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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
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.

What makes you think you get to say what the mission of a college is? Especially a private college?

And don't trot out that canard about non-profit tax treatment, because there are loads of non-profits that have missions I don't like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m not American so I don’t understand this phenomenon. I can understand big state schools where having a big football team
might draw money or attention to school. Why would a SLAC care if someone fences or sails?Is it a way for well off but academically mediocre students to get in? Or do these students have the same qualifications as the non-athletes? Doesn’t it hurt the schools reputation as an academic-centered college? Sorry lots of questions.

They care because the athletes donate a lot more money than other groups over the years and as a whole tend to be more successful career-wise. That’s really why they do it: the athletes donate back to the schools in ways other groups don’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually didn’t know this because I went to a slac that didn’t do this. Kids played sports for fun. The Williams numbers are crazy and make me think less of what might have been a dream reach school for me and DC.

Where can a humanities student go to get away from this? For STEM I assume MIT admission is still uninfluenced by athletics?

My daughters’ school sends 2-3 kids per year to MIT. All athletes. Yes, they are great, smart kids but not at the top of the class by any means.

Reed has no varsity sports. Cal tech really doesn’t recruit whatsoever, though they do have varsity sports.

CalTech absolutely recruits. Where are you getting your information?

[Anonymous]

It is a hook for rich white people. Otherwise they would be 90% Asian

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not American so I don’t understand this phenomenon. I can understand big state schools where having a big football team
might draw money or attention to school. Why would a SLAC care if someone fences or sails?Is it a way for well off but academically mediocre students to get in? Or do these students have the same qualifications as the non-athletes? Doesn’t it hurt the schools reputation as an academic-centered college? Sorry lots of questions.

They care because the athletes donate a lot more money than other groups over the years and as a whole tend to be more successful career-wise. That’s really why they do it: the athletes donate back to the schools in ways other groups don’t.

And athletes tend to be from richer families, which is more likely why they have more money to donate and earn more. It’s a good way to affirmative action the rich which is good for the business of college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually didn’t know this because I went to a slac that didn’t do this. Kids played sports for fun. The Williams numbers are crazy and make me think less of what might have been a dream reach school for me and DC.

Where can a humanities student go to get away from this? For STEM I assume MIT admission is still uninfluenced by athletics?

My daughters’ school sends 2-3 kids per year to MIT. All athletes. Yes, they are great, smart kids but not at the top of the class by any means.

Reed has no varsity sports. Cal tech really doesn’t recruit whatsoever, though they do have varsity sports.

CalTech absolutely recruits. Where are you getting your information?

I was surprised that both MIT and CalTech have recruited athletes too. Didn’t realize prior to my DC going through the process and seeing peers get in this way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not American so I don’t understand this phenomenon. I can understand big state schools where having a big football team
might draw money or attention to school. Why would a SLAC care if someone fences or sails?Is it a way for well off but academically mediocre students to get in? Or do these students have the same qualifications as the non-athletes? Doesn’t it hurt the schools reputation as an academic-centered college? Sorry lots of questions.

They care because the athletes donate a lot more money than other groups over the years and as a whole tend to be more successful career-wise. That’s really why they do it: the athletes donate back to the schools in ways other groups don’t.

Is there actual data on this? Is it all athletes or just some sports? Can we eliminate some of the ones that don’t contribute much?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not American so I don’t understand this phenomenon. I can understand big state schools where having a big football team
might draw money or attention to school. Why would a SLAC care if someone fences or sails?Is it a way for well off but academically mediocre students to get in? Or do these students have the same qualifications as the non-athletes? Doesn’t it hurt the schools reputation as an academic-centered college? Sorry lots of questions.

They care because the athletes donate a lot more money than other groups over the years and as a whole tend to be more successful career-wise. That’s really why they do it: the athletes donate back to the schools in ways other groups don’t.

If the athletes at SLACs are as qualified as non-athletes, not sure why their being “recruited” would matter in terms of alumni engagement and donations.

Wouldn’t someone that was accepted, tried out, made the team be as attached to their school and an engaged donor as anyone?

[Anonymous]

The reason we don't talk enough about the fact the top LACs are 40% recruited athletes is that it's simply not close to being true.

I have looked at every link at this thread. Not one backs up the claim.

