Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. There is "in addition" to academic merit, and there is "in place of". Athletes recruited by the Ivies need a minimum of a "B-" GPA according to an agreement signed by all the Ivy schools. Try getting in to an Ivy on merit alone with a GPA of B-. The SAT scores of recruited athletes also have a minimum that are hundreds of points lower than a true merit admission. Legacies do not have the same academic records often times - though there are some like my child who probably would have gotten in on his own. Why take the chance though! And plenty of check-the-box applicants who are held to different standards. See the lawsuit against Harvard for that discussion. So I wouldn't jump all over PP for not saying "in addition to" academic merit. That just simply isn't true in a lot of cases. If you can't admit that, then you don't live in the real world.

Wow are your facts wrong! Parent of a recruited athlete to Yale here. You should do some research on how the Academic Index works before commenting. The ignorance of your comments is astounding.

Actually, this post is pretty darn accurate for Brown and Penn, since I had two sons recruited for different sports at both. Actually, the Washington Post published a lot of these same guidelines a few weeks ago. I remember the SAT minimums being under 2000 and one of my sons told he had to keep his GPA to a B- to get recruited to Penn. Hard to believe that Yale would do things radically different. But there's no doubt that athletes in demand do not need to be on par merit-wise with regular applicants.

Fun with numbers. The median Academic Index for students at Yale is roughly 230. This equates to a 2,255 combined SAT and an unweighted GPA of 3.9. The Ivy League guidelines require that any individual recruited sports team has an average AI that is no more than one standard deviation below the overall school's average (technically, the measure is against the incoming class' average, but overall school average is close enough). So, the standard is not some absolute number for the entire league but is measured against the individual school's standards. Back to the numbers. One standard deviation on the AI is roughly 15 points, so this would require that the recruited class for the football team and the hockey team and the swimming team each as a separate matter would have an average AI of at least 215. There are a few ways of getting to the 215. An athlete could have a combined SAT of 2,100 (700 on each section) and clear the bar of 215 with an unweighted GPA of 3.6. Or, if he/she was an exceptional test taker and scored a 2,250 on the SAT, then he/she could make the target with an unweighted GPA of 3.4. Even a 2,400 SAT would not allow you to achieve an AI of 215 with a B- (or 2.7 GPA) as some would suggest here. Granted, there are some athletes who score below the average AI, for whom there needs to be a counterbalancing above average recruit on the other side, and the absolute floor that is discussed is present to remove the moral hazard of sabotaging the school's overall academic standards in pursuit of stronger athletics (leveler for the field of schools). This floor is not at all operable when you are having a serious and factual recruiting conversation with a coach at a place like Yale or Harvard or Princeton.

So, while it is easy to throw out second hand stories about such and such potentially Ivy League recruited athlete, when it comes to formalizing a commitment the numbers just have to add up. Further, to generalize that all recruited athletes fall in one particular place on the spectrum is also a mistake. Bottom line: B- = Rejected at Yale even if you are the next Calvin Hill.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. There is "in addition" to academic merit, and there is "in place of". Athletes recruited by the Ivies need a minimum of a "B-" GPA according to an agreement signed by all the Ivy schools. Try getting in to an Ivy on merit alone with a GPA of B-. The SAT scores of recruited athletes also have a minimum that are hundreds of points lower than a true merit admission. Legacies do not have the same academic records often times - though there are some like my child who probably would have gotten in on his own. Why take the chance though! And plenty of check-the-box applicants who are held to different standards. See the lawsuit against Harvard for that discussion. So I wouldn't jump all over PP for not saying "in addition to" academic merit. That just simply isn't true in a lot of cases. If you can't admit that, then you don't live in the real world.

Wow are your facts wrong! Parent of a recruited athlete to Yale here. You should do some research on how the Academic Index works before commenting. The ignorance of your comments is astounding.

Actually, this post is pretty darn accurate for Brown and Penn, since I had two sons recruited for different sports at both. Actually, the Washington Post published a lot of these same guidelines a few weeks ago. I remember the SAT minimums being under 2000 and one of my sons told he had to keep his GPA to a B- to get recruited to Penn. Hard to believe that Yale would do things radically different. But there's no doubt that athletes in demand do not need to be on par merit-wise with regular applicants.

