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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Women's ice hockey is actually a much better way to get into an ivy league school than figure skating.[/quote]

Well….of course.  Figure skating isn’t an NCAA sport…of course the Ivy needs to have a team.  Not all do.[/quote]

It's a niche sport, sure, but plenty of wealthy people care about it, and some great schools also have great figure skating programs.  Dartmouth, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, BU, Cornell, etc all field competitive figure skating programs now.  There is actually a high concentration of skaters from the better schools, so perhaps there is a correlation between the grit it takes to train, starting as early as 5 am, for 3-4 hours every morning before school, and success in school. Like almost all college athletes, figure skaters will go on to do other things after college.  So what?  [/quote]

You are conflating some things.  Figure skating is a club sport and there is no formal recruiting for it.

I guarantee that every year a bunch of kids apply to Harvard who are figure skaters and some years, none will get accepted and other years some will get accepted. They don't care all that much about the club figure skating team...much like they don't care all that much about the club rugby team or other sports where they have club teams but no varsity teams.

Hockey is a varsity sport, so every single year, 7 or so hockey players will 100% be accepted at Harvard, because they need to backfill for the players who graduated.

That's the distinction I was trying to make.[/quote]

Fair, but neither sport is going anywhere after college, so the distinction doesn't matter so much.  Sure, the PWHL exists, but the salaries are egregious, with Hilary Knight topping out at $103k.  You can make more than that coaching figure skating now, especially with Zoom lessons.   For ~99% of women, college is the end of competitive athletics.  You can get a recruiting bump at Harvard to play women's hockey, but if you are a nationally ranked figure skater, that helps, too.  There are quite a few figure skaters at schools like Dartmouth for such a niche sport. Either it counts, or the work ethic translates into academic success. [/quote]

Well, as you point out they likely come from wealthy families and have great test scores and grades.  Go to any Ivy and you find a national banjo competition winner...a national chess champion...they like to accept accomplished students.  I would probably argue that the top 5 college-applicant figure skaters in any given year probably get a slight bump (but again, it's not a recruiting bump), but that's probably it...vs. 7 hockey players per team X the number of top academic school teams.  Only difference is it would be # of Olympic skaters in any given application cycle + top 5 skaters as Olympians will always get a bump.

I'm not sure why it matters if the sport is going anywhere after college as this was just about getting recruited to attend college.

Also, the WNBA started at like $50k but now they negotiated a pay increase to $500k I think minimum...same process for women's soccer league.  Not sure if the PWHL will be as successful, but if it is, then salaries will be much higher 5+ years from now.[/quote]

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