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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Have you ever considered that if Lax was the only way these kids could get into these top schools that maybe the top schools aren't going to be the right fit for them?

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You are clueless.  Lax doesn't get a kid into a college they wouldn't otherwise get into, it just gives them the boost to by pass other kids.  Its the equivalent of being a legacy or maybe even better.  Colleges are smart, they want kids with the most promise, the most  going for them and those are these athletes.  Smart lacrosse players are one of the best bets a college can take. [/quote]

Different poster, but, no.  Most of the Ivy lacrosse recruits, while strong students who will do fine academically, would have no chance of admission without the recruited athlete hook.  The recruited athlete hook is far more significant than legacy, and the Ivies are quite open about acknowledging that.  These are good students.  But they are going to schools that reject 93% of their applicants, including many with perfect GPAs and perfect board scores.[/quote]

College is about much more than bringing together all the kids who got 100% on one test and if you don't understand that it's not really worth arguing this point. As the parent of a Holton lacrosse player I can assure you that these girls are top students who maintain a very challenging schedule in addition to playing lacrosse (and often one additional sport) year round. This requires discipline and hard work. You know, the kind of thing that make people successful in life. Maybe colleges want kids like that?[/quote]

I was an all-Ivy athlete.  I have coached in this area for many years, and I maintain a relationship with my college program.  Of course I am aware of what athletes bring to the table, and so are colleges -- among other things, they tend to stay involved with their alma maters (including financially, often generously) after graduation.    But suggestions that (1) on the numbers the qualifications of recruited Ivy athletes, in the aggregate, match the general applicant pool; or that (2) the "hook" for recruited athletes is minor or even at the same level as the legacy hook are totally off-base.  You don't have to go any further than the fact that the Ivy League maintains an Academic Index ("AI") to set a floor for the academic standards of their recruited athletes.  When you see the AI qualification numbers and compare them against the general applicant population, there's a major difference.

Are the Ivy athletes smart?  Hell, yes.  But would they IN THE AGGREGATE have the same chance of getting in without the hook of athletic recruiting as members of the general applicant pool?  Hell, no.  This isn't a secret.  Here's a blurb about a book, "Reclaiming the Game," by the former President of Princeton:

[i]In Reclaiming the Game, William Bowen and Sarah Levin disentangle the admissions and academic experiences of recruited athletes, walk-on athletes, and other students. In a field overwhelmed by reliance on anecdotes, the factual findings are striking--and sobering. Anyone seriously concerned about higher education will find it hard to wish away the evidence that athletic recruitment is problematic even at those schools that do not offer athletic scholarships.

Thanks to an expansion of the College and Beyond database that resulted in the highly influential studies The Shape of the River and The Game of Life, the authors are able to analyze in great detail the backgrounds, academic qualifications, and college outcomes of athletes and their classmates at thirty-three academically selective colleges and universities that do not offer athletic scholarships. They show that recruited athletes at these schools are as much as four times more likely to gain admission than are other applicants with similar academic credentials. The data also demonstrate that the typical recruit is substantially more likely to end up in the bottom third of the college class than is either the typical walk-on or the student who does not play college sports. Even more troubling is the dramatic evidence that recruited athletes "underperform:" they do even less well academically than predicted by their test scores and high school grades.

Over the last four decades, the athletic-academic divide on elite campuses has widened substantially. This book examines the forces that have been driving this process and presents concrete proposals for reform. At its core, Reclaiming the Game is an argument for re-establishing athletics as a means of fulfilling--instead of undermining--the educational missions of our colleges and universities.

Reviews:

"Reclaiming the Game paints a disappointing picture of the negative influences of college athletics. . . . Bowen and Levin demonstrate repeatedly that recruited athletes get preferential treatment in admissions despite lower SAT scores, underperform academically throughout college, choose easier majors and graduate at a lower percentage. . .. [A]s the athletic-academic gap grows, the need for visionary leadership from college presidents becomes more pressing. Reclaiming the Game provides an excellent blueprint to do exactly what its title suggests."--Mark Luce, Chicago Tribune[/i][/quote]

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