I think there could be a difference. Yale is in an altogether different league than Penn.

Haha. Actually since we are talking about sports here technically Yale is in exactly the same league as Penn. The Ivy League.

+1.

Separately, a floor of B- is different from practice. I know 4 area athletic recruits to one Ivy (DC's Ivy for DC's year, although DC wasn't recruited, nor is DC the legacy from that inane post above). Of these 4 athletic recruits, 3 were NMSSFs (I simply don't know about the 4th). 2 were from area magnets, one was from a Big 3, and 1 was from a respected area public. The point is, these kids were smart. Now, none of these athletic recruits were for football, basketball or baseball, which may or may not dip down to the B- kids, but for these high-profile sports we're only talking about a relative handful of kids, max 1-2 from a given high school, and not all of the recruits will have B- averages anyway.

At SFS there was also one to Dartmouth and one to Barnard.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. There is "in addition" to academic merit, and there is "in place of". Athletes recruited by the Ivies need a minimum of a "B-" GPA according to an agreement signed by all the Ivy schools. Try getting in to an Ivy on merit alone with a GPA of B-. The SAT scores of recruited athletes also have a minimum that are hundreds of points lower than a true merit admission. Legacies do not have the same academic records often times - though there are some like my child who probably would have gotten in on his own. Why take the chance though! And plenty of check-the-box applicants who are held to different standards. See the lawsuit against Harvard for that discussion. So I wouldn't jump all over PP for not saying "in addition to" academic merit. That just simply isn't true in a lot of cases. If you can't admit that, then you don't live in the real world.

Wow are your facts wrong! Parent of a recruited athlete to Yale here. You should do some research on how the Academic Index works before commenting. The ignorance of your comments is astounding.

Actually, this post is pretty darn accurate for Brown and Penn, since I had two sons recruited for different sports at both. Actually, the Washington Post published a lot of these same guidelines a few weeks ago. I remember the SAT minimums being under 2000 and one of my sons told he had to keep his GPA to a B- to get recruited to Penn. Hard to believe that Yale would do things radically different. But there's no doubt that athletes in demand do not need to be on par merit-wise with regular applicants.

I think there could be a difference. Yale is in an altogether different league than Penn.

Haha. Actually since we are talking about sports here technically Yale is in exactly the same league as Penn. The Ivy League.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. There is "in addition" to academic merit, and there is "in place of". Athletes recruited by the Ivies need a minimum of a "B-" GPA according to an agreement signed by all the Ivy schools. Try getting in to an Ivy on merit alone with a GPA of B-. The SAT scores of recruited athletes also have a minimum that are hundreds of points lower than a true merit admission. Legacies do not have the same academic records often times - though there are some like my child who probably would have gotten in on his own. Why take the chance though! And plenty of check-the-box applicants who are held to different standards. See the lawsuit against Harvard for that discussion. So I wouldn't jump all over PP for not saying "in addition to" academic merit. That just simply isn't true in a lot of cases. If you can't admit that, then you don't live in the real world.

Wow are your facts wrong! Parent of a recruited athlete to Yale here. You should do some research on how the Academic Index works before commenting. The ignorance of your comments is astounding.

Actually, this post is pretty darn accurate for Brown and Penn, since I had two sons recruited for different sports at both. Actually, the Washington Post published a lot of these same guidelines a few weeks ago. I remember the SAT minimums being under 2000 and one of my sons told he had to keep his GPA to a B- to get recruited to Penn. Hard to believe that Yale would do things radically different. But there's no doubt that athletes in demand do not need to be on par merit-wise with regular applicants.

I think there could be a difference. Yale is in an altogether different league than Penn.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. There is "in addition" to academic merit, and there is "in place of". Athletes recruited by the Ivies need a minimum of a "B-" GPA according to an agreement signed by all the Ivy schools. Try getting in to an Ivy on merit alone with a GPA of B-. The SAT scores of recruited athletes also have a minimum that are hundreds of points lower than a true merit admission. Legacies do not have the same academic records often times - though there are some like my child who probably would have gotten in on his own. Why take the chance though! And plenty of check-the-box applicants who are held to different standards. See the lawsuit against Harvard for that discussion. So I wouldn't jump all over PP for not saying "in addition to" academic merit. That just simply isn't true in a lot of cases. If you can't admit that, then you don't live in the real world.

