Yale athletes discuss their SAT/ACT scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone justifying the affirmative action for sports by saying the kids have to work so hard and spend so much time at their sport be at that level forget that kids in other activities and and interests spend just as be much time as the athletes but no one is reserving and setting aside spots for the advanced theatre kids, robotics kids, debate travelers, the kids like me that played sports AND worked a job to pay for my sports equipment.

Most kids in the DC area who play sports also have the money and means to play. It’s an industry. Amherst College has roughly the same amount of athletes as the University of Alabama.

Lacrosse costs $$$$ to play. It’s hardly a blue collar sport. Tennis? $$$$. Fencing? $$$$. Gymnastics? $$$$. Hockey used to be more of an accessible sport but that has become part of the affluent club/travel sport culture.

Rowing? $$$$ Sailing $$$$ The list is long and has produced an industry of parents and kids spending time and money hoping it’ll get them into the shorter line to college.

Everyone screams about DEI and affirmative action when the original affirmative action has always been wealth, class, influence, race, gender, and legacy with things like sports allowing some without tremendous wealth to get a leg up. Colleges were originally for white, wealthy or wealthy enough land owning Christian men. There is a reason we had the Ivies and the Seven Sisters. Harvard, Yale, etc. all started hundreds of B years ago to educate certain men. Sometimes they let a Jewish man attend or a Black man. But the seats were reserved for a certain class and type of white man. Just like the country clubs.

Women set up their own colleges or seminaries. Black men and women set up theirs. Jewish people set up theirs too. Eventually the old WASPy mainline schools let in men and women who they had previously kept out but they never really discussed or addressed how their original structure affirmatively helped the groups they served not have to compete with large portions of the population. It created a lot of fragility on the part of the originally favored groups and, rather than admit that their group benefited for 100s of years from not having to compete with smarter but less wealthy men, women, nonwhite, nonWASP/Christian people, they started screaming and pointing at the groups that looked different were why you can’t get in.

Why would you want to send your kid to such a retched place?

So they can learn how to spell wretched.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone justifying the affirmative action for sports by saying the kids have to work so hard and spend so much time at their sport be at that level forget that kids in other activities and and interests spend just as be much time as the athletes but no one is reserving and setting aside spots for the advanced theatre kids, robotics kids, debate travelers, the kids like me that played sports AND worked a job to pay for my sports equipment.

This is idiotic. Actually, they are. Along with kids who randomly play the tuba (or whatever) when they need a tuba player. They’re looking for well-balanced classes. Lots of my recruited-for-sports friends at Yale (women and men) are now very successful in things like banking and business since they tend to be more outgoing and great team players.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone justifying the affirmative action for sports by saying the kids have to work so hard and spend so much time at their sport be at that level forget that kids in other activities and and interests spend just as be much time as the athletes but no one is reserving and setting aside spots for the advanced theatre kids, robotics kids, debate travelers, the kids like me that played sports AND worked a job to pay for my sports equipment.

This is idiotic. Actually, they are. Along with kids who randomly play the tuba (or whatever) when they need a tuba player. They’re looking for well-balanced classes. Lots of my recruited-for-sports friends at Yale (women and men) are now very successful in things like banking and business since they tend to be more outgoing and great team players.

Yale is not accepting an outstanding tuba player with a 1200 over a great tuba player with a 1500 simply because of the former's tuba skills, but they will accept an outstanding (recruit-worthy) athlete with a 1200 over a great (~varsity) athlete with a 1500 simply because of the former's athletic skills. That's clear proof of an unfair advantage for NCAA athletics over other sports and ECs like music.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, if people really want major college sports to operate like the way college club sports work, where you select a student body sports blind and the students self-organize into teams, you could have student bodies that seem to match the major sports teams in terms of admissions.

Since that is not what America wants, it is not what America gets.

So PLEASE think of D1 stadium sports alumni the same way some people think of affirmative action admits, except worse. They didn't earn the degree. They gave the kids bread and circuses and were supported far enough to not fail out. Their degrees should have asterisks and all that.

Why do you care? Elite US colleges are educating young people to be leaders in society in many different areas. They are looking for students who are outstanding in numerous areas, not only pure academics.

Test scores and GPAs don’t necessarily show how “meritorious” an applicant is. Leadership qualities, in particular, are not measured by test scores.

Again, I am puzzled as to why so many people appear to be confused about this.

This doesn't explain why athletes in NCAA sports are given preference over those in non-NCAA sports. The former are an institutional priority, while the latter is not.

Yes, and that is fine. The school has their reasons for wanting to create a class community of a particular composition, and that is their right.

I don’t understand why people have a problem with this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTjMrRUM2/

What do yall think?

The football team is not representative of the typical athlete at Yale.

A friend’s son is at Yale right now playing another sport, one that no one at Yale cares much about. He got in with a 1200.

What sport? Do tell

[Anonymous]

Let’s just be honest…tons of people like sports including most adults that run these schools. Far more follow professional and college sports than attend arts performances (or maybe even like the fine arts).

While it’s true that Yale may want a top robotics team, it’s unlikely to find a top contributor that just seems to have a knack for winning robotics competitions but only scored a 1200…of course, it’s nearly 100% correlated between academic and robotics ability (although knowing how to work CnC routers and laser cutters and what not is also important).

I also doubt the award winning cellist is also scoring 1200.

