as a white parent to have your kid excel at athletics.)

URM had to excel at nothing. All they did was get born with a skin color. Clearly subpar compared to an athlete.

Tell that to my son's best friend at an ivy: 36 ACT, first in class at competitive HS, NMF, raised in foster home, and URM. 4.0 in neuroscience at college.

Oh, and BTW you are a dick. I realize you don't know that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MIT football has been pretty stellar the past couple of years.

And so what, why not take kids who excel in the classroom and on a field or court?

OP makes an assumption that recruited athletes are somehow lesser students.

Why assume URMs are lesser students?

They usually are. Elite schools have a hard time making their quota with URMs with high stats.

Same could be said for athletes. Evidence says athletes are admitted with lesser scores.

+1. But PPs are ok with athletes being admitted with lower scores because many sports are now dominated by white athletes because athletes are recruited from expensive club teams. When are you going to learn, PP. As long as you're white, it's ok to have lower scores because of course you bring something unique to the table. If you are a URM, your diversity or what you bring to the table is automatically subpar.

White athlete had to excel at being an athlete. (And oh by the way, you can't just "pay money" as a white parent to have your kid excel at athletics.)

URM had to excel at nothing. All they did was get born with a skin color. Clearly subpar compared to an athlete.

Athletes have to have some talent to be able to excel at athletic. And opportunities to hone your skills cost lots of money. Few soccer, baseball or lacrosse players are getting recruited by only playing their sport for a few months with their high school teams.

URMs may have the same athletic talent and those who are economically disadvantaged (majority) do not have the resources to hone their athletic skills. Youth sports participation is lower among poor and URM kids.

(BTW, I don't know why I'm wasting my time pointing this out. You are incapable of seeing, much less acknowledging your privileged place in this society. -white parent)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MIT football has been pretty stellar the past couple of years.

And so what, why not take kids who excel in the classroom and on a field or court?

OP makes an assumption that recruited athletes are somehow lesser students.

Why assume URMs are lesser students?

They usually are. Elite schools have a hard time making their quota with URMs with high stats.

Same could be said for athletes. Evidence says athletes are admitted with lesser scores.

+1. But PPs are ok with athletes being admitted with lower scores because many sports are now dominated by white athletes because athletes are recruited from expensive club teams. When are you going to learn, PP. As long as you're white, it's ok to have lower scores because of course you bring something unique to the table. If you are a URM, your diversity or what you bring to the table is automatically subpar.

White athlete had to excel at being an athlete. (And oh by the way, you can't just "pay money" as a white parent to have your kid excel at athletics.)

URM had to excel at nothing. All they did was get born with a skin color. Clearly subpar compared to an athlete.

But in almost all cases at Ivy League schools, these athletes are not the best athletes out there. Virtually no one on the Harvard football team is making the team at a real football school. So to call these folks 'elite' athletes is an exaggeration. They're better athletes than run of the mill students, and sure they had to work at it, but what does the fact that they're the 1000th best football player in the country bring to the school? At the end of the day what real value do they bring to the school?

Schools want student bodies that have a diversity of interests, abilities and backgrounds. They want opinions in the classrooms from different experiences. If a school can value relatively mediocre athletic ability, then it can value diversity. Neither is better or worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
They're better athletes than run of the mill students, and sure they had to work at it, but what does the fact that they're the 1000th best football player in the country bring to the school? At the end of the day what real value do they bring to the school?

Why don't you ask the people who admit them? Because obviously they feel they do bring value to the school. Unless you are claiming they don't know what they are doing over there in Cambridge.

Of course, when you run a college, you will get to decide what that college derives value from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For a school like MIT, they do not lower the admissions standards for recruited athletes. But, if you meet their standards, and are recruited, you will be admitted.

As an example, I know someone who was recruited to elite schools. She got admitted and will be going....And, she used her skills to be admitted, but she had nearly all A's with nearly all honors and AP, and 1500+ on the SATs, and a National Merit Semifinialist. The thing is that is the average student at an elite school. And they could accept 100% 4.0 UW with 1600 SATs. The sport set her apart.