Wow are your facts wrong! Parent of a recruited athlete to Yale here. You should do some research on how the Academic Index works before commenting. The ignorance of your comments is astounding.

Actually, this post is pretty darn accurate for Brown and Penn, since I had two sons recruited for different sports at both. Actually, the Washington Post published a lot of these same guidelines a few weeks ago. I remember the SAT minimums being under 2000 and one of my sons told he had to keep his GPA to a B- to get recruited to Penn. Hard to believe that Yale would do things radically different. But there's no doubt that athletes in demand do not need to be on par merit-wise with regular applicants.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't just say GDS is having a good year. Posts the stats. Getting into those same schools or just success getting accepted where people applied EA/ED?

1. You can't get complete info on early admissions and this crowd sourced attempt by adults seems a bit creepy;
2. There's a GDS (or anti-GDS) troll who stirs people up by saying GDS has better college admissions; recognize the trolling and don't bite.

So creepy. Moms, please get some perspective and take this tally off line.

Yes, but the PP is totally right. The same person, or sounds like the same person, says the same inane "GDS is better" nonsense on every thread.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't just say GDS is having a good year. Posts the stats. Getting into those same schools or just success getting accepted where people applied EA/ED?

1. You can't get complete info on early admissions and this crowd sourced attempt by adults seems a bit creepy;
2. There's a GDS (or anti-GDS) troll who stirs people up by saying GDS has better college admissions; recognize the trolling and don't bite.

So creepy. Moms, please get some perspective and take this tally off line.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its been brutal at sidwell this year... lots of early deferrals and rejections, so far I believe my DDs class has had the following positive results:
1 to Stanford
1 to Harvard
1 to Cornell
1 to Brown
1 to Middlebury
We are waiting for Yale and UPenn early next week, which together take up around 35% of the class' early applicants (around 30 kids between them)

You are light on the numbers at Harvard, Cornell, Dartmouth, and I think Brown.

My DC is waiting for Princeton in Monday, and I think others in the SFS class also applied there. Only 1 to Stanford? Yikes. I know a few kids applied to Wharton, but that admits separate from the College at UPenn. Harvard deferred almost everyone it dodn't accept, so I am not sure how many outright rejections there were. I think one of my child's friends from this class also got into Duke. So nervewracking this early!!

One early to Stanford isn't bad. They are the stingiest with EA acceptances (lowest EA accept rate) with a lot of slots going to support their massive athletics program. Being deferred into regular pool is very much the norm for even the strongest candidates. Legacy status tends not to matter as much either. The crowding effect at Yale and Penn are a bit concerning, however.

Maybe all those posts about the evil college counselors who were being so horrible by trying to "steer people away from applying" to a particular school of their dreams bear some re-examination? Hmmmmm . . . .

No one characterized anyone as evil. We are talking about a system and not individuals. There is steering and so yes people get in. If you want it to be your child it is good to know how it all works.

Sorry, but I don't accept your premise that college counselors routinely corrupt the process via invidious discrimination in their advice and support of applications -- which is the explicit premise of a 14 page thread with "discrimination" in the thread title. There is no question that that line of argument is an attack on the integrity and honesty of college counselors.

If the issue is whether college counselors TRY TO COUNSEL PEOPLE, for example by trying not to have 30 people at one school all apply early to the same school? Yes, I'd agree the system does that. But we all know that's not what's being charged. People are saying that the counselor is deliberately giving wrong advice to some children to help others. And having met public and private college counselors over the years, and having paid attention to how college applications actually work, I think that's a factually false characterization and one that does a great disservice to college counselors.

Anonymous wrote:Don't just say GDS is having a good year. Posts the stats. Getting into those same schools or just success getting accepted where people applied EA/ED?