As many on this thread have already pointed out, one may be on a varsity team without being recruited for it. For the LAC haters who prefer D1 universities, this may be a novel concept, but it's actually pretty common at LACs. My son was told by six different LAC coaches they would welcome him to their team if enrolled, but that he would not be recruited. That was fine for us. He likes the comraderie and exercise of being on a competitive team, but was still able to get into top LACs. He is a walk-on athlete at Carleton and regularly competed against other colleges even in his first year.

It is far less likely that a student will walk on to a D1 team, let alone play. One of the main advantages of LACs is that *for some* it is easier to pursue their interests. Interested in continuing with varsity sports but not a recruited athlete (let alone a D1 recruited athlete)? Go to an LAC. Interested in summer research but don't want to compete with grad students? Go to an LAC. Our same child got a paid research job working one on one with a professor upon his first request.

Yes, there was a link in the thread to a Williams page stating 33% of their students play varsity sports. Besides the fact that Williams probably has the highest ratio of teams to students, that doesn't mean 33% of those athletes were recruited. As the xfactoradmissions article mentions, 20-50% of college athletes are walk-ons. That number will be closer to the low end for D1 and closer to the high end for D3.

Perhaps the most useful link in the thread was the one to the Washington Post article. There have been several citations of the percentages from the table of varsity athletes, but that's actually not the most relevant part of the article. The most helpful part for our purposes is the discussion after the table that actually talks about how many students were recruited at each school that chose to disclose those numbers. There were three private D1 schools ranked in the top 30: Duke, Brown, and Yale. (Large publics are obviously going to have much smaller percentages of athletes.) There were four LACs ranked in the top 30: Davidson, Colgate, Richmond, and CMC. One can divide the numbers of recruited athletes by the numbers of first year students at each school to get the % of recruits. For the three private D1 universities, that number comes to 12%. For the four LACs, that number comes to 16%. Note however that Davidson is an outlier, both in terms of the percentage of recruits and the fact that it is one of the few LACs that chooses to compete against D1 schools in all the major sports they offer. If excluding them, the percentage of recruited athletes for the remaining three drops to 13%.

I hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The reason we don't talk enough about the fact the top LACs are 40% recruited athletes is that it's simply not close to being true.

I have looked at every link at this thread. Not one backs up the claim.

As many on this thread have already pointed out, one may be on a varsity team without being recruited for it. For the LAC haters who prefer D1 universities, this may be a novel concept, but it's actually pretty common at LACs. My son was told by six different LAC coaches they would welcome him to their team if enrolled, but that he would not be recruited. That was fine for us. He likes the comraderie and exercise of being on a competitive team, but was still able to get into top LACs. He is a walk-on athlete at Carleton and regularly competed against other colleges even in his first year.

It is far less likely that a student will walk on to a D1 team, let alone play. One of the main advantages of LACs is that *for some* it is easier to pursue their interests. Interested in continuing with varsity sports but not a recruited athlete (let alone a D1 recruited athlete)? Go to an LAC. Interested in summer research but don't want to compete with grad students? Go to an LAC. Our same child got a paid research job working one on one with a professor upon his first request.

Yes, there was a link in the thread to a Williams page stating 33% of their students play varsity sports. Besides the fact that Williams probably has the highest ratio of teams to students, that doesn't mean 33% of those athletes were recruited. As the xfactoradmissions article mentions, 20-50% of college athletes are walk-ons. That number will be closer to the low end for D1 and closer to the high end for D3.

Perhaps the most useful link in the thread was the one to the Washington Post article. There have been several citations of the percentages from the table of varsity athletes, but that's actually not the most relevant part of the article. The most helpful part for our purposes is the discussion after the table that actually talks about how many students were recruited at each school that chose to disclose those numbers. There were three private D1 schools ranked in the top 30: Duke, Brown, and Yale. (Large publics are obviously going to have much smaller percentages of athletes.) There were four LACs ranked in the top 30: Davidson, Colgate, Richmond, and CMC. One can divide the numbers of recruited athletes by the numbers of first year students at each school to get the % of recruits. For the three private D1 universities, that number comes to 12%. For the four LACs, that number comes to 16%. Note however that Davidson is an outlier, both in terms of the percentage of recruits and the fact that it is one of the few LACs that chooses to compete against D1 schools in all the major sports they offer. If excluding them, the percentage of recruited athletes for the remaining three drops to 13%.

I hope this helps.

