Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son goes to a top academic private school that also has a football team.
He has friends (from this school and an almost identical one) who have football offers from Duke, UVA, Cornell, Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Boston College (these are all different kids and some have multiple offers, not listed). They are mostly white.
They're smart enough---GPAs around 3.5---or middle-of-the-pack for the grade--- and they play football well enough (nothing spectacular or all-state but they're tall and athletic).
However, the elite universities are THRILLED to take these kids because they can do the academic work and fill a spot on their football roster.
The kids are literally choosing their colleges.

Meanwhile the academic kids in the grade are killing themselves to get a 3.9 for some chance at getting into a top school on grades, scores, extracurriculars.

Moral of the story: if you have height and athleticism in your family--have your kid play football. Better yet: have them attend an elite private too. They'll walk into an Ivy and won't have to sweat out the grades.

No brainer here. I would rather pick a well rounded athletic and smart kid than a geek for sure!

That is really concerning. Anti-intellectualism once again making its round on DCUM

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVA, Duke and BC are in a power 5 conference and heads and tails above the rest of the schools mentioned. Aside from a few obscure sports the Ivy is advanced HS that don't belong in the D1 for football, baseball, or BB. Watch the Harvard Princeton football game next year, there are 100 people in the stands, all parents.

8k attendance last year - not bad for a terrible team at a school with less than 6k undergrads

Thanks for the laugh, Texas HS games get that on a random Friday night. Ivy football is a joke. IMG's team would wipe the floor with all of them.

You are correct, but also proving OP's point. It used to be that the best athletes at prep schools (not football powerhouses...but the Sidwells or STAs of which there are many) played football, but now that everyone knows about CTE and the risk, the best athletes are playing other sports.

These schools still field teams, but the gap between a SJC or Good Counsel vs. a STA is now so dramatic that they don't play each other because someone at STA could get seriously hurt.

All these college plus MIT, CMU and other schools like that still field football teams and they need a lot of kids to fill the rosters.

Heck 3 JR kids were recruited for football last year...2 at Columbia and one at Cornell (only 1 URM) and JR football is terrible.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son goes to a top academic private school that also has a football team.
He has friends (from this school and an almost identical one) who have football offers from Duke, UVA, Cornell, Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Boston College (these are all different kids and some have multiple offers, not listed). They are mostly white.
They're smart enough---GPAs around 3.5---or middle-of-the-pack for the grade--- and they play football well enough (nothing spectacular or all-state but they're tall and athletic).
However, the elite universities are THRILLED to take these kids because they can do the academic work and fill a spot on their football roster.
The kids are literally choosing their colleges.

Meanwhile the academic kids in the grade are killing themselves to get a 3.9 for some chance at getting into a top school on grades, scores, extracurriculars.

Moral of the story: if you have height and athleticism in your family--have your kid play football. Better yet: have them attend an elite private too. They'll walk into an Ivy and won't have to sweat out the grades.

No brainer here. I would rather pick a well rounded athletic and smart kid than a geek for sure!

Anonymous wrote:My son goes to a top academic private school that also has a football team.
He has friends (from this school and an almost identical one) who have football offers from Duke, UVA, Cornell, Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Boston College (these are all different kids and some have multiple offers, not listed). They are mostly white.
They're smart enough---GPAs around 3.5---or middle-of-the-pack for the grade--- and they play football well enough (nothing spectacular or all-state but they're tall and athletic).
However, the elite universities are THRILLED to take these kids because they can do the academic work and fill a spot on their football roster.
The kids are literally choosing their colleges.

Meanwhile the academic kids in the grade are killing themselves to get a 3.9 for some chance at getting into a top school on grades, scores, extracurriculars.

Moral of the story: if you have height and athleticism in your family--have your kid play football. Better yet: have them attend an elite private too. They'll walk into an Ivy and won't have to sweat out the grades.

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a mix of rich full pay + actually good at the sport + strong academics. I'd think they are desirable at many schools!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVA, Duke and BC are in a power 5 conference and heads and tails above the rest of the schools mentioned. Aside from a few obscure sports the Ivy is advanced HS that don't belong in the D1 for football, baseball, or BB. Watch the Harvard Princeton football game next year, there are 100 people in the stands, all parents.

8k attendance last year - not bad for a terrible team at a school with less than 6k undergrads

Thanks for the laugh, Texas HS games get that on a random Friday night. Ivy football is a joke. IMG's team would wipe the floor with all of them.

Anonymous wrote:My son goes to a top academic private school that also has a football team.
He has friends (from this school and an almost identical one) who have football offers from Duke, UVA, Cornell, Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Boston College (these are all different kids and some have multiple offers, not listed). They are mostly white.
They're smart enough---GPAs around 3.5---or middle-of-the-pack for the grade--- and they play football well enough (nothing spectacular or all-state but they're tall and athletic).
However, the elite universities are THRILLED to take these kids because they can do the academic work and fill a spot on their football roster.
The kids are literally choosing their colleges.

Meanwhile the academic kids in the grade are killing themselves to get a 3.9 for some chance at getting into a top school on grades, scores, extracurriculars.

Moral of the story: if you have height and athleticism in your family--have your kid play football. Better yet: have them attend an elite private too. They'll walk into an Ivy and won't have to sweat out the grades.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Either your kid goes to a football academy or that didn't happen. If your kid does go to a school where the whole team gets recruited, the odds are very good that the high school coach also recruited

OP here. No, he does not. It's a independent prep school.
Not making this up.

In several cases, these kids have not even played a lot of football. One is not even a starter. One is primarily a track and field athlete. What they are is super athletic and tall/big. In one case that I know well, the coach has basically said: "i know you can do the work at this university and pay the bill and we we can teach you the football piece."
It makes you realize how hard it is to fill the football rosters at some schools (Ivy and similar) both with kids who can do the academic work. It's been wild to see. These kids are completely middle-of-the-pack academically at this tough high school.

yeah, that didn't happen. There are football factory schools (including very academically respected independent schools) that send loads of kids to ivies, but those kids are smart and good football players.

Read my post. We're saying the same thing.
A 3.5 is middle-of-the-pack at this tough school. These kid aren't dumb. That's the point of my post. The coaches know they can do the academic work. They're certainly not the top 20% in the class or the ones taking the top rigor classes but they will completely be able to do the Ivy level work well. And they're athletic enough to play the football.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVA, Duke and BC are in a power 5 conference and heads and tails above the rest of the schools mentioned. Aside from a few obscure sports the Ivy is advanced HS that don't belong in the D1 for football, baseball, or BB. Watch the Harvard Princeton football game next year, there are 100 people in the stands, all parents.

8k attendance last year - not bad for a terrible team at a school with less than 6k undergrads

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's such a gross system. 3.5 is frankly terrible for the ivies, but, because some kid spent more time tackling and catching a ball, they will surpass all the kids hard working academic students who might add much more to the campus community. Recruitment makes me sick. Does any other nation allow some of its brightest students to be surpassed by athletes? Last I checked, Oxford doesn't need sports recruits to keep its global prestige, why do top colleges?

What does the average good student add to the campus community? Meanwhile 51,000 people attended the Game last year to watch those 3.5 kids tackle each other

Why does this at all determine your admission to Harvard? It's not like any sizeable amount go on to professional leagues that justifies the massive rah rah schools. It's a backdoor for wealthy kids. Take away the football example, explain to me what softball or rugby are adding that needs to have recruiting.