1. You can't get complete info on early admissions and this crowd sourced attempt by adults seems a bit creepy;
2. There's a GDS (or anti-GDS) troll who stirs people up by saying GDS has better college admissions; recognize the trolling and don't bite.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its been brutal at sidwell this year... lots of early deferrals and rejections, so far I believe my DDs class has had the following positive results:
1 to Stanford
1 to Harvard
1 to Cornell
1 to Brown
1 to Middlebury
We are waiting for Yale and UPenn early next week, which together take up around 35% of the class' early applicants (around 30 kids between them)

You are light on the numbers at Harvard, Cornell, Dartmouth, and I think Brown.

My DC is waiting for Princeton in Monday, and I think others in the SFS class also applied there. Only 1 to Stanford? Yikes. I know a few kids applied to Wharton, but that admits separate from the College at UPenn. Harvard deferred almost everyone it dodn't accept, so I am not sure how many outright rejections there were. I think one of my child's friends from this class also got into Duke. So nervewracking this early!!

One early to Stanford isn't bad. They are the stingiest with EA acceptances (lowest EA accept rate) with a lot of slots going to support their massive athletics program. Being deferred into regular pool is very much the norm for even the strongest candidates. Legacy status tends not to matter as much either. The crowding effect at Yale and Penn are a bit concerning, however.

Maybe all those posts about the evil college counselors who were being so horrible by trying to "steer people away from applying" to a particular school of their dreams bear some re-examination? Hmmmmm . . . .

No one characterized anyone as evil. We are talking about a system and not individuals. There is steering and so yes people get in. If you want it to be your child it is good to know how it all works.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. There is "in addition" to academic merit, and there is "in place of". Athletes recruited by the Ivies need a minimum of a "B-" GPA according to an agreement signed by all the Ivy schools. Try getting in to an Ivy on merit alone with a GPA of B-. The SAT scores of recruited athletes also have a minimum that are hundreds of points lower than a true merit admission. Legacies do not have the same academic records often times - though there are some like my child who probably would have gotten in on his own. Why take the chance though! And plenty of check-the-box applicants who are held to different standards. See the lawsuit against Harvard for that discussion. So I wouldn't jump all over PP for not saying "in addition to" academic merit. That just simply isn't true in a lot of cases. If you can't admit that, then you don't live in the real world.

"some like my child who would have gotten in on his own". Way to slip that one in, thereby undermining everything else you have said. Couldn't resist tooting your own horn and sticking your foot in your mouth at the same time. Nice trick.

+1. That poster just doesn't know when to stop talking.

Not factually supported. Impression with no stats to back it up. I know there are many dissapointments, but there are equally as many at the scools you mention.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its been brutal at sidwell this year... lots of early deferrals and rejections, so far I believe my DDs class has had the following positive results:
1 to Stanford
1 to Harvard
1 to Cornell
1 to Brown
1 to Middlebury
We are waiting for Yale and UPenn early next week, which together take up around 35% of the class' early applicants (around 30 kids between them)

You are light on the numbers at Harvard, Cornell, Dartmouth, and I think Brown.

My DC is waiting for Princeton in Monday, and I think others in the SFS class also applied there. Only 1 to Stanford? Yikes. I know a few kids applied to Wharton, but that admits separate from the College at UPenn. Harvard deferred almost everyone it dodn't accept, so I am not sure how many outright rejections there were. I think one of my child's friends from this class also got into Duke. So nervewracking this early!!

One early to Stanford isn't bad. They are the stingiest with EA acceptances (lowest EA accept rate) with a lot of slots going to support their massive athletics program. Being deferred into regular pool is very much the norm for even the strongest candidates. Legacy status tends not to matter as much either. The crowding effect at Yale and Penn are a bit concerning, however.

Maybe all those posts about the evil college counselors who were being so horrible by trying to "steer people away from applying" to a particular school of their dreams bear some re-examination? Hmmmmm . . . .

They're not evil, just inept.

The fault, my dear friends, lies not in low admissions percentages at Ivy League Schools, but in one adult at my child's secondary school. (Ah, Shakespeare . . . the Bard really has something for all occasions!)

My kid was one of the lucky ones who got in early, but many terrific kids were left heartbroken. This has been happening for years at SFS -- admissions simply don't stack up against STA/NCS and GDS. And, no, it's not just one counselor -- the whole program needs an overhaul.

Don't just say GDS is having a good year. Posts the stats. Getting into those same schools or just success getting accepted where people applied EA/ED?