Anonymous
11/26/2024 06:38
Subject: Re:I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
Anonymous wrote:It's simple their graduation rates are higher.
A athlete’s have higher GPAs and tend to give more money to the school when they graduate.
Anonymous
11/26/2024 06:25
Subject: I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:My recruited athlete has a 35 on his ACT, and a wGPA of 4.8. Why not recruit high stats athletes if their scores fall in the range of accepted students? Better than a legacy or child of a big donor.
The problem is that recruited athletes with the minimum stats or above push ahead of kids equally or way more qualified. It doesn't even need to be about unqualified kids taking spots, but that less qualified kids take spots. Cherry picking your son out to say, "See! Athletes are smart!!!!!" doesn't help your stance. Of course, there are some that are 75% or higher in stats but: a) that is not the minority; and b) they take spots over more acadmically qualified kids.
P.S. A weighted GPA of a 4.8 is dumb.
This is not a good argument. If you complain that smart athletes "take spots over academically qualified kids", then surely you can see that there are also "academically qualified kids" taking spots from kids more accomplished in other interests than they are.
So what makes you think an ideal college class is only for the most academically qualified ?
Anonymous
11/26/2024 06:11
Subject: I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:This is a very tired topic. Parents without athletes hate the recruited athlete hook. We get it.
We also get it. Parents with kids in sports but not good in academics or intelligence hate the smart, hardworking, academically talented kids and denigrate them as STRIVERS!
Well, that didn't take long to fall into the "unqualified athlete" bit.
It is hard for many of you to believe, but there are kids who are good enough athletically to be recruited and simultaneously are smart, hardworking, and academically talented. And most of the time, these are the ones that end up at top LACs. Sorry that doesn't fit your narrative. But it is the truth.
+1 indeed the LACs get a lot of all-rounders. I don't think it is a narrative issue with the STRIVERS poster, it is just ignorance.
Anonymous
11/26/2024 05:55
Subject: Re:I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
You can calculate the data from CDS and US DoE OPE. Using these sources 35% of Williams students (745 out of 2097 attending) participated in at least one varsity sport. Even assuming ALL of the varsity students are recruited athletes, that is still 35% at tops.
Now here is the kicker. At Williams there are approx 186 recruited athletes per class (745/4), out of 1145 offered admission. That is only 16%. (People forget that the number of admits is higher than the number enrolled.) So for those who believe that recruited athletes take away admission opportunities at SLACs from non-athletes at a high level , that is not true.
As far as the cultural differences go, these are more interest based than anything else. DS very strong academically, attends WASP, not recruited athlete, but also outdoorsy. Has easily made friends with the geeks and with the athletes. At WASP, many of the recruited athletes also have strong GPA and SAT scores and are all-rounders. I think this cultural divide is overblown. No need to scapegoat recruited athletes. Like in the real world, those with good interpersonal skills will make friends with everyone, those with poor interpersonal skills need to fix that.
Now here is the kicker. At Williams there are approx 186 recruited athletes per class (745/4), out of 1145 offered admission. That is only 16%. (People forget that the number of admits is higher than the number enrolled.) So for those who believe that recruited athletes take away admission opportunities at SLACs from non-athletes at a high level , that is not true.
As far as the cultural differences go, these are more interest based than anything else. DS very strong academically, attends WASP, not recruited athlete, but also outdoorsy. Has easily made friends with the geeks and with the athletes. At WASP, many of the recruited athletes also have strong GPA and SAT scores and are all-rounders. I think this cultural divide is overblown. No need to scapegoat recruited athletes. Like in the real world, those with good interpersonal skills will make friends with everyone, those with poor interpersonal skills need to fix that.
Anonymous
11/25/2024 23:44
Subject: Re:I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:On a related topic, do any of the SLACs have a decent sports culture? Meaning, kids actually go to the football, basketball, etc. games and while they know they are not competing for the NCAA championship...at least care about winning whatever D3 division in which they compete?
It is comical that if you go to the MIT baseball field, they don't have just one set of bleachers...they literally just have one bleacher (other people call that a bench).
When it rains you can sit in the dugout.
