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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Most of the posters here who trash athletes are likely ones who have a very narrow view of acceptable extracurriculars for their kids. High academic achievement is a must, obviously, and music is acceptable along with academic competitions and a few others. Their kids don’t tend to achieve in sports, and they tell themselves that those kids who do are less intelligent and less prepared for rigorous academics regardless of any evidence to the contrary. And they don’t enjoy watching sports so they don’t believe athletic talent could ever be an important asset to the community.  If they read any of the studies describing how athletes in most sports are, on average, more successful in their chosen careers than non-athletes, then that’s more evidence to them that something is wrong with the country. [/quote]

1.  You're literally posting this in a thread about a study titled:  "Legacy and Athlete Preferences at Harvard"

2.  This study says:

"We find that a white non-ALDC applicant with a 10% chance of admission would see a five-fold increase in admissions likelihood if they were a legacy; more than a seven-fold increase if they were on the dean’s interest list; and [b]that they would be admitted with near certainty if they were a recruited athlete[/b]"

"In our preferred model, the similar increases in odds are substantially higher at over eight (legacies) and [b]five thousand (athletes) times[/b]"

"Table 8 compares the ratings received by recruited athlete admits to those received by non-ALDC applicants and admits, focusing on the overall rating and the four profile ratings with the exception of the athletic rating.71 With the publicly available documents, we are able to form meaningful bounds on the ratings of recruited athletes.72 [b]Recruited athlete admits are universally weaker than non-ALDC admits on these ratings[/b]"

"In many cases—and in contrast to LDC admits—recruited athlete admits are weaker than non-ALDC applicants. Non-ALDC applicants on average have higher academic and extracurricular ratings than admitted recruited athletes of the same race for all groups except Hispanics on the academic rating"  <--- Note this says non-ALDC [b]applicants[/b] have higher academic and extracurricular rating than [b]admitted[/b] athletes.

So when you're talking about evidence, here it is.  The statement has never been they are less intelligent, but are they less qualified?  Yes.

3.  The question of how athletes do AFTER college is not relevant to if they should be admitted to college in the first place.  Yes, it's great that they got this chance because they could hit a ball, but they took that chance away from someone else, and who knows what that person would have done if only  they had the opportunity.

4.  Athletics isn't just another extracurricular.  There is no music preference or painting preference.  There are no special admissions procedures for students who excel at debate.  You cannot compare these to immense advantage athletic applicants get in every way.

5.  Even taken as athletes, the athletes getting these preferences are not the cream of the crop.  You're not getting the best football players, soccer players, baseball players, etc.  You're getting athletes who are, for the most part, good, but not great.  What is the value then?  Being pretty good at something is enough to vault you over all other more qualified applicants?

6.  As to whether we enjoy watching sports - we do.  We just don't think watching mediocre sports (and 95% of sports at the Ivy League level are mediocre) is worth letting less qualified students into a school.  And in the case of the Harvard community, the numbers speak for themselves - the average attendance at a home football game last year (Yale excluded) was about 9800.  and more people attend football games than any other sporting event.  No one cares.  If you think they do, see how many people are watching a Harvard baseball game and you can probably introduce yourself to every spectator by the end of the 2nd inning.
[/quote]

I'm the poster you were responding to with this long list.  I'm not going to go through it point by point since that would make for a ridiculously long thread and others have covered most of the counterpoints or quibbles somewhere along the way in this thread.  I did want to clarify, however, that I don't think you or other posters who have written thoughtful responses on here are in the category of people "trashing" athletes.  If you've been here a while, you will see that there is a subset of posters who truly do think all athletes are inferior and a complete waste of space at elite institutions, and I should have made clear that's the kind of poster I was referring to.

I do think you are off-base with your point 3:  "The question of how athletes do AFTER college is not relevant to if they should be admitted to college in the first place."  Someone upthread posted about this, but educated guesses about how athletes will do after college is absolutely part of why they receive preference in the first place.  They are (allegedly anyway) more likely to be leaders, loyal to the school, and big donors, and while Harvard has a massive endowment and plenty of donations from non-athletes, like every other university, they absolutely care about trying to increase donation percentages and levels. [/quote]

I get that, but athletes disproportionately come from rich, white families.  Do they really need this leg up?  What do you think is going to happen to some kid from Greenwich who rows crew if he didn't get into Harvard?   All you're doing by having this preference (and your example of Yale boosters hiring Yale sports kids bears this out) is perpetuating a system that favors the rich, white few, who, if you look at the numbers, don't have the chops to make it otherwise.

Further, if you're looking at outcomes, I would think Harvard would see an even greater improvement in the life fortunes of students admitted on racial preferences.  So why is that bad?   Why is it bad for some kid who overcame a poor public school system, had to work an after school job or take care of a sibling and had limited extracurricular opportunities to be given a chance but it's ok for an athlete?    I appreciate the argument for athletic preferences, even if I don't necessarily agree with it, but I don't get the argument for having an athletic preference but not a race preference.  But that's just me.

Harvard isn't Alabama or Duke or some big sports school.  People donate to Harvard for a variety of reasons, and the 6-4 football team isn't one of them.

[/quote]

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