Reply to Do not waste ED on a SLAC. Very few unhooked (non-athlete, non-FGLI, non-legacy/donor) get in.

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Reply to "Do not waste ED on a SLAC. Very few unhooked (non-athlete, non-FGLI, non-legacy/donor) get in."

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]why do you guys think so many SLACs have this same, sports-heavy model. I'm asking - I am genuinely curious.

like for me, it seems crazy that small colleges are prioritizing the 10th best football player that might be interested in them. Or really any member of the sailing or squash team at all. Why is this an institutional priority.

I went to a big basketball school and I can see from a marketing POV, if your team is on ESPN on a Saturday afternoon, okay. It never made sense to me that these players weren't paid (or even given a scholarship I guess at some schools), but with NIL, I think the standouts are getting their pay.

But for every other sport or for Swarthmore football (if there even is such a thing) - who the f cares?

I would think some school - like maybe Swat or Williams, some place with an intellectual vibe -- would just get rid of all of it. Keep men and women soccer if you want. Or whatever is the heritage sport. But dump 90% of it.

I think there are lots of kids who would be drawn to that. All the NARPs who have maybe good reason to be wary of these schools.  Plus these most of these sports are a giant expense for most of these schools. Why wouldn't one school break free?

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Yeah I don't get it. My son is active and athletic but doesn't want to go to a small school like Swat or Pomona to cheer on their ootball team - he'd go for the academics and that's what he'd want to see the investments in. The money would be better appreciated by most LAC students going to renovate dorms and improve AC, hire cooler faculty, some funding for the career centers. [/quote]

The schools being discussed are very wealthy, they do not have any budget issues funding athletics. But, they might have future issues if they deprioritize athletics given that athletes at Amherst give at rates almost double that of non athletes and that they out number non athletes 3:1 when it comes to donations above $1 million.[/quote]

by this logic, many colleges should only have male teams:

Gender differences: Research has shown the effect of athletic success on giving can differ by gender. A Princeton University study found that male alumni whose teams had successful seasons while they were undergraduates, or in the years after, subsequently made larger donations to the athletic program. For female alumni, the effect was not statistically significant.

or maybe college should be male only since the number of men making donations above $1mm is much larger than the number of women making the donations. by a factor far greater than 3:1

[/quote]

Schools wouldn't recruit anywhere near the number of female athletes that they currently do if they weren't required to by Title 9.  It is not in their financial interest by any measure. [/quote]
Didn’t Stanford try to get rid of some sports teams a few years ago — to admit more “real,” top students — but had to abandon this plan because of Title IX lawsuit threats? Title IX: affirmative action for rich white women.[/quote]

No; Stanford tried to eliminate a mix of men's and Women's sport's but not to admit more "real" top students. Student academics were never mentioned and would not have been a factor at all. The attempt happened during Covid and the school said that it was intended to make the Athletic department financially self-sufficient.

The attempt did not go well for Stanford across multiple fronts. They ended up with a potential Title IX investigation, fraud lawsuits, revolt by high profile Alumni, and bad press from the US Olympic committee because 10 of the proposed sports were Olympic sports.

Wealthy Alumni quickly stepped up to close the supposed budget gap and Stanford was backed into a corner. The end result was a complete capitulation by Stanford and a full reversal of the cuts. Pretty solid example of the importance of even obscure sports to influential constituencies within elite schools and why you won't see any deemphasizing of sports at elite colleges.  [/quote]
Yes, it was a Title IX issue. And yes, Stamford did say it was to free up more academic slots.[/quote]
PS. You really want to say Stanford has its unparalleled wealth due to sports? I don’t think you want to go there. It’s from tech.[/quote]

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