Why would anyone not on the team or dating someone on the team go to a random game? The other kids are busy doing their things. I could see taking time out from studying to see your roommate's theater production or concert since at least you get a cultural bump from that, but why take time out from studying or working on your own sport or EC to sit for hours watching grass grown on an amateur baseball field?
Anonymous
11/25/2024 23:32
Subject: I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
Athletic recruits...Only in America.
I see the value but it takes a lot of getting used to.
I see the value but it takes a lot of getting used to.
Anonymous
11/25/2024 23:23
Subject: Re:I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
Anonymous wrote:On a related topic, do any of the SLACs have a decent sports culture? Meaning, kids actually go to the football, basketball, etc. games and while they know they are not competing for the NCAA championship...at least care about winning whatever D3 division in which they compete?
It is comical that if you go to the MIT baseball field, they don't have just one set of bleachers...they literally just have one bleacher (other people call that a bench).
When it rains you can sit in the dugout.
Anonymous
11/25/2024 21:40
Subject: I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
Anonymous wrote:So my son is heavily recruited by SLACs and LACs. He is still being HOUNDED and is a 2024. They also somehow produce "merit" money, which we all know is just disguised athletic scolarships. It makes it even worse that he is top 5% of his class. However he won't even look at a school that isn't ABET Accredited. Not sure why so many LACs go after athletes beucase it does not seem to me that athletics bring in much money, if any at all for these schools.
They “hound” every student-athlete with a pulse in a 200 mile radius because they would quite literally go bankrupt and close down without filling half of every class with kids who can’t hang up the sport ball dreams.
Anonymous
Anonymous
10/27/2023 18:42
Subject: Re:I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
Some of the frustration with "white privilege" in the athletic context is likely based on studies and books which used data that's quickly become dated. There is currently an over representation of white NCAA athletes, but the magnitude, rate of change, and self-selection tendencies by certain groups for different division levels might be different than what's been implied in some posts on this thread.
The percentage of NCAA athletes that are non-Hispanic white has dropped by an average of almost 1% a year for the past ten years at all three NCAA levels (8% total overall drop for each, which seems very unlikely to be due to chance). At present, white athletes across all divisions combined make up about 3% more than in the general population (62 vs 59.) Over that period, Black athletes have been steady and also higher than their general population figure (16% vs 14%), so the percentage lost by whites over the last decade has gone to other groups. If the trend continues, total NCAA white athlete representation will be lower than the general population sometime around 2026 or 2027. At present, the most clearly underrepresented groups would include Hispanic (7% athletes vs 19% for general population) and Asian (2% vs 6%.)
The percentage of white athletes is indeed higher at the D3 level (72%) than at the D1 (55%) where they already are underrepresented relative to the general population (59%). That difference is partly because the percentage of Black athletes is higher at D1 schools than at D3. An athlete already good enough to get recruited by a D1 school would receive even more interest at the D3 level if they chose to seek it. Black athletes are the only domestic group with a significantly larger share at the D1 level than D3 (20% vs 10%; Two or More Races also goes up but the numbers are much smaller, 6% vs 4%; of note, Intl is 7% vs 1%.) So it would appear it's more common for a given Black athlete than a given white one (or any other domestic group) to self-select D1 athletic scholarships and higher/pre-professional level of competition and greater institutional brand awareness (ie, universities tend to be better known generally) over going to smaller schools to have, on average, better access to professors and smaller classes. Also worth bearing in mind is that D3 schools will likely have the highest percentage of walk-ons.
None of this has anything directly to do with the false claim made in the title of this thread. LACs as a group might average ~15% recruits per cohort, but certainly not "40%+."
The NCAA offers a fairly thorough demographic database (it's updated through 22 despite the url saying 2018.) It doesn't separate out by recruit vs walk-on or by league, as far as I can tell.
https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2018/12/13/ncaa-demographics-database.aspx
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045222
The percentage of NCAA athletes that are non-Hispanic white has dropped by an average of almost 1% a year for the past ten years at all three NCAA levels (8% total overall drop for each, which seems very unlikely to be due to chance). At present, white athletes across all divisions combined make up about 3% more than in the general population (62 vs 59.) Over that period, Black athletes have been steady and also higher than their general population figure (16% vs 14%), so the percentage lost by whites over the last decade has gone to other groups. If the trend continues, total NCAA white athlete representation will be lower than the general population sometime around 2026 or 2027. At present, the most clearly underrepresented groups would include Hispanic (7% athletes vs 19% for general population) and Asian (2% vs 6%.)
