Anonymous wrote:I attended an Ivy (though not Harvard) and counted plenty of athletes among my friends. I assure you that the overwhelming majority of them were phenomenal students in addition to being talented athletes. Outside of luring some top football and basketball recruits, top colleges do not generally have to lower their admission standards much, if at all, to bring in athletes.

I also went to an Ivy and had a number of athlete friends. I don't know how to judge "phenomenal students"...the athletes I knew majored in something that I will say was less than rigorous and did fine. Admission standards were definitely lowered quite a bit. You need to check your research...I believe the average SAT of the Harvard football team is maybe 200 points lower than the average for the school. Heck, 1300+ on average is still high for a football team, but certainly different than the normal applicant

On another note, all the Ivies have an Academic Index for their sports teams. The specific Ivy sets an overall average score that they want their teams to meet and then their recruiting is done in such a way that the average for the team needs to meet the AI set by the school. A kid I know was in the absolute right place and right time where he played on an AAU basketball team that was solid, but well known for high academic kids. Yale basketball coach was friends with this coach and gave a panicked call...I need a kid with at least 1560 SATs ASAP in order to bring up my AI. Coach gave the nod to this kid and he went from not even thinking of Yale (not sure why, but just wasn't on his radar) to getting accepted at Yale. He essentially sat the bench for the most part...but he got into Yale.

Anonymous wrote:I would have thought field hockey athletes would be overwhelmingly from the US. Where are the field hockey athletes coming from? Where are the squash athletes coming from?

You do know that field hockey in South Africa, UK, Germany, Netherlands is way stronger than USA

Indian FH at the elite level is better also

Anonymous wrote:Bump. Damn Look at Cornell in the 3rd round of the NCAA men’s soccer championship

Aaaand they lost to Syracuse.

Bump. Damn Look at Cornell in the 3rd round of the NCAA men’s soccer championship

Anonymous wrote:I would have thought field hockey athletes would be overwhelmingly from the US. Where are the field hockey athletes coming from? Where are the squash athletes coming from?

When I looked at the Harvard roster, I was amazed at how many English girls there were. Also Netherlands and Germany. The men's squash was from all over the world, no particular country strongly represented - Israel, Ecuador, Ireland, Switzerland, India, Malaysia, Egypt.

Anonymous wrote:I would have thought field hockey athletes would be overwhelmingly from the US. Where are the field hockey athletes coming from? Where are the squash athletes coming from?

Pretty interesting change, I don't really remember any international field hockey girls when I was there ~20 years ago.

Anonymous wrote:I would have thought field hockey athletes would be overwhelmingly from the US. Where are the field hockey athletes coming from? Where are the squash athletes coming from?

Looks like a lot of women's FH players are from England.

I would have thought field hockey athletes would be overwhelmingly from the US. Where are the field hockey athletes coming from? Where are the squash athletes coming from?

Anonymous wrote:Why should private schools favor US applicants at all let alone US athletes?.

Because “private” schools enjoy considerable American government support, and this should result in some benefit to actual Americans.

Anonymous wrote:
Is Harvard even good at any sport besides men’s tennis and that is just recent?


Harvard has a very strong men’s ice hockey team. Men’s lacrosse is also a strong program. Women’s lacrosse has been excellent in the past, not sure about more recenty.

Women’s soccer is currently in second round of NCAA tournament, ranked top 25 in NCAA.

Why should private schools favor US applicants at all let alone US athletes?
Also, we ought to refer non-US students as international students. I've never heard them called foreign students.

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Anonymous wrote:In some sports at harvard the athletes are dominated by international students. So its not even American athletes getting the boost.

Correct.

The odds of American kids being athletically recruited to Ivies for niche sports such as fencing, squash, field hockey,etc… are slim because of this.

Harvard Rosters
Men's squash: 8 foreign 4 US
Women's squash: 5 foreign 9 US
Men's fencing: 1 foreign 13 US
Women's fencing: 0 foreign 15 US
Field hockey: 13 foreign 13 US

Doesn't look like the odds are too bad for US students in niche sports.

I’m all for international athletes making these sports better and more competitive but these results show that the number of roster spots that kids from this country can fill are lower than what might be otherwise expected. This makes athletic recruiting even more difficult for many of these sports.

https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/research/demographics/2021RES_ISATrendsDivSprt.pdf

This report gives participation of international athletes playing specific sports. Really the big one is tennis (63% in Division I) followed by ice hockey (39%) and men's soccer (37%).

Note that D1 men's fencing is only 20% international and women's 16%. Not a huge threat from foreigners.

There are under 1,000 athletes playing college squash so really you shouldn't worry about international athletes shutting out US kids from something so insignificant.

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Anonymous wrote:In some sports at harvard the athletes are dominated by international students. So its not even American athletes getting the boost.

Correct.

The odds of American kids being athletically recruited to Ivies for niche sports such as fencing, squash, field hockey,etc… are slim because of this.

Harvard Rosters
Men's squash: 8 foreign 4 US
Women's squash: 5 foreign 9 US
Men's fencing: 1 foreign 13 US
Women's fencing: 0 foreign 15 US
Field hockey: 13 foreign 13 US

Doesn't look like the odds are too bad for US students in niche sports.

I’m all for international athletes making these sports better and more competitive but these results show that the number of roster spots that kids from this country can fill are lower than what might be otherwise expected. This makes athletic recruiting even more difficult for many of these sports.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:In some sports at harvard the athletes are dominated by international students. So its not even American athletes getting the boost.

Correct.

The odds of American kids being athletically recruited to Ivies for niche sports such as fencing, squash, field hockey,etc… are slim because of this.

Harvard Rosters
Men's squash: 8 foreign 4 US
Women's squash: 5 foreign 9 US
Men's fencing: 1 foreign 13 US
Women's fencing: 0 foreign 15 US
Field hockey: 13 foreign 13 US

Doesn't look like the odds are too bad for US students in niche sports.

Field hockey is the second-most played sport in the world. Hardly a “niche” sport. At the D1 level American players are definitely competing with Europeans. Even if the roster isn’t majority Netherlands players, they dominate the NCAA.

Does anyone know how the Ivy Index is calculated for internationally recruited athletes?

Anonymous wrote:Is Harvard even good at any sport besides men’s tennis and that is just recent?

Harvard has a very strong men’s ice hockey team. Men’s lacrosse is also a strong program. Women’s lacrosse has been excellent in the past, not sure about more recenty.