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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is great news for STA and especially those in the STA community that still support the scholar-athlete model and are fighting to keep STA in the IAC.[/quote]

Bravo on this point. The sad truth is that people in the STA community have to "fight" to keep the scholar-athlete relevant at the school. The admissions head has not done his job in terms of finding the scholar-athletes to populate the contact sports teams. This type of job performance would result in a pink slip at most of the schools against which STA competes. For those families whose sons play on the contact sports teams, there is a certain "The Few, The Proud" attitude that exists, but it is an attitude borne out of making the best of a bad situation. At some point, STA will need to address the lack of numbers in terms of players and size of the players themselves on the football, basketball and lacrosse teams. I expect a drop in the amount of contributions will be the needed "kick in the pants" to reverse the obvious trend at STA. [/quote]

In my work, I've seen development/advancement numbers from most of the major day schools in this area.  St. Albans does very well on all of the big metrics: amount of annual giving per student; % annual giving among parents; % annual giving from alumni; aggregate giving by alumni; and success on major capital campaigns (they had a very successful capital campaign in this decade for an academic building and have announced a campaign to restructure their athletic fields).  It is possible that in the future there could be a sharp drop in giving but it has not manifested itself yet from the figures I've seen -- to the contrary.

It's not all about the money, of course, but in other areas as well St. Albans seems to be thriving.  Every year they seem to be fighting it out with Sidwell or GDS for the highest % of National Merit Semifinalists -- I will bet that in most or all of the last five years St. Albans has had more National Merit Semifinalists than the other five IAC schools combined (some of which don't even get one some years).  The college acceptances look very good as measured against peer schools (or even the big boarding schools, as well).

Certain things ebb and flow in schools, at least American schools, and emphasis and prowess in athletics is one of those things; moreover, I believe that at most all-boys' schools there is structurally going to be a natural interest in and emphasis on athletics.  So maybe St. Albans will put on a full court press (or blitz, or insert sports metaphor here) on recruiting and admissions of very strong athletes.  But, it's hard to see any signs of a school that perceives a crisis over this issue, even if there is one part of the constituency that wants more IAC championships, or thinks they need to come only in football/basketball/baseball/lacrosse or they don't "count.'  Other parents might very well think the athletic emphasis is strong enough (or too strong) already -- and I'm sure every good academic private school on the East Coast will be taking a look at whether to keep football over the next 2-3 decades, for example.

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