Ivy legacy and athlete

[Anonymous]

Many people here complain that legacy kids and athletic recruits have unfair advantage in admissions. It's well known legacy kids have higher acceptance rates, but aren't they usually competitive applicants?
Why don't Ivy league schools just disclose the average grade and SAT scores of legacy and other applicants and show that legacy kids have higher (or equal) stats?

Here is an interesting article about Ivy athletic recruit from NY times from a while ago. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/sports/before-athletic-recruiting-in-the-ivy-league-some-math.html
Athletic recruits are not the only kids who spend significant hours for sports and other extracurricular activities. Kids with state or national level music or other extracurricular activities spend similar amount of time for these activities as athletes but they generally have much better stats. Is it that hard to recruit athletes with reasonable SAT (say, above 1400) and competitive athletic level? I understand that it might be tough for football or basketball, but for other sports, don't they have enough kids who meet both these academic and athletic threshold?
I also wonder if most Ivy league athletes already have competitive SAT (>1400) and grades (>3.7-3.8?), but people assume that athletes have lower stats based on some kids that they know. What would be the academic threshold for Ivy athletic recruits that people in general wound agree that it is reasonable?

[Anonymous]

Can you account for the advantages legacy admits have before they even apply?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many people here complain that legacy kids and athletic recruits have unfair advantage in admissions. It's well known legacy kids have higher acceptance rates, but aren't they usually competitive applicants?
Why don't Ivy league schools just disclose the average grade and SAT scores of legacy and other applicants and show that legacy kids have higher (or equal) stats?

Here is an interesting article about Ivy athletic recruit from NY times from a while ago. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/sports/before-athletic-recruiting-in-the-ivy-league-some-math.html
Athletic recruits are not the only kids who spend significant hours for sports and other extracurricular activities. Kids with state or national level music or other extracurricular activities spend similar amount of time for these activities as athletes but they generally have much better stats. Is it that hard to recruit athletes with reasonable SAT (say, above 1400) and competitive athletic level? I understand that it might be tough for football or basketball, but for other sports, don't they have enough kids who meet both these academic and athletic threshold?
I also wonder if most Ivy league athletes already have competitive SAT (>1400) and grades (>3.7-3.8?), but people assume that athletes have lower stats based on some kids that they know. What would be the academic threshold for Ivy athletic recruits that people in general wound agree that it is reasonable?

I think many people underestimate the time that team sport athletes spend training. I was a runner in high school, so I could run as much as was useful for me to do (up to about 70 miles per week) in 90 minutes per day plus a long Saturday run. Also, outside of XC season, most of my runs were on my own at a time that worked for me. Meets were a time suck, but were pretty infrequent. I also swam, which was more time consuming with two a days and long meets, but still manageable.

My kid has academic stats similar to what you mention, and was a national level player of a team sport in high school. The schedule was brutal. The high school team had summer league, fall league and a winter season. Each of these school seasons included team practices and as many as 3 weekday games per week and weekend tournaments. Team practice was not nearly as efficient as my XC practices because it involved a fair amount of standing around while the other unit ran plays or standing in line waiting to go on full court drills. The schedule for varsity players n non-game days was lifting or homework from 3:30-6:00, practice from 6:00-8:00 and individual training after practice. Kids were frequently in the gym until 10:00 PM, and sometimes they'd schedule skills work with a trainer at 6:30 AM. Regular season away games involved team meal before, a bus ride, warmups, game, changing after, a bus ride back to school and then getting home. For an 8:00pm game, this would be 4:00-11:00pm. JV kids had earlier games so ended up missing their last couple of periods several times a week for months.

Spring was offseason training for school plus club season, with out of town tournaments every other weekend. Club season and summer league overlapped, so there were a lot of games. Also, kids were expected to lift weights and be in the gym developing skills on their own. Every kid that I knew would pretty much immediately fall asleep whenever they were not moving -- in the car on the way to/from club practice, bus on the way to/from games, between games at tournaments, in the bleachers before school practice, etc.

