Hating donut hole life: athletic recruiting version

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:another thread on this

if a kid has an offer to Amherst or Williams, and $20k-$25k off a top Patriot league school - every kid should choose amherst or williams. You will make up that discount within your first 3 years out of school

Like said earlier in this thread, yes Amherst and Williams from nescac are worth full pay - hard stop after that

[Anonymous]

My kid was not athletic so this was never an issue for him or our family. But I wonder if we can go back to the days when promising athletes could just play on their high school sports teams and the college coaches can do their recruiting at school tournaments, local games, summer camps, etc. Or online. This whole travel team/showcase culture is expenses and puts a lot of pressure on families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:another thread on this

if a kid has an offer to Amherst or Williams, and $20k-$25k off a top Patriot league school - every kid should choose amherst or williams. You will make up that discount within your first 3 years out of school

Like said earlier in this thread, yes Amherst and Williams from nescac are worth full pay - hard stop after that

Depends on your finances. If you have the money to pay for it then there is nothing wrong with paying full pay at other schools. To each his own. Not for you to tell others how to spend their money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:DD is at an Ivy playing her sport. She got zero financial aid. She's now a sophomore and has been a really hard road. She doesn't get much playing time and doesn't get along with her teammates very much. The students at the school are a little weird because they are so so smart and she still working on making friends. The grass is not always greener. In hindsight, I would have encouraged her skip to D1 and just go in-state as a regular applicant.

this is the problem when Ivies and other top schools relax the academic standards too much for athletes. Then if the kid doesn’t continue with the sport then they also don’t really fit in/match the level of the rest of the kids who got in on academic merit. This was my experience at one of the Ivies.

Yes yes yes. Even when they continue it is a problem. The ivy kids who are recruited athletes are more commonly than not weaker students, sometimes signifciantly. They struggle to just be average in difficult "curved to the mean" classes paths such as physics, calc, econ, engineering. Most do not attempt such classes or if they do they switch out. To be fair, for the non-athletes it is nice to have a guaranteed group who cannot compete well, and you can beat. I realize that sounds harsh but with grades on curves it matters and the non-athletes/non-weaker other hooks are happy to have whatever advantage they can.

Easily 50% of all athletes…and more like 75% for sports like fencing or squash…have stats that are at the 50%ile+ for the Ivy school. They have to for the academic indexes to balance out.

I don’t disagree they aren’t recruiting athletes with lower stats…but you are implying a much larger %age than is actual.

As do most rejected applicants.

We get that…but PP implied most athletes are weaker students which isn’t true.

You don’t get the point: the rejected pile (where most of these athletes would have been) does indeed consist of weaker students.

No…they wouldn’t. If most of the athletes have stats equivalent to 50% of all the non-athlete existing students…why would they be rejected?

Huh? If the athletes were not athletes, they would join the non-athlete rejected applicants (who you already agreed had similar stats to the athletes) in……..(wait for it)….the rejection pile.

[Anonymous]

My child goes to a fairly sporty overnight camp, and I did the same many years ago. Back then kids would start going when they were about 9 and pretty consistently keep going until they are 14-15 - very few kids dropped out for travel tournaments and the like.

Now so many kids peel off because they have travel sports events in the summer, and the coaches give them a lot of grief for going to camp over travel. And many of these kids are not superstars with any chance at playing in college. And they would be going to a sports camp where they will be training. But they have to obey the coach and they think they might be "seen" at the summer tournaments.

Ironically, my child has a friend who is very, very highly ranked in their sport and this summer went to camp for a few weeks. I don't know if it was a break in the summer schedule or they just told their coach that this is what they were doing and deal with it because they are the star of the team so they're not getting cut. But I know the kid really enjoyed being at camp, away from the grind, still playing lots of sports but also doing other things.

[Anonymous]

My son is in the midst of recruiting. There are many great schools he would have loved to attend and/or play for but we educated him on our financial picture before he sent a single email for recruiting. This way, he knew that any school that pursued him would be within the budget. I do feel some guilt that many of his classmates and teammates have lots more choices but at least he can graduate college debt free whether he plays his sport or not.

[Anonymous]

Some D3 schools give generous merit aid for athletes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:another thread on this

if a kid has an offer to Amherst or Williams, and $20k-$25k off a top Patriot league school - every kid should choose amherst or williams. You will make up that discount within your first 3 years out of school

Like said earlier in this thread, yes Amherst and Williams from nescac are worth full pay - hard stop after that

the on campus recruiting alone is worth the price of admission to these 2 schools - it’s incredibly impressive

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD is at an Ivy playing her sport. She got zero financial aid. She's now a sophomore and has been a really hard road. She doesn't get much playing time and doesn't get along with her teammates very much. The students at the school are a little weird because they are so so smart and she still working on making friends. The grass is not always greener. In hindsight, I would have encouraged her skip to D1 and just go in-state as a regular applicant.

this is the problem when Ivies and other top schools relax the academic standards too much for athletes. Then if the kid doesn’t continue with the sport then they also don’t really fit in/match the level of the rest of the kids who got in on academic merit. This was my experience at one of the Ivies.