The percentage of white athletes is indeed higher at the D3 level (72%) than at the D1 (55%) where they already are underrepresented relative to the general population (59%). That difference is partly because the percentage of Black athletes is higher at D1 schools than at D3. An athlete already good enough to get recruited by a D1 school would receive even more interest at the D3 level if they chose to seek it. Black athletes are the only domestic group with a significantly larger share at the D1 level than D3 (20% vs 10%; Two or More Races also goes up but the numbers are much smaller, 6% vs 4%; of note, Intl is 7% vs 1%.) So it would appear it's more common for a given Black athlete than a given white one (or any other domestic group) to self-select D1 athletic scholarships and higher/pre-professional level of competition and greater institutional brand awareness (ie, universities tend to be better known generally) over going to smaller schools to have, on average, better access to professors and smaller classes. Also worth bearing in mind is that D3 schools will likely have the highest percentage of walk-ons.
None of this has anything directly to do with the false claim made in the title of this thread. LACs as a group might average ~15% recruits per cohort, but certainly not "40%+."
The NCAA offers a fairly thorough demographic database (it's updated through 22 despite the url saying 2018.) It doesn't separate out by recruit vs walk-on or by league, as far as I can tell.
https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2018/12/13/ncaa-demographics-database.aspx
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045222
Anonymous
10/27/2023 15:24
Subject: I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
Anonymous wrote:So my son is heavily recruited by SLACs and LACs. He is still being HOUNDED and is a 2024. They also somehow produce "merit" money, which we all know is just disguised athletic scolarships. It makes it even worse that he is top 5% of his class. However he won't even look at a school that isn't ABET Accredited. Not sure why so many LACs go after athletes beucase it does not seem to me that athletics bring in much money, if any at all for these schools.
ABET accredited? That's a pretty bizarrely low (and random) bar. After all, DeVry University, Central Ohio Technical College, and Trinidad State Junior College are all ABET accredited. Why don't you just say he wants to major in engineering and most LACs don't have an engineering major? Would he turn down Harvey Mudd just because it's a LAC?
Anonymous
10/27/2023 13:49
Subject: I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
So my son is heavily recruited by SLACs and LACs. He is still being HOUNDED and is a 2024. They also somehow produce "merit" money, which we all know is just disguised athletic scolarships. It makes it even worse that he is top 5% of his class. However he won't even look at a school that isn't ABET Accredited. Not sure why so many LACs go after athletes beucase it does not seem to me that athletics bring in much money, if any at all for these schools.
Anonymous
10/27/2023 13:33
Subject: Re:I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
My DD and DS are both college students. They played sports in high school, but were not good enough or committed enough to be recruited athletes. They do not play a sport in college.
I honestly think it's fine if recruited athletes get a preference in admission. It takes a lot of hard work and discipline to be able to play a sport at a high level. Most kids quit sports, unfortunately.
(BTW, I wish high schools pressed the essential importance of fitness in everyday life. I know that there is PE, but at my younger DD's middle school, it is so focused on sports. I think it would be better to focus on fitness, for those who don't want to compete in a sport. It's sad to see the level of fitness of a lot of kids/teens in this country.)
I honestly think it's fine if recruited athletes get a preference in admission. It takes a lot of hard work and discipline to be able to play a sport at a high level. Most kids quit sports, unfortunately.
(BTW, I wish high schools pressed the essential importance of fitness in everyday life. I know that there is PE, but at my younger DD's middle school, it is so focused on sports. I think it would be better to focus on fitness, for those who don't want to compete in a sport. It's sad to see the level of fitness of a lot of kids/teens in this country.)
Anonymous
10/27/2023 06:30
Subject: Re:I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
It’s more impressive and meaningful if you are good at your sport and have good grades too. It really shows that you have grit, work ethic and smarts too. I hire at a bank and my favorite hires are grads from top colleges who were athletes or in the army. Over my 24 year career, they have been consistently the best employees.
Ie my favorite hires are WASP candidates from top colleges.
