Anonymous wrote:My issue has nothing to do with fairness. It has to do with societal values.

Why are institutions of higher education (and state education funds) so focused on recruiting and supporting young adults who play SPORTS.

They should be decoupled.

Anonymous wrote:My issue has nothing to do with fairness. It has to do with societal values.

Why are institutions of higher education (and state education funds) so focused on recruiting and supporting young adults who play SPORTS.

They should be decoupled.

Anonymous wrote:Yawn. Let’s looks at UVA 750 student athletes out of 11,786 undergrads and another 7,000 grad students. That’s just about 4% student athletes. Remember they put 5,000 kids on the wait list. If your kid got reject it is not because of the student athlete.

If they did away with athletic that would be 188 spots. So they would take 188 off the wait list. That’s the last 4% your kid is competing with(if you made the wait list).

UVA has a Legacy admissions preference at roughly 30% per class. Yes they let a legacy kids in with lower scores vs non legacy kid.

Harvard competes in every sport and has a relative small student population. I think they are at 10% student athletes. Their legacy program was about 33%. They have another category of big donors/ important people’s kids. Some of those kids need special tutoring before attending.

You can do this for each and every college and university. Legacy is a bigger problem vs athletes. No one talks about it because those students do not have a high profile and are mostly white.

Anonymous wrote:What does being musically inclined have to do with the Berklee College of Music?????????

Anonymous wrote:The posters who are posting links to studies that support their anti-athlete agendas aren't concerned that college athletic programs are bad for educational institutions or can hurt minority athletes. They care only about themselves, and they're convinced that athletic recruiting somehow and in some way hurts their own kids' admissions chances. It's all about them -- it's not about the common good.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The posters who are posting links to studies that support their anti-athlete agendas aren't concerned that college athletic programs are bad for educational institutions or can hurt minority athletes. They care only about themselves, and they're convinced that athletic recruiting somehow and in some way hurts their own kids' admissions chances. It's all about them -- it's not about the common good.

OR...

... hear me out here...

they're interested and curious and before offering an uneducated opinion thought to, you know, google?

For what it's worth, I have one in college and one in HS. The one in college is studying broadcast journalism at a D1 school and is a huge sports fan. The HS student is פapplying to music programs (and just scored a Berklee audition! Wheeee!)

I am a professional nerd and have this weird thing where I like arguments supported by data and analysis.

But I'm well aware that some individuals prefer arguments supported by personal psychological projections -- so you do you.

This is so unfair. What does being musically inclined have to do with academics? So unfair.

See my point?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The posters who are posting links to studies that support their anti-athlete agendas aren't concerned that college athletic programs are bad for educational institutions or can hurt minority athletes. They care only about themselves, and they're convinced that athletic recruiting somehow and in some way hurts their own kids' admissions chances. It's all about them -- it's not about the common good.

OR...

... hear me out here...

they're interested and curious and before offering an uneducated opinion thought to, you know, google?

For what it's worth, I have one in college and one in HS. The one in college is studying broadcast journalism at a D1 school and is a huge sports fan. The HS student is פapplying to music programs (and just scored a Berklee audition! Wheeee!)

I am a professional nerd and have this weird thing where I like arguments supported by data and analysis.

But I'm well aware that some individuals prefer arguments supported by personal psychological projections -- so you do you.

Anonymous wrote:The posters who are posting links to studies that support their anti-athlete agendas aren't concerned that college athletic programs are bad for educational institutions or can hurt minority athletes. They care only about themselves, and they're convinced that athletic recruiting somehow and in some way hurts their own kids' admissions chances. It's all about them -- it's not about the common good.

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Anonymous wrote:There is nothing wrong with your kid putting hours and hours in to studying and homework, my kid just puts his time into sports. Both can end up on the same school. Colleges want both.

We are aware. Should higher education be focused on admitting more scholar scholars and less on admitting more scholar athletes? Some say yes and some say no.

1 vote for more scholar scholars.

So you want your kid to attend a school of all nerds that spend their hours studying and doing research? IMO college is about developing a person; academics is big part of that but not the entirety. You wouldn’t attend a school that was 100% classes. The college experience is more than studying - there are clubs, greek like, student government, etc.

I know students in other countries. They go to sporting events if they choose. They are admitted into higher academic programs because of academic achievement.

You kid should go to a European school if it is so great. But you won’t because US schools are vastly superior on all levels.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most athletes who are successful in their chosen sport spends hours and hours of training and have the discipline & work ethics to be successful.

Having a specific skill - a sport, musical instrument, singing, dancing is MUCH more rare than a kid with high stats.

Scarcity creates demand thus colleges will fight over an athlete much more than a kid with 1600 SAT/4.0+ GPA.

I have one kid who is academic and another who is athletic but I guild them not to be defined by it. You are more than your grades, school or sport.

Be a good person and kind to others!

This x100
My son is a recruited athlete. He also has (at the moment) a 4.43 GPA while balancing studying and at least 22 hours of practice and games a week.
He never says a word but I see some of his peers that pull down just as high a GPA but do not have as a time intensvie extracuricular and think that they have it so much easier.
So, to update the OP's thread title "Athletes have such an edge and so do the kids who do not put in the time away from studying that the athletes do"

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Anonymous wrote:You haven’t figured out that our society values sports over education?

But you can get into a good school with amazing academics and zero athletics, but if you have amazing athletics you still need academics that are far above average.

It's higher EDUCATION...not higher athletics.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be this way, with every student held to academic standards. I'm saying that you can't argue that when a school has academic requirements for every student, and athletic requirements for a few students, that they value athletics over education.

Every athlete has an academic requirement and an athletic requirement. They are held to a higher standard overall. They also commit to a full time job working for the school.