[Anonymous]

The Ivies have an academic index that keeps the athletes as a whole within one standard deviation of the school average. So except for a random few individuals, they all have a "reasonable SAT (say above 1400)." Ivy athletes as a whole would be the honor college students at the top state schools. The complaint is that at the Ivies, a 1450 SAT is well below the school average while it would be a lock for a recruited athlete. And a legacy with that score is highly unlikely to be admitted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many people here complain that legacy kids and athletic recruits have unfair advantage in admissions. It's well known legacy kids have higher acceptance rates, but aren't they usually competitive applicants?
Why don't Ivy league schools just disclose the average grade and SAT scores of legacy and other applicants and show that legacy kids have higher (or equal) stats?

Here is an interesting article about Ivy athletic recruit from NY times from a while ago. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/sports/before-athletic-recruiting-in-the-ivy-league-some-math.html
Athletic recruits are not the only kids who spend significant hours for sports and other extracurricular activities. Kids with state or national level music or other extracurricular activities spend similar amount of time for these activities as athletes but they generally have much better stats. Is it that hard to recruit athletes with reasonable SAT (say, above 1400) and competitive athletic level? I understand that it might be tough for football or basketball, but for other sports, don't they have enough kids who meet both these academic and athletic threshold?
I also wonder if most Ivy league athletes already have competitive SAT (>1400) and grades (>3.7-3.8?), but people assume that athletes have lower stats based on some kids that they know. What would be the academic threshold for Ivy athletic recruits that people in general wound agree that it is reasonable?

I think many people underestimate the time that team sport athletes spend training. I was a runner in high school, so I could run as much as was useful for me to do (up to about 70 miles per week) in 90 minutes per day plus a long Saturday run. Also, outside of XC season, most of my runs were on my own at a time that worked for me. Meets were a time suck, but were pretty infrequent. I also swam, which was more time consuming with two a days and long meets, but still manageable.

My kid has academic stats similar to what you mention, and was a national level player of a team sport in high school. The schedule was brutal. The high school team had summer league, fall league and a winter season. Each of these school seasons included team practices and as many as 3 weekday games per week and weekend tournaments. Team practice was not nearly as efficient as my XC practices because it involved a fair amount of standing around while the other unit ran plays or standing in line waiting to go on full court drills. The schedule for varsity players n non-game days was lifting or homework from 3:30-6:00, practice from 6:00-8:00 and individual training after practice. Kids were frequently in the gym until 10:00 PM, and sometimes they'd schedule skills work with a trainer at 6:30 AM. Regular season away games involved team meal before, a bus ride, warmups, game, changing after, a bus ride back to school and then getting home. For an 8:00pm game, this would be 4:00-11:00pm. JV kids had earlier games so ended up missing their last couple of periods several times a week for months.

Spring was offseason training for school plus club season, with out of town tournaments every other weekend. Club season and summer league overlapped, so there were a lot of games. Also, kids were expected to lift weights and be in the gym developing skills on their own. Every kid that I knew would pretty much immediately fall asleep whenever they were not moving -- in the car on the way to/from club practice, bus on the way to/from games, between games at tournaments, in the bleachers before school practice, etc.

\\

meh - show me a top flight musician or kid who does research and they spend this much time on their activity (and probably do other stuff as well). This isn't some unusual time commitment.

[Anonymous]

You also can’t assume that an Ivy athlete isn’t in the same ballpark as other students. In addition to the Academic Index, Ivies average the qualifications of a recruiting class. This means that most classes have at least a couple of really high performing academic kids who kind of pull along someone else in their recruiting class with less noteworthy statistics. My Ivy athlete DC devoted tons of hours to sport, but was also valedictorian and a NMS. Some of the Ivy athletes would have been looking at those schools even absent the recruiting; the recruiting is just a great way to provide some certainty in what we all know is otherwise a crapshoot, and to finish the admissions process early.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Ivies have an academic index that keeps the athletes as a whole within one standard deviation of the school average. So except for a random few individuals, they all have a "reasonable SAT (say above 1400)." Ivy athletes as a whole would be the honor college students at the top state schools. The complaint is that at the Ivies, a 1450 SAT is well below the school average while it would be a lock for a recruited athlete. And a legacy with that score is highly unlikely to be admitted.

Ridiculous overstatement about the top state schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you account for the advantages legacy admits have before they even apply?

If you don't believe, have your kid not mention where you and your spouse got undergrad degrees from. Just as an experiment. Come back and report your findings.