You don’t even see your implicit racism.
I’m sure non athleties from top colleges would perform as well, unless your bank has a competitive squash team required to hit your numbers.
You seem quite ignorant.
Someone who goes out of his way to hire from the Army is almost certainly hiring a far more diverse group than people who hire from top colleges only.
Depends. Office class runs very white and Protestant, and I doubt you are taking from the enlisted which are diverse. Nice try though, waving the patriotic flag and all, but I grew up surrounded by military families so I know the real drill.
If you grew up around military officers, you would know that they are very diverse, and have been for quite some time.
Oh please. Service academies are so white (80%) that the Supreme Court exempted them from the decision banning the use of race in admissions. The officer corps in the US armed forces is about 75% white. [But the military does not consider Hispanic to be a race, so the numbers for whites (and each other race) include those who identify as Hispanic.] And let’s not discuss the gender gap. [If women want to be military officers, there is absolutely nothing stopping them, but they don't.]
It’s pretty consistent with athletes at “top” colleges who are also somewhere around 60-70% white.
In short, if you wanted to hire white men without saying you only wanted to hire white men you would be hard pressed to find better proxies than ex military officers and athletes from top colleges.
West Point is 64% white and 12% black
Naval Academy is 62% white and 12% black
Air Force Academy is 64% white and 11% black
These are all roughly in line with the US population. You'd have to be pretty damn stupid to imagine the military academies do not have a deliberate policy of ensuring diversity in their classes, but yeah that's you.
If women want to be military officers, there’s nothing stopping them. You are hilarious. They have been so many court cases about abuse and rape… nothing to you and your white male posse I suppose.
Sure the service academies may select for better diversity, but the resulting officer population is 70% — we could speculate on the reasons but as far your hiring process, it skews heavily WASP on all fronts.
https://api.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/2022/08/05/90d128cb/active-component-demographic-report-june-2022.pdf
The 70% is for the army. Navy and Air Force is closer to 80%. My point stands.
Anonymous
10/27/2023 01:13
Subject: Re:I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
It’s more impressive and meaningful if you are good at your sport and have good grades too. It really shows that you have grit, work ethic and smarts too. I hire at a bank and my favorite hires are grads from top colleges who were athletes or in the army. Over my 24 year career, they have been consistently the best employees.
Ie my favorite hires are WASP candidates from top colleges.
You don’t even see your implicit racism.
I’m sure non athleties from top colleges would perform as well, unless your bank has a competitive squash team required to hit your numbers.
You seem quite ignorant.
Someone who goes out of his way to hire from the Army is almost certainly hiring a far more diverse group than people who hire from top colleges only.
Depends. Office class runs very white and Protestant, and I doubt you are taking from the enlisted which are diverse. Nice try though, waving the patriotic flag and all, but I grew up surrounded by military families so I know the real drill.
If you grew up around military officers, you would know that they are very diverse, and have been for quite some time.
Oh please. Service academies are so white (80%) that the Supreme Court exempted them from the decision banning the use of race in admissions. The officer corps in the US armed forces is about 75% white. [But the military does not consider Hispanic to be a race, so the numbers for whites (and each other race) include those who identify as Hispanic.] And let’s not discuss the gender gap. [If women want to be military officers, there is absolutely nothing stopping them, but they don't.]
It’s pretty consistent with athletes at “top” colleges who are also somewhere around 60-70% white.
In short, if you wanted to hire white men without saying you only wanted to hire white men you would be hard pressed to find better proxies than ex military officers and athletes from top colleges.
West Point is 64% white and 12% black
Naval Academy is 62% white and 12% black
Air Force Academy is 64% white and 11% black
These are all roughly in line with the US population. You'd have to be pretty damn stupid to imagine the military academies do not have a deliberate policy of ensuring diversity in their classes, but yeah that's you.
If women want to be military officers, there’s nothing stopping them. You are hilarious. They have been so many court cases about abuse and rape… nothing to you and your white male posse I suppose.
Sure the service academies may select for better diversity, but the resulting officer population is 70% — we could speculate on the reasons but as far your hiring process, it skews heavily WASP on all fronts.
https://api.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/2022/08/05/90d128cb/active-component-demographic-report-june-2022.pdf