Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am laughing at this veneration of the “student athlete”. I’ve had two kids graduate high school and many of their friends went on to D3 schools to play their sports. Most of them were pretty average players on on a crappy MCPS high school team. Based on my observation, outside of the top SLACs, it’s not all that hard to get on a D3 team. I am honesty shocked some of these kids were recruited.

The hard thing is the academics. Running or skating or throwing a ball is not the hard part.

Outside of the top ten or so, SLACs are very easy admits, particularly for boys. My kid was recruited by tons of SLACs for his sport, but he had no interest because he was focused on academics and so he attends a D1 school. For the STEM education. No chance of competing as a freshman, but he trains with the team and hopes to compete in the next year or two. A SLAC would have been the mediocre choice - both for the education and the quality of the athletics.

Geez, imagine how silly all those highly selective STEM grad programs that disproportionately enroll LAC alumni will feel when they learn they are actually just mediocre schools.

Why is this something that should be discussed more?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wesleyan

http://wesleyanargus.com/2022/10/06/separated-spaces-rethinking-dining-hall-divisions/

a divide between athletes and non-athletes that was so deeply ingrained in the culture that the dining hall itself was divided into rooms based on this distinction, as if the division was promoted by the school itself. Arriving on campus in the fall, I almost immediately noticed this in most sectors of social life, including in the dining hall.

Read the entire article. The author, a non-athlete, realized that any "divide" wasn't necessarily the result of athlete actions. And that athletes are actually a minority on campus.

It’s important to remember that athletes are also in the minority. And while the word “minority” may come with implications and assumptions that we may feel uncomfortable using to reference Wesleyan student athletes, in this context, numerically, they are a minority on campus. And so, in some ways, they are an outgroup. It is easy to blame groups without numerical strength for problems that exist in a given space, and I think many of us, myself included, have accidentally done this. There is comfort in blaming athletes solely for the divided nature of our campus culture because we know there are more non-athletes to back us up than athletes to argue with us.

The other problem is that a lot of the anti-athlete sentiment has a distinctive racist tinge. And yes, I know about sailing and all that. But it doesn’t change the fact that a lot of the anti-athlete sentiment started when athletics started to be used to bring Black students to these campuses, and the language used hasn’t changed much.

athletes are LACS are largely white and rich. there's a lot of data on this.

You know that most of these top schools are now less white than the general population, right?

And athletes are the last bastion of rich kids.

So you feel the objective should be to drive out the remaining rich kids? Given that the thread shared data suggesting private universities and LACs have fairly similar recruiting levels, it’s your preference there are no more rich kids at private colleges? Or you just don’t like private colleges period?

Anonymous wrote:I don't have an athlete, but I am fine with athletes getting a leg up because that is a legitimate metric of effort, organizational skills, hard work, team work etc. It's legacy and race advantages that I have major issues with.

Ok, but then by that standard, any kid who plays four years on a high school team and/or club team, should get extra consideration regardless their plans to play in college.

You are just so jealous. Have your kid go outside and walk for 30 minutes a day. They might understand the love of moving your body and not NOT doing SAT prep courses.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wesleyan

http://wesleyanargus.com/2022/10/06/separated-spaces-rethinking-dining-hall-divisions/

a divide between athletes and non-athletes that was so deeply ingrained in the culture that the dining hall itself was divided into rooms based on this distinction, as if the division was promoted by the school itself. Arriving on campus in the fall, I almost immediately noticed this in most sectors of social life, including in the dining hall.

Read the entire article. The author, a non-athlete, realized that any "divide" wasn't necessarily the result of athlete actions. And that athletes are actually a minority on campus.

It’s important to remember that athletes are also in the minority. And while the word “minority” may come with implications and assumptions that we may feel uncomfortable using to reference Wesleyan student athletes, in this context, numerically, they are a minority on campus. And so, in some ways, they are an outgroup. It is easy to blame groups without numerical strength for problems that exist in a given space, and I think many of us, myself included, have accidentally done this. There is comfort in blaming athletes solely for the divided nature of our campus culture because we know there are more non-athletes to back us up than athletes to argue with us.

The other problem is that a lot of the anti-athlete sentiment has a distinctive racist tinge. And yes, I know about sailing and all that. But it doesn’t change the fact that a lot of the anti-athlete sentiment started when athletics started to be used to bring Black students to these campuses, and the language used hasn’t changed much.

athletes are LACS are largely white and rich. there's a lot of data on this.

You know that most of these top schools are now less white than the general population, right?

And athletes are the last bastion of rich kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wesleyan

http://wesleyanargus.com/2022/10/06/separated-spaces-rethinking-dining-hall-divisions/

a divide between athletes and non-athletes that was so deeply ingrained in the culture that the dining hall itself was divided into rooms based on this distinction, as if the division was promoted by the school itself. Arriving on campus in the fall, I almost immediately noticed this in most sectors of social life, including in the dining hall.

Read the entire article. The author, a non-athlete, realized that any "divide" wasn't necessarily the result of athlete actions. And that athletes are actually a minority on campus.