Nah! I know you don't have the balls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You also can’t assume that an Ivy athlete isn’t in the same ballpark as other students. In addition to the Academic Index, Ivies average the qualifications of a recruiting class. This means that most classes have at least a couple of really high performing academic kids who kind of pull along someone else in their recruiting class with less noteworthy statistics. My Ivy athlete DC devoted tons of hours to sport, but was also valedictorian and a NMS. Some of the Ivy athletes would have been looking at those schools even absent the recruiting; the recruiting is just a great way to provide some certainty in what we all know is otherwise a crapshoot, and to finish the admissions process early.

If you know the meaning of "crapshot", then you also know "athlete" and/or "legacy" designation gives a leg up in admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you account for the advantages legacy admits have before they even apply?

If you don't believe, have your kid not mention where you and your spouse got undergrad degrees from. Just as an experiment. Come back and report your findings.

Nah! I know you don't have the balls.

If your kid isn't a legacy, guess what, it's your fault not anyone else's. You're the one who didn't get admitted.

How about you take some advantage you've gotten through your work, like your ability to fund your kid's SAT tutor or travel team, and voluntarily give that up and see how that works?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you account for the advantages legacy admits have before they even apply?

If you don't believe, have your kid not mention where you and your spouse got undergrad degrees from. Just as an experiment. Come back and report your findings.

Nah! I know you don't have the balls.

If your kid isn't a legacy, guess what, it's your fault not anyone else's. You're the one who didn't get admitted.

How about you take some advantage you've gotten through your work, like your ability to fund your kid's SAT tutor or travel team, and voluntarily give that up and see how that works?

As I said, you have no balls. Then simply admit "legacy" is a leg up. Even to admit that you should have some balls, albeit of small size. The question is do you have any balls at all?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you account for the advantages legacy admits have before they even apply?

If you don't believe, have your kid not mention where you and your spouse got undergrad degrees from. Just as an experiment. Come back and report your findings.

Nah! I know you don't have the balls.

If your kid isn't a legacy, guess what, it's your fault not anyone else's. You're the one who didn't get admitted.

How about you take some advantage you've gotten through your work, like your ability to fund your kid's SAT tutor or travel team, and voluntarily give that up and see how that works?

As I said, you have no balls. Then simply admit "legacy" is a leg up. Even to admit that you should have some balls, albeit of small size. The question is do you have any balls at all?

Legacy is a huge leg up, my kids will happily use it and, at my alma mater, have a 7x greater chance of being accepted.

Just as your kids will use whatever lesser advantages you can confer upon them.

[Anonymous]

My kids attend a Holton/NCS type school in a different city. Legacy or athletic recruiting accounts for about 75% of the school's Ivy league admits each year. The athletes are smart and their parents have $$ to do private tutoring but the school and coaches also encourage athletes to take grade-level classes (not honors) so they can have the high GPA and good index # (A in grade level > B+ in honors). Bc the school is considered academically rigorous I gather the Ivy leagues consider that good enough.

[Anonymous]

What would be reasonable SAT score for Ivy athletes that public/people are okay with and stop complaining about?
Did Harvard trial reveal grades and SAT scores of their athletic recruits? I suspect that the stats are pretty high, but maybe not.
Given recent varsity blue scandal, admissions dean and coaches will likely be scrutinized and looked at closely of their athlete recruitment processes and SAT/gpa of their recruits in court.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you account for the advantages legacy admits have before they even apply?

If you don't believe, have your kid not mention where you and your spouse got undergrad degrees from. Just as an experiment. Come back and report your findings.

Nah! I know you don't have the balls.

If your kid isn't a legacy, guess what, it's your fault not anyone else's. You're the one who didn't get admitted.

How about you take some advantage you've gotten through your work, like your ability to fund your kid's SAT tutor or travel team, and voluntarily give that up and see how that works?

As I said, you have no balls. Then simply admit "legacy" is a leg up. Even to admit that you should have some balls, albeit of small size. The question is do you have any balls at all?

Legacy is a huge leg up, my kids will happily use it and, at my alma mater, have a 7x greater chance of being accepted.

Just as your kids will use whatever lesser advantages you can confer upon them.

Just don’t complain to management after they are rejected.