Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[Recruited athletes are at the bottom of the barrel for academic ratings.

Whether or not this is true -- and it almost certainly isn't, because I know for a fact that plenty of recruited athletes graduated with better grades than non-athlete me at our HYPS school -- is beside the point.

Clearly we disagree about whether recruited athletes add value to a university. You say no, I say yes. No one is claiming that you can't have that opinion.

The boards of trustees running colleges and universities in this country stand overwhelmingly on the side of recruited athletes adding value. Those like you who want things to be a different way, have at it. The free market has spoken.

Free market? Ha ha. None of these schools would survive 10 mins without government funding.

m

And universities don’t pay any real estate taxes on their massive land capital holdings

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[Recruited athletes are at the bottom of the barrel for academic ratings.

Whether or not this is true -- and it almost certainly isn't, because I know for a fact that plenty of recruited athletes graduated with better grades than non-athlete me at our HYPS school -- is beside the point.

Clearly we disagree about whether recruited athletes add value to a university. You say no, I say yes. No one is claiming that you can't have that opinion.

The boards of trustees running colleges and universities in this country stand overwhelmingly on the side of recruited athletes adding value. Those like you who want things to be a different way, have at it. The free market has spoken.

Free market? Ha ha. None of these schools would survive 10 mins without government funding.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

as to the rest of your post, your kids benefitted from the ultimate hook. why can't you just admit that? the data from Harvard is unambiguous- 85-90% of recruited athletes would not have been admitted to Harvard based on their academic rating.

Why do you assume that athletes aren't qualified academically? In the vast majority of cases, that's just not true. Educate yourself. The Ivy League uses the Academic Index, which guarantees team averages for recruited members are observed. Stop kidding yourself. There are plenty of kids with 2350 SAT who are valedictorians and National Merit finalists and editors of the school paper, and who have service hours on top of that, who also excel athletically. I lived with some of them.

Have a read: https://www.nber.org/papers/w26316

And if you're too busy to read it, here's the punchline:

"The admissions advantage for recruited athletes appears to be even stronger. Admitted athletes have significantly worse credentials than non-ALDC admits, and in some cases, non-ALDC applicants."

Yes, if your kid is talented enough at their sport, has stayed injury free and managed to compete at the national level ( or close to it ) they just might be recruited by an Ivy, who depending on the sport can offer as many as 6 " likely letters" to HS seniors who commit ED, BUT..... they have to pass the pre-read for their major AND SAT scores are a mandatory part of that.

An Ivy is only allowed to give a tip to a recruited athlete who is within 1-2 STD of the non-athlete admit standard FOR THEIR MAJOR. Maybe Football, Hockey and Crew can get a one athlete who is 3 STD off, but NOT the whole recruiting class.

So, to be one of the kids who you seem to think unfairly is accepted ABOVE your DC, those recruited athletes need to be A/ A- students taking all AP, get no worse than 1480-
1500 on SAT AND be a nationally ranked athlete in their sport ( meaning top 100 in USA in Tennis, Top 25 in XC or in their event in Track, IDK how BB or Crew are ranked, but you get the idea. These students need to be capable of scoring for their IVY as a Varsity Athlete in Div 1 from their Freshman year

Sorry, but if they also have the grades to be admitted to study Physics or Math or Engineering they are valued by the schools

it's nothing about fair or unfair. it's about recognizing what's going on. since