It’s important to remember that athletes are also in the minority. And while the word “minority” may come with implications and assumptions that we may feel uncomfortable using to reference Wesleyan student athletes, in this context, numerically, they are a minority on campus. And so, in some ways, they are an outgroup. It is easy to blame groups without numerical strength for problems that exist in a given space, and I think many of us, myself included, have accidentally done this. There is comfort in blaming athletes solely for the divided nature of our campus culture because we know there are more non-athletes to back us up than athletes to argue with us.

The other problem is that a lot of the anti-athlete sentiment has a distinctive racist tinge. And yes, I know about sailing and all that. But it doesn’t change the fact that a lot of the anti-athlete sentiment started when athletics started to be used to bring Black students to these campuses, and the language used hasn’t changed much.

athletes are LACS are largely white and rich. there's a lot of data on this.

You know that most of these top schools are now less white than the general population, right?

I don't have an athlete, but I am fine with athletes getting a leg up because that is a legitimate metric of effort, organizational skills, hard work, team work etc. It's legacy and race advantages that I have major issues with.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am laughing at this veneration of the “student athlete”. I’ve had two kids graduate high school and many of their friends went on to D3 schools to play their sports. Most of them were pretty average players on on a crappy MCPS high school team. Based on my observation, outside of the top SLACs, it’s not all that hard to get on a D3 team. I am honesty shocked some of these kids were recruited.

The hard thing is the academics. Running or skating or throwing a ball is not the hard part.

Outside of the top ten or so, SLACs are very easy admits, particularly for boys. My kid was recruited by tons of SLACs for his sport, but he had no interest because he was focused on academics and so he attends a D1 school. For the STEM education. No chance of competing as a freshman, but he trains with the team and hopes to compete in the next year or two. A SLAC would have been the mediocre choice - both for the education and the quality of the athletics.

This is so incorrect (and ignorant) it must be a troll.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am laughing at this veneration of the “student athlete”. I’ve had two kids graduate high school and many of their friends went on to D3 schools to play their sports. Most of them were pretty average players on on a crappy MCPS high school team. Based on my observation, outside of the top SLACs, it’s not all that hard to get on a D3 team. I am honesty shocked some of these kids were recruited.

The hard thing is the academics. Running or skating or throwing a ball is not the hard part.

Outside of the top ten or so, SLACs are very easy admits, particularly for boys. My kid was recruited by tons of SLACs for his sport, but he had no interest because he was focused on academics and so he attends a D1 school. For the STEM education. No chance of competing as a freshman, but he trains with the team and hopes to compete in the next year or two. A SLAC would have been the mediocre choice - both for the education and the quality of the athletics.

Anonymous wrote:I am laughing at this veneration of the “student athlete”. I’ve had two kids graduate high school and many of their friends went on to D3 schools to play their sports. Most of them were pretty average players on on a crappy MCPS high school team. Based on my observation, outside of the top SLACs, it’s not all that hard to get on a D3 team. I am honesty shocked some of these kids were recruited.

The hard thing is the academics. Running or skating or throwing a ball is not the hard part.

I am laughing at this veneration of the “student athlete”. I’ve had two kids graduate high school and many of their friends went on to D3 schools to play their sports. Most of them were pretty average players on on a crappy MCPS high school team. Based on my observation, outside of the top SLACs, it’s not all that hard to get on a D3 team. I am honesty shocked some of these kids were recruited.

Three issues have come up in this thread: (1) Benefits (or not) of college sports; (2) recruiting advantages; (3) impact on student culture overall

1. Benefits of college sports

The studies about the benefits of sports in college typically have to do with success of student-athlete alums in their life generally and their reported satisfaction with their college experience. This is a recent one from Gallup (produced for the NCAA, but it's consistent with other research sources)

https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/research/other/2020/2020RES_GallupNCAA_DIII.pdf

That life success/happiness would be a legitimate goal for a college even if it did not lead to donations, although the Gallup reported suggested it did and the difference in giving was greatest among DIII athletes.

2. Recruiting advantages

SLACs definitely recruit, even at MIT and Cal Tech, but that doesn't necessarily mean they give the recruits an advantage in admissions. For most recruited (non walk-on) DIII SLAC student-athletes, that isn't what happens. Even if you are told the coach will support your application, they don't tell your kid whether that actually was necessary. It's part of the sales job. For most students, they were "recruited" in the sense that the interest from the coach was what persuaded the student to go that school rather than another school. It's what got them to apply ED, which means they couldn't compare merit-based scholarship opportunities at multiple schools and pick the best package (or even financial aid as long as the school met your demonstrated need, even though some could be more generous in how they define your need). At most SLACs (and many non-SLACs), the benefit to ED is increasing your chance of getting admitted, either with slightly reduced stats or just not having to be compared to all possible candidates with pretty similar stats within a range. So, you might find students of all kinds, not just athletes, who get into a school with a bit lower than the median because they applied ED. There are schools that go the other way and it's harder to get in ED, but those tend to be Ivy and not SLACs.

