What’s the real deal with athletic recruiting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tons of misinformation on this thread. Stay far away

How so? Fwiw I’ve just started this process with my dc and a lot of the info on here checks out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My take.

1. For the truly gifted athlete (ie nationally top ranked) recruiting is an open door into almost any school except maybe the most academic colleges (and even then if it’s a sport the alumni really care about they will find a way to admit you).

2. For the elite athlete (ie all-state/record holder) recruiting will significantly lower the admissions requirement. I personally know kids with a 3.5 and 1200 sat who have gotten into ivy league schools. That would be impossible w/o recruiting.

3. For the very good athlete (ie multi-year varsity starter/all-district) it can give an edge to the excellent student. The 4.2, 1450 sat kid has a good shot at a top school.

4. For everybody else- the recruiting game is reversed and your kid ends up going to lower ranked schools in order to play college sports.

But you don't really need to be at #2 athletic ability level above for Ivy recruiting, do you? I think #3 level above with the better academic stats is generally who ends up there? Talking about men's football/basketball/baseball.

My dc is just stepping into this and this info checks out. My dc is more of a 2 to 3 on the scale, and I am seeing some strong hints that there is a relaxation of standards. My take- and I’m sure I’ll be flamed for this- is that a good number of kids and their parents in the 3 to 4 range who are trying to get into schools with sports as a hook as well. I assume that those kids are the ones who have to track at the regular stats. I don’t mean this as a criticism bc my dc has had to sacrifice a lot to be closer to a 2 level. When all is said and done, not sure if it will be worth it as there’s no realistic pro option for him. But he’s obsessed so it is what it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious to hear how ‘off’ academically/score wise from a school’s regular admission class a recruited athlete can be. A little? A lot? I assume it depends in part on the athletes overall rank.

Fwiw my dc is into his sport but doesn’t care about using it as a ‘hook’ to get into a ‘reach’ school (assuming he could, of course) so I’m asking for my own education, not because he’ll be trying to take anyone’s spot at HYP 😝

Depends on the school but my DC had offers from a top 15 D1 school, as well as highly selective LACs at D3 level, and they made no accommodations for what it took to be admitted. The D1 had only 1 "coach choice" slot and they were going to use it for my kid but you still had to be close to their numbers (mine was but everyone who applies there is). Ultimately, they chose not to go D1. But my experience -and DC went on many visits and had lots of offers- was that you had to have the academics for the top schools.

We have friends who went to hopkins and Penn, among others, and they needed top GPA and over 1500 SAT to even talk to the coaches.

I don’t think of either of those schools are serious sports schools.

Hopkins most def does (FH, lax). Penn not at much but, for our sport, they have a VERY tough schedule.

[Anonymous]

If you are playing football or basketball for a P4 college they will help you academically. And, in some non-P4s as well. But, eventually, for everyone else you have to go to class. That is where you really run into issues. Being the dumbest in a class is not good, and that can happen when you push to get into a better college.

[Anonymous]

^ there are

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can see that at an MIT - not really an athletic powerhouse, but Stanford? D1 schools? Interesting.

Stanford, Duke they are certainly relaxing the academic standards for some of their recruited athletes.

Ivies relax them too, but the overall recruiting class needs to be somewhat in line with the student body as a whole. So the goal numbers might be 1400 instead of 1550 to clear the hurdle as a recruited athlete. If you google ivy academic index you can read more about this mystery way they make these calculations

High academic D3 typically don’t have much wiggle room except for 1 or 2 athletes per sport.

Overall we’ve seen kids end up at an academic fit (except for the high academic P4 schools).

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, I know a recruited athlete at Yale who got a 1300 on their SATs, the mom told me herself.

I know one who made 1120
But it was 25 years ago

Dh got into Air Force w very average scores and grades (prob a 3.0 tops). Football and another sport. Recruited for two sports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are playing football or basketball for a P4 college they will help you academically. And, in some non-P4s as well. But, eventually, for everyone else you have to go to class. That is where you really run into issues. Being the dumbest in a class is not good, and that can happen when you push to get into a better college.

Don’t almost all teams have tutors who help athletes and don’t they assist with professors to work around sports schedules? That’s what I’m hearing.

[Anonymous]

My son was recruited by a lot of schools and ultimately picked a high academic D1 school over a higher level of play because academics are more important to him.

He went to a DC area private known for tough academics. His cumulative GPA was a 3.6 and his SAT score was a 1390.

He definitely would not have gotten in if it wasn't for his sport. I will also add that the head coach also acknowledged how tough his school is and that they took that into consideration when looking at his transcript.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can see that at an MIT - not really an athletic powerhouse, but Stanford? D1 schools? Interesting.

Stanford, Duke they are certainly relaxing the academic standards for some of their recruited athletes.

Ivies relax them too, but the overall recruiting class needs to be somewhat in line with the student body as a whole. So the goal numbers might be 1400 instead of 1550 to clear the hurdle as a recruited athlete. If you google ivy academic index you can read more about this mystery way they make these calculations

High academic D3 typically don’t have much wiggle room except for 1 or 2 athletes per sport.

Overall we’ve seen kids end up at an academic fit (except for the high academic P4 schools).

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, I know a recruited athlete at Yale who got a 1300 on their SATs, the mom told me herself.

I know one who made 1120
But it was 25 years ago

Dh got into Air Force w very average scores and grades (prob a 3.0 tops). Football and another sport. Recruited for two sports.