I also doubt that the average kid walking down campus would even know if the school had a robotics team and if it is any good…but they probably know who won the Harvard Yale football game.

What people likely fail to realize is that athletic recruiting was 1000x more pronounced up until like 1960s when Ivy schools were actually nationally ranked in sports like football. Back then, they just took the top prep school players and barely looked at their transcripts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, if people really want major college sports to operate like the way college club sports work, where you select a student body sports blind and the students self-organize into teams, you could have student bodies that seem to match the major sports teams in terms of admissions.

Since that is not what America wants, it is not what America gets.

So PLEASE think of D1 stadium sports alumni the same way some people think of affirmative action admits, except worse. They didn't earn the degree. They gave the kids bread and circuses and were supported far enough to not fail out. Their degrees should have asterisks and all that.

Why do you care? Elite US colleges are educating young people to be leaders in society in many different areas. They are looking for students who are outstanding in numerous areas, not only pure academics.

Test scores and GPAs don’t necessarily show how “meritorious” an applicant is. Leadership qualities, in particular, are not measured by test scores.

Again, I am puzzled as to why so many people appear to be confused about this.

This doesn't explain why athletes in NCAA sports are given preference over those in non-NCAA sports. The former are an institutional priority, while the latter is not.

Yes, and that is fine. The school has their reasons for wanting to create a class community of a particular composition, and that is their right.

I don’t understand why people have a problem with this.

The coach of the teams is there pushing for their athletes for NCAA sports and if the school is going to participate they do need players.

I am not sure why anyone would care if an Olympic tae kwan do athlete attends the school. They only care about Nathan Chen because he is the best in the world…but they don’t care about the 2nd alternate men’s figure skater who is unknown to anyone outside of the figure skating world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone justifying the affirmative action for sports by saying the kids have to work so hard and spend so much time at their sport be at that level forget that kids in other activities and and interests spend just as be much time as the athletes but no one is reserving and setting aside spots for the advanced theatre kids, robotics kids, debate travelers, the kids like me that played sports AND worked a job to pay for my sports equipment.

This is idiotic. Actually, they are. Along with kids who randomly play the tuba (or whatever) when they need a tuba player. They’re looking for well-balanced classes. Lots of my recruited-for-sports friends at Yale (women and men) are now very successful in things like banking and business since they tend to be more outgoing and great team players.

Yale is not accepting an outstanding tuba player with a 1200 over a great tuba player with a 1500 simply because of the former's tuba skills, but they will accept an outstanding (recruit-worthy) athlete with a 1200 over a great (~varsity) athlete with a 1500 simply because of the former's athletic skills. That's clear proof of an unfair advantage for NCAA athletics over other sports and ECs like music.

And you know this how? Through your many tuba-playing friends?

[Anonymous]

If they get in and represent the school well as athletes and later as alumni, I imagine that is what the school cares about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If they get in and represent the school well as athletes and later as alumni, I imagine that is what the school cares about.

Was this hard for you to figure out? I mean...obviously...why else would they have been admitted?

[Anonymous]

It’s a backdoor legacy admission. Yale has lots of guys playing football/riding the bench who are 2nd-4th generation Yale football athletes.

The guy I knew on the team was 3rd gen football roster. During Harvard-Yale his dad and granddad would come, big family event. For big dunderhead white guys from CT and MA, this was their way into Yale. This is why Gentleman’s C’s were created.

[Anonymous]

I wish I could dunk a basketball.

[Anonymous]

I find it odd how many folks in this thread are talking about kids scoring 1200+ on the SAT like they’re brain-dead troglodytes. 1200 is the 75th percentile- these are still smart kids. Sure, they played sports at an extremely high level rather than spending their weekends at Kumon and taking their standardized tests six times to achieve a top score, but I’m guessing they can hang academically with the average non-athlete Ivy attendee.

[Anonymous]

Most Ivy athletes have the entire package. Football/basketball have the most leeway, but they still need to meet the academic index.

AT my kid's Ivy (not Yale) less than 3% scored lower than a 31 composite on the ACT--and what is equivalent to ACT. And less than 1% were below the top 1/4 percentile in GPA.

Since it is 'test required' that shows that very few athletes could score that low. Frankly, with test required there are no low 20s--those dudes obviously got in during the test optional period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, if people really want major college sports to operate like the way college club sports work, where you select a student body sports blind and the students self-organize into teams, you could have student bodies that seem to match the major sports teams in terms of admissions.

Since that is not what America wants, it is not what America gets.

So PLEASE think of D1 stadium sports alumni the same way some people think of affirmative action admits, except worse. They didn't earn the degree. They gave the kids bread and circuses and were supported far enough to not fail out. Their degrees should have asterisks and all that.

Why do you care? Elite US colleges are educating young people to be leaders in society in many different areas. They are looking for students who are outstanding in numerous areas, not only pure academics.

Test scores and GPAs don’t necessarily show how “meritorious” an applicant is. Leadership qualities, in particular, are not measured by test scores.

Again, I am puzzled as to why so many people appear to be confused about this.

This doesn't explain why athletes in NCAA sports are given preference over those in non-NCAA sports. The former are an institutional priority, while the latter is not.

Yes, and that is fine. The school has their reasons for wanting to create a class community of a particular composition, and that is their right.

I don’t understand why people have a problem with this.

I don't have a problem with it, I have a problem with people making up false rationalizations for why, such as "leadership".