This is also true for CalTech - the bar is just as high for their athletes as it is for everyone else. Why do people think that athletes cannot be academic? My DC was a high performing athlete and also a National Merit Finalist. DC also had top grades and scored a 35 on the ACT as a sophomore. There are plenty of highly academic kids who also play sports at a competitive level. I'm not talking NBA/NFL/NHL level though - that's a completely different level of athleticism.

No it is not. Why would the CalTech admissions office need to set aside 23% (or 15% at MIT) of the slots for athletic recruits if they were just as strong as the other admits and would get in anyways? The fact is that they are far weaker than the rest of the admitted pool. At least in the Ivies, the Academic Index requires some academically stronger athletes to balance off the really weak ones. And the Ivies are explicit in their desire for a holistic mix and the fact that it is an athletic conference. On the other hand, CalTech and MIT claim to be all about academic merit, when that is clearly not the case. It's also absurd because what is the point of athletics there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
They're better athletes than run of the mill students, and sure they had to work at it, but what does the fact that they're the 1000th best football player in the country bring to the school? At the end of the day what real value do they bring to the school?

Why don't you ask the people who admit them? Because obviously they feel they do bring value to the school. Unless you are claiming they don't know what they are doing over there in Cambridge.

Of course, when you run a college, you will get to decide what that college derives value from.

You're missing my point. If the college can say it values this level of athletic ability, then how anyone then say they can't also value diversity? Being an athlete is not intrinsically valuable to a school.

The issue I have is that URMs are the sole target of white grievance while ignoring this larger pool of applicants. I'm fine with colleges admitting athletes and I'm fine with colleges admitting URMs. It's not clear to me how you can be for one and not for the other. At the end of the day, 80% of applicants are 'qualified' to attend. The schools make decisions from there in what kind of student body they want at their school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don't kill their husbands. They just don't.

I see you Elle Woods!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
They're better athletes than run of the mill students, and sure they had to work at it, but what does the fact that they're the 1000th best football player in the country bring to the school? At the end of the day what real value do they bring to the school?

Why don't you ask the people who admit them? Because obviously they feel they do bring value to the school. Unless you are claiming they don't know what they are doing over there in Cambridge.

Of course, when you run a college, you will get to decide what that college derives value from.

You're missing my point. If the college can say it values this level of athletic ability, then how anyone then say they can't also value diversity? Being an athlete is not intrinsically valuable to a school.

The issue I have is that URMs are the sole target of white grievance while ignoring this larger pool of applicants. I'm fine with colleges admitting athletes and I'm fine with colleges admitting URMs. It's not clear to me how you can be for one and not for the other. At the end of the day, 80% of applicants are 'qualified' to attend. The schools make decisions from there in what kind of student body they want at their school.

Not missing your point. In fact, you stated it again, as I bolded above. You don't get to decide that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
They're better athletes than run of the mill students, and sure they had to work at it, but what does the fact that they're the 1000th best football player in the country bring to the school? At the end of the day what real value do they bring to the school?

Why don't you ask the people who admit them? Because obviously they feel they do bring value to the school. Unless you are claiming they don't know what they are doing over there in Cambridge.

Of course, when you run a college, you will get to decide what that college derives value from.

You're missing my point. If the college can say it values this level of athletic ability, then how anyone then say they can't also value diversity? Being an athlete is not intrinsically valuable to a school.

The issue I have is that URMs are the sole target of white grievance while ignoring this larger pool of applicants. I'm fine with colleges admitting athletes and I'm fine with colleges admitting URMs. It's not clear to me how you can be for one and not for the other. At the end of the day, 80% of applicants are 'qualified' to attend. The schools make decisions from there in what kind of student body they want at their school.

Not missing your point. In fact, you stated it again, as I bolded above. You don't get to decide that.

The fact that someone has to place a value on it means it's an institutional judgment. I'm not saying I should be the one to decide it, but I am saying that it is and always will be a subjective, value judgment made on a school by school basis. If schools can place their own value on this, then they have equal ability to value other things, even if you don't agree with that value judgment.

[Anonymous]

SNL pretty much nailed it. https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/cut-for-time-college-admissions/3931593