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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The Harvard lawsuit has been quite interesting as it relates to this discussion. Now I know “HARVARD” is not exactly representative of all schools, and a kid trying to play soccer at UMD or UVA or Nebraska or whatever isn’t necessarily going to be judged the same, but due to the fact the discovery process has released so much information it’s worth looking over.

From what has been released, the admissions process assigns a score of 1-6 in a variety of fields, such as academics and athletics.

*  A “1” is given to athletes with “national or international or Olympic level” recognition or to a player specifically recruited by a coach. Less than 1% of of the kids are given an athletic 1. A look at the Harvard roster will show more than a few kids who have had Youth National Team call ups or even worked out with professional sides overseas.  0.9% of applicants had an athletic -1-, but 88% of kids with an athletic 1 are admitted even if no other -1-s in any other field.

*  A “2” is given to an athlete with state or regional recognition or awards or someone with a leadership role in their secondary school team.  9.2% of applicants had an athletic -2-. This a state cup winner with a club side or a captain of a high school team.

*  A “3” is given to people who actively participate.

*  A “4” is little or no interest in sport.

*  A “5” is kind of unique in that it is for kids who have a substantial out of school commitment that precludes them from sports, such as holding down a full time job to support the family or a significant extra curricular activity.

*  A “6” is for those who are physically unable to compete.

By way of comparison, an Academic “1” is given to a “Genuine scholar; near-perfect scores and grades (in most cases) combined with unusual creativity and possible evidence of original scholarship.”  These are basically kids who are recruited by professors or who have independent academic work that has been reviewed by the faculty.  Only a hundred or so kids are given a -1- in academics and it is about the same (100-200) for sports. Academics, by the way, is not just about perfect scores as 8,000 kids had perfect GPA, 3500 had perfect SAT math, and 2700 had perfect SAT verbal

What you can glean from some of this is that:

*  Simply playing DA is not going to get you a -1- (i.e. a top billing athletically).

*   A -2- is still helpful, but whether the [u]admissions committee[/u] differentiates between DA, MLS DA, ECNL or High School team is a debate that would fill this message board but I suspect most admissions personnel wouldn’t care that much about. (i.e. I doubt admissions counselors are uptodate on who is top of the DA, who is not, what ECNL is vs captain of a high school side, etc). I suspect a coach would certainly have an opinion, but from the admissions committee standpoint it seems they are more concerned about things like the time spent playing or leading a team rather than the level of athletic ability within that team. 
 
Now let’s get back to an important point here:[b] this is Harvard. It’s not normal.[/b] I imagine a similar rating system does exist for say the top 10 soccer schools in the USA (i.e. national team &gt; regular DA, etc) but for most colleges playing DA will probably carry more weight in the admissions process than it does at the top schools.

My takeaway from this is if you have the capability to get to a -1- in the athletic level (i.e. national team) than a sacrifice of some academics may not hurt you that much (provided it isn't a total blow off of the academics). An athlete with a -1- but with a -4- academics (Adequate preparation. Respectable grades and low-to-mid-600 scores (26 to 29) ACT) is much more likely than a non-athlete with a -4- to get in (as much as 1000 times more likely actually). [b]But we are talking a NATIONAL, INTERNATIONAL, OLYMPICS level of athletic ability, which by and large, isn't your garden variety DA player[/b].  Lowering academics just to play on a DA isn't going to open doors to the top schools (either academically or athletically) and playing on a mid-level D1 or a D3 is probably going to be the final years of your kid's soccer career.

A college counselor wrote this after reading this data and it’s pretty appropriate:  “If you are truly invested in getting into Harvard (or any other Ivy League), your best bet is probably to find an academic area, extracurricular activity, or sport that you actually have a passion for (not something you are doing just so it &quot;looks good on apps&quot;) and try [b]to become elite in that area at a national and/or distinct level[/b] -- pull this off and you are more than half-way on the way to acceptance”

Links:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/cfwru7/interesting_statistics_and_info_regarding_harvard/
https://blog.prepscholar.com/harvard-asian-admissions-lawsuit-application-strategy
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/29/how-to-get-in-to-harvard/
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/6/30/athlete-admissions/
[/quote]

That's interesting but also illustrates how quickly things have changed when it comes to soccer - at least on the men's side.  In 2019, most players who are good enough to make the U17 YNT are not thinking about applying for college.  They're thinking about going pro.  [/quote]

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