Selingo supports the SLACs allocating 40% of incoming class to athletes theory. So they all get in regular admission,’and then the remaining 60% favors the URM, First Gen, legacy (for some). So basically if you are non athletic Asian or white, the slots for your demographic is wafer thin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/books/review/selingo-korn-levitz-college-admissions.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The reason we don't talk enough about the fact the top LACs are 40% recruited athletes is that it's simply not close to being true.

I have looked at every link at this thread. Not one backs up the claim.

As many on this thread have already pointed out, one may be on a varsity team without being recruited for it. For the LAC haters who prefer D1 universities, this may be a novel concept, but it's actually pretty common at LACs. My son was told by six different LAC coaches they would welcome him to their team if enrolled, but that he would not be recruited. That was fine for us. He likes the comraderie and exercise of being on a competitive team, but was still able to get into top LACs. He is a walk-on athlete at Carleton and regularly competed against other colleges even in his first year.

It is far less likely that a student will walk on to a D1 team, let alone play. One of the main advantages of LACs is that *for some* it is easier to pursue their interests. Interested in continuing with varsity sports but not a recruited athlete (let alone a D1 recruited athlete)? Go to an LAC. Interested in summer research but don't want to compete with grad students? Go to an LAC. Our same child got a paid research job working one on one with a professor upon his first request.

Yes, there was a link in the thread to a Williams page stating 33% of their students play varsity sports. Besides the fact that Williams probably has the highest ratio of teams to students, that doesn't mean 33% of those athletes were recruited. As the xfactoradmissions article mentions, 20-50% of college athletes are walk-ons. That number will be closer to the low end for D1 and closer to the high end for D3.

Perhaps the most useful link in the thread was the one to the Washington Post article. There have been several citations of the percentages from the table of varsity athletes, but that's actually not the most relevant part of the article. The most helpful part for our purposes is the discussion after the table that actually talks about how many students were recruited at each school that chose to disclose those numbers. There were three private D1 schools ranked in the top 30: Duke, Brown, and Yale. (Large publics are obviously going to have much smaller percentages of athletes.) There were four LACs ranked in the top 30: Davidson, Colgate, Richmond, and CMC. One can divide the numbers of recruited athletes by the numbers of first year students at each school to get the % of recruits. For the three private D1 universities, that number comes to 12%. For the four LACs, that number comes to 16%. Note however that Davidson is an outlier, both in terms of the percentage of recruits and the fact that it is one of the few LACs that chooses to compete against D1 schools in all the major sports they offer. If excluding them, the percentage of recruited athletes for the remaining three drops to 13%.

I hope this helps.

Selingo supports the SLACs allocating 40% of incoming class to athletes theory. So they all get in regular admission,’and then the remaining 60% favors the URM, First Gen, legacy (for some). So basically if you are non athletic Asian or white, the slots for your demographic is wafer thin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/books/review/selingo-korn-levitz-college-admissions.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

I see no mention of the theory in that article. I see no mention of any estimate of recruited athletes at LACs, in fact.

[Anonymous]

The transfer portal is causing strange consequences all along the athletic food chain.

In baseball, some prominent academic D3 coaches are advertising the “success” of their athletes having a good season and jumping to an academic D1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not American so I don’t understand this phenomenon. I can understand big state schools where having a big football team
might draw money or attention to school. Why would a SLAC care if someone fences or sails?Is it a way for well off but academically mediocre students to get in? Or do these students have the same qualifications as the non-athletes? Doesn’t it hurt the schools reputation as an academic-centered college? Sorry lots of questions.

They care because the athletes donate a lot more money than other groups over the years and as a whole tend to be more successful career-wise. That’s really why they do it: the athletes donate back to the schools in ways other groups don’t.

let's see if we can put our heads together and think about white those ski team, fencers, sailing club, golf and tennis kids do better?

(also, it's not really true)

[Anonymous]

do people need help googling?

Amherst:
https://amherststudent.com/article/bridging-amhersts-athletic-divide/

The divide is deeply harmful to both types of students. Athletes, seen as less intelligent by many non-athletes, can lack academic confidence, which may partly explain why while 49 percent of non-athletes write senior theses, only 16 percent of varsity athletes do.

[Anonymous]

https://bowdoinorient.com/2021/10/29/athletic-department-addresses-divide-between-athletes-and-non-athletes/

According to Ryan, the general lack of intermingling between athletes and non-athletes can be attributed to a lack of mutual understanding along with negative stereotypes of student athletes.