Yes yes yes. Even when they continue it is a problem. The ivy kids who are recruited athletes are more commonly than not weaker students, sometimes signifciantly. They struggle to just be average in difficult "curved to the mean" classes paths such as physics, calc, econ, engineering. Most do not attempt such classes or if they do they switch out. To be fair, for the non-athletes it is nice to have a guaranteed group who cannot compete well, and you can beat. I realize that sounds harsh but with grades on curves it matters and the non-athletes/non-weaker other hooks are happy to have whatever advantage they can.

Easily 50% of all athletes…and more like 75% for sports like fencing or squash…have stats that are at the 50%ile+ for the Ivy school. They have to for the academic indexes to balance out.

I don’t disagree they aren’t recruiting athletes with lower stats…but you are implying a much larger %age than is actual.

As do most rejected applicants.

We get that…but PP implied most athletes are weaker students which isn’t true.

You don’t get the point: the rejected pile (where most of these athletes would have been) does indeed consist of weaker students.

No…they wouldn’t. If most of the athletes have stats equivalent to 50% of all the non-athlete existing students…why would they be rejected?

Huh? If the athletes were not athletes, they would join the non-athlete rejected applicants (who you already agreed had similar stats to the athletes) in……..(wait for it)….the rejection pile.

wtf are you talking about? Some of the athletes would get rejected and some accepted…just like the other students.

If there was no athletic recruiting then these kids would have done other things than devote so many hours to just their sport.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD is at an Ivy playing her sport. She got zero financial aid. She's now a sophomore and has been a really hard road. She doesn't get much playing time and doesn't get along with her teammates very much. The students at the school are a little weird because they are so so smart and she still working on making friends. The grass is not always greener. In hindsight, I would have encouraged her skip to D1 and just go in-state as a regular applicant.

this is the problem when Ivies and other top schools relax the academic standards too much for athletes. Then if the kid doesn’t continue with the sport then they also don’t really fit in/match the level of the rest of the kids who got in on academic merit. This was my experience at one of the Ivies.

Yes yes yes. Even when they continue it is a problem. The ivy kids who are recruited athletes are more commonly than not weaker students, sometimes signifciantly. They struggle to just be average in difficult "curved to the mean" classes paths such as physics, calc, econ, engineering. Most do not attempt such classes or if they do they switch out. To be fair, for the non-athletes it is nice to have a guaranteed group who cannot compete well, and you can beat. I realize that sounds harsh but with grades on curves it matters and the non-athletes/non-weaker other hooks are happy to have whatever advantage they can.

Easily 50% of all athletes…and more like 75% for sports like fencing or squash…have stats that are at the 50%ile+ for the Ivy school. They have to for the academic indexes to balance out.

I don’t disagree they aren’t recruiting athletes with lower stats…but you are implying a much larger %age than is actual.

As do most rejected applicants.

We get that…but PP implied most athletes are weaker students which isn’t true.

You don’t get the point: the rejected pile (where most of these athletes would have been) does indeed consist of weaker students.

No…they wouldn’t. If most of the athletes have stats equivalent to 50% of all the non-athlete existing students…why would they be rejected?

Huh? If the athletes were not athletes, they would join the non-athlete rejected applicants (who you already agreed had similar stats to the athletes) in……..(wait for it)….the rejection pile.

wtf are you talking about? Some of the athletes would get rejected and some accepted…just like the other students.

If there was no athletic recruiting then these kids would have done other things than devote so many hours to just their sport.

So they are doing it just to get recruited?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD is at an Ivy playing her sport. She got zero financial aid. She's now a sophomore and has been a really hard road. She doesn't get much playing time and doesn't get along with her teammates very much. The students at the school are a little weird because they are so so smart and she still working on making friends. The grass is not always greener. In hindsight, I would have encouraged her skip to D1 and just go in-state as a regular applicant.

this is the problem when Ivies and other top schools relax the academic standards too much for athletes. Then if the kid doesn’t continue with the sport then they also don’t really fit in/match the level of the rest of the kids who got in on academic merit. This was my experience at one of the Ivies.

Yes yes yes. Even when they continue it is a problem. The ivy kids who are recruited athletes are more commonly than not weaker students, sometimes signifciantly. They struggle to just be average in difficult "curved to the mean" classes paths such as physics, calc, econ, engineering. Most do not attempt such classes or if they do they switch out. To be fair, for the non-athletes it is nice to have a guaranteed group who cannot compete well, and you can beat. I realize that sounds harsh but with grades on curves it matters and the non-athletes/non-weaker other hooks are happy to have whatever advantage they can.

Easily 50% of all athletes…and more like 75% for sports like fencing or squash…have stats that are at the 50%ile+ for the Ivy school. They have to for the academic indexes to balance out.

I don’t disagree they aren’t recruiting athletes with lower stats…but you are implying a much larger %age than is actual.

As do most rejected applicants.

We get that…but PP implied most athletes are weaker students which isn’t true.

You don’t get the point: the rejected pile (where most of these athletes would have been) does indeed consist of weaker students.

Boom. There it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Really hard to feel sorry for people when the athletic hook doesn’t work for them.