Pp this is what I’m seeing to. A very highly ranked school just gave my dc a range for scores to get in, and while they were still decent/good, they were not on par with normal applicants from what I can see.

[Anonymous]

Too

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son was recruited by a lot of schools and ultimately picked a high academic D1 school over a higher level of play because academics are more important to him.

He went to a DC area private known for tough academics. His cumulative GPA was a 3.6 and his SAT score was a 1390.

He definitely would not have gotten in if it wasn't for his sport. I will also add that the head coach also acknowledged how tough his school is and that they took that into consideration when looking at his transcript.

Pp yes, this makes sense to me from what I’m seeing. And now that I have a sports kid (my other dc played sports but at a different level) I (conveniently sort of don’t mind whereas a few years ago I might have thought it was ‘unfair’ that the ‘jocks’ got a boost. I can now see how my dc’s devotion to his sport has taken up so much time, and how my other dc had the luxury of having weekday time/almost full weekends to study and prepare for big exams, while my sporty dc is training for hours every day, and spending entire days and sometimes even weekends traveling and competing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are playing football or basketball for a P4 college they will help you academically. And, in some non-P4s as well. But, eventually, for everyone else you have to go to class. That is where you really run into issues. Being the dumbest in a class is not good, and that can happen when you push to get into a better college.

Oh man, I’m about to blow your mind. Many student athletes with average to above average (but not perfect) academic stats are actually quite smart.

Smart kids can absolutely keep up in the vast majority of these “elite” university classes even if they didn’t spend every weekend at Kumon or take their SAT six times to get those perfect stats to be considered for admission.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are playing football or basketball for a P4 college they will help you academically. And, in some non-P4s as well. But, eventually, for everyone else you have to go to class. That is where you really run into issues. Being the dumbest in a class is not good, and that can happen when you push to get into a better college.

Oh man, I’m about to blow your mind. Many student athletes with average to above average (but not perfect) academic stats are actually quite smart.

Smart kids can absolutely keep up in the vast majority of these “elite” university classes even if they didn’t spend every weekend at Kumon or take their SAT six times to get those perfect stats to be considered for admission.

Ha, I’m PP and this post also irritated me as well. I attended a fairly ‘elite’ college that was a feeder from private schools and I can honestly say it wasn’t as challenging as I expected based on its rank (lots of grade inflation, for one) and I found that lots of kids had a tremendous amount of support to achieve those top scores that got them in. My family wasn’t poor but my parents weren’t prestige college focused and didn’t do all of the things that my friend’s parents did as a matter of course (SAT prep, tutors, app help, helping to craft extracurriculars, etc).

My dc is a kid who might end up at an academic school somewhat above his general stats, and I think he’ll be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are playing football or basketball for a P4 college they will help you academically. And, in some non-P4s as well. But, eventually, for everyone else you have to go to class. That is where you really run into issues. Being the dumbest in a class is not good, and that can happen when you push to get into a better college.

Oh man, I’m about to blow your mind. Many student athletes with average to above average (but not perfect) academic stats are actually quite smart.

Smart kids can absolutely keep up in the vast majority of these “elite” university classes even if they didn’t spend every weekend at Kumon or take their SAT six times to get those perfect stats to be considered for admission.

Ha, I’m PP and this post also irritated me as well. I attended a fairly ‘elite’ college that was a feeder from private schools and I can honestly say it wasn’t as challenging as I expected based on its rank (lots of grade inflation, for one) and I found that lots of kids had a tremendous amount of support to achieve those top scores that got them in. My family wasn’t poor but my parents weren’t prestige college focused and didn’t do all of the things that my friend’s parents did as a matter of course (SAT prep, tutors, app help, helping to craft extracurriculars, etc).

My dc is a kid who might end up at an academic school somewhat above his general stats, and I think he’ll be fine.

PP and similar experience here. I’m sure your kid will do great, if for no other reason than it sounds like you have a good head on your shoulders and I’m sure that must have rubbed off.

My high school kid is very serious about athletics and not so much about academics, and frankly I am fine with that. I’m confident that wherever he lands he’ll continue to be smart enough to know his own strengths and limitations (e.g. he will probably skip the quantum physics no matter where he goes).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son was recruited by a lot of schools and ultimately picked a high academic D1 school over a higher level of play because academics are more important to him.

He went to a DC area private known for tough academics. His cumulative GPA was a 3.6 and his SAT score was a 1390.

He definitely would not have gotten in if it wasn't for his sport. I will also add that the head coach also acknowledged how tough his school is and that they took that into consideration when looking at his transcript.

Pp yes, this makes sense to me from what I’m seeing. And now that I have a sports kid (my other dc played sports but at a different level) I (conveniently sort of don’t mind whereas a few years ago I might have thought it was ‘unfair’ that the ‘jocks’ got a boost. I can now see how my dc’s devotion to his sport has taken up so much time, and how my other dc had the luxury of having weekday time/almost full weekends to study and prepare for big exams, while my sporty dc is training for hours every day, and spending entire days and sometimes even weekends traveling and competing.

So, I am the PP. I would be lying if I said my kid spent all his time training and that’s why his grades weren’t as high as they could have been. He just didn’t care that much- he was fine with B’s. As for training he didn’t go overboard on that either- he was a 3 sport athlete and only focused on his college sport during junior year and that was the only year he didn’t play his other sports.