As a result, in addition to sports producing positive life outcomes for the students post-college, sports are a hook for the school to get kids to chose their school. That's true even at very selective schools since the best students have choices. Kids turn down top SLACs for a bit lower ranked SLACs all the time because the coach wants them and they think they will have a better experience with the team, an earlier path to playing time etc. It's a very powerful recruiting tool.

3. Impact on student culture overall

This varies from school to school, but there's little argument that student clubs, fraternities and sororities, and sports teams lead people to spend more of their time with smaller groups. It's definitely lonelier if your roommate is gone a lot with their sports team for early practices and late games. Sports take a lot of time, but mostly in season. Theater or acapella groups might be similar, grouped around performances. Clubs might occupy less of your time weekly, but go on all year. In all cases, the intense time spent together may cause the people to hang out together all the time. None of that inherently means the culture of the school is "hurt," other than in the sense that the advice to all students is to get involved and join things as a way to meet people. It's more apparent in a smaller student body, though, and "sports" are singled out, as if all sports teams are the same (they aren't - some dine, live, and party together, others don't). A more apt statement would be that people who don't join anything feel pretty lonely and excluded at a small school if most of the students are joining groups.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not American so I don’t understand this phenomenon. I can understand big state schools where having a big football team
might draw money or attention to school. Why would a SLAC care if someone fences or sails?Is it a way for well off but academically mediocre students to get in? Or do these students have the same qualifications as the non-athletes? Doesn’t it hurt the schools reputation as an academic-centered college? Sorry lots of questions.

They care because the athletes donate a lot more money than other groups over the years and as a whole tend to be more successful career-wise. That’s really why they do it: the athletes donate back to the schools in ways other groups don’t.

And athletes tend to be from richer families, which is more likely why they have more money to donate and earn more. It’s a good way to affirmative action the rich which is good for the business of college.

(Sorry, replied to wrong post.)

I haven't seen data that supports the notion that families of athletes are more likely to donate.

There is data that successful D1 sports programs make schools money, but those aren't LACs, with the exception of outliers like Davidson.

It interesting that the highly ranked private schools that don't consider legacy status are primarily D3, either LAC (eg Amherst, Bryn Mawr, Carleton, Pomona, Wesleyan) or university (eg MIT, Caltech, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon).

https://www.collegekickstart.com/blog/item/se...nsider-legacy-status

It is hilarious that people think colleges themselves don't have the data telling them which students are most likely to become donating alumni.

D3 sports are not revenue centers anywhere. There are other reasons colleges have sports teams. For all the people railing about sports here, many students think athletics add a lot to their college experience. As another PP notes, it's actually a relatively small percentage of D3 athletes who are recruited. A large number are walk-ons. That means they were admitted without any athletic hook. One would think those students are happy they have the opportunity to play.

It's almost as if people have forgotten that the Ivy League is an athletic conference. And a lot of the most prestigious SLACs also have long sports histories:

Bowdoin-- organized sports began in 1828, with gymnastics. The football field dates to 1896.

Williams-- the gym was built in 1886. Williams played in the first ever college baseball game against Amherst in 1859. Williams first played Amherst in football in 1884

Amherst--see above. Claims to have the oldest athletics program in the U.S. Ultimate frisbee got its start here in the 1960s.

Middlebury-- first official football team was organized in 1886

Do I need to go on? These old New England schools have always had big sports cultures. If that offends your kid, they should look elsewhere.

I might agree with you if not for the consensus that these teams play to empty stands. If that is true, then the athletics are important to just the athletes and not to the student body at large.

Do the theater productions play to empty theaters? Honest question.

I was coming on to say the same - there is another thread on it, and no one has been able to cite a d3 slac with sports that attracts a student body crowd. My kids attend 2 different nescacs, one as a recruited athlete, and they report no one attends the games. However, a large percentage of kids at the colleges are on teams.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wesleyan

http://wesleyanargus.com/2022/10/06/separated-spaces-rethinking-dining-hall-divisions/

a divide between athletes and non-athletes that was so deeply ingrained in the culture that the dining hall itself was divided into rooms based on this distinction, as if the division was promoted by the school itself. Arriving on campus in the fall, I almost immediately noticed this in most sectors of social life, including in the dining hall.

Read the entire article. The author, a non-athlete, realized that any "divide" wasn't necessarily the result of athlete actions. And that athletes are actually a minority on campus.

It’s important to remember that athletes are also in the minority. And while the word “minority” may come with implications and assumptions that we may feel uncomfortable using to reference Wesleyan student athletes, in this context, numerically, they are a minority on campus. And so, in some ways, they are an outgroup. It is easy to blame groups without numerical strength for problems that exist in a given space, and I think many of us, myself included, have accidentally done this. There is comfort in blaming athletes solely for the divided nature of our campus culture because we know there are more non-athletes to back us up than athletes to argue with us.

The other problem is that a lot of the anti-athlete sentiment has a distinctive racist tinge. And yes, I know about sailing and all that. But it doesn’t change the fact that a lot of the anti-athlete sentiment started when athletics started to be used to bring Black students to these campuses, and the language used hasn’t changed much.

athletes are LACS are largely white and rich. there's a lot of data on this.