It’s not hard if you’re not an ahole because you know how much work the kid put into it.

Our kids who study hard, act in plays, win speech & debate competitions, tutor peers, and write for the paper also are kids who put a lot a lot of work in. they just don't feel as entitled to gain admission with lower academic standards!

why should students whose EC is sports gain admission with lower academic standards to play sports that don't bring any benefit to the school's other students? who watches cross-country, volleyball, squash, etc.?

at least diversity helps everyone by not having people in bubbles.

CMU theatre kids don’t need test scores or grades anywhere approaching the non-theatre students. This is true of other schools with strong arts programs.

Do they get pre reads? I didn’t think so.

boom. there it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD is at an Ivy playing her sport. She got zero financial aid. She's now a sophomore and has been a really hard road. She doesn't get much playing time and doesn't get along with her teammates very much. The students at the school are a little weird because they are so so smart and she still working on making friends. The grass is not always greener. In hindsight, I would have encouraged her skip to D1 and just go in-state as a regular applicant.

this is the problem when Ivies and other top schools relax the academic standards too much for athletes. Then if the kid doesn’t continue with the sport then they also don’t really fit in/match the level of the rest of the kids who got in on academic merit. This was my experience at one of the Ivies.

Yes yes yes. Even when they continue it is a problem. The ivy kids who are recruited athletes are more commonly than not weaker students, sometimes signifciantly. They struggle to just be average in difficult "curved to the mean" classes paths such as physics, calc, econ, engineering. Most do not attempt such classes or if they do they switch out. To be fair, for the non-athletes it is nice to have a guaranteed group who cannot compete well, and you can beat. I realize that sounds harsh but with grades on curves it matters and the non-athletes/non-weaker other hooks are happy to have whatever advantage they can.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD is at an Ivy playing her sport. She got zero financial aid. She's now a sophomore and has been a really hard road. She doesn't get much playing time and doesn't get along with her teammates very much. The students at the school are a little weird because they are so so smart and she still working on making friends. The grass is not always greener. In hindsight, I would have encouraged her skip to D1 and just go in-state as a regular applicant.

this is the problem when Ivies and other top schools relax the academic standards too much for athletes. Then if the kid doesn’t continue with the sport then they also don’t really fit in/match the level of the rest of the kids who got in on academic merit. This was my experience at one of the Ivies.

Yes yes yes. Even when they continue it is a problem. The ivy kids who are recruited athletes are more commonly than not weaker students, sometimes signifciantly. They struggle to just be average in difficult "curved to the mean" classes paths such as physics, calc, econ, engineering. Most do not attempt such classes or if they do they switch out. To be fair, for the non-athletes it is nice to have a guaranteed group who cannot compete well, and you can beat. I realize that sounds harsh but with grades on curves it matters and the non-athletes/non-weaker other hooks are happy to have whatever advantage they can.

Easily 50% of all athletes…and more like 75% for sports like fencing or squash…have stats that are at the 50%ile+ for the Ivy school. They have to for the academic indexes to balance out.

I don’t disagree they aren’t recruiting athletes with lower stats…but you are implying a much larger %age than is actual.

As do most rejected applicants.

We get that…but PP implied most athletes are weaker students which isn’t true.

You don’t get the point: the rejected pile (where most of these athletes would have been) does indeed consist of weaker students.

No…they wouldn’t. If most of the athletes have stats equivalent to 50% of all the non-athlete existing students…why would they be rejected?

Huh? If the athletes were not athletes, they would join the non-athlete rejected applicants (who you already agreed had similar stats to the athletes) in……..(wait for it)….the rejection pile.

wtf are you talking about? Some of the athletes would get rejected and some accepted…just like the other students.

If there was no athletic recruiting then these kids would have done other things than devote so many hours to just their sport.

So they are doing it just to get recruited?

Most enjoy their sport and realize they are strong enough for recruitment that gives them additional motivation. Many kids are aiming for the top schools and play whatever angle can work best for them whether that’s sports or winning musical competitions or whatever.

Not really hard to understand this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Really hard to feel sorry for people when the athletic hook doesn’t work for them.

It’s not hard if you’re not an ahole because you know how much work the kid put into it.

Our kids who study hard, act in plays, win speech & debate competitions, tutor peers, and write for the paper also are kids who put a lot a lot of work in. they just don't feel as entitled to gain admission with lower academic standards!

why should students whose EC is sports gain admission with lower academic standards to play sports that don't bring any benefit to the school's other students? who watches cross-country, volleyball, squash, etc.?

at least diversity helps everyone by not having people in bubbles.

As a parent of a D1 athlete and another who was heavily involved in school ECs, there’s no comparison. The D1 athlete’s commitment was exponentially higher, and the non-athlete child would agree. The pressure she was under to perform at her sport and to peak at exactly the right time in state and national level competition was nothing like writing for the school paper.

I’m extremely proud of both of them, but the fact that the athlete’s grades lagged in comparison to the EC kid is completely justified considering the level of commitment. And it made sense to me that the athlete ended up at an Ivy with slightly lower grades and considerably lower test scores, whereas the other student with the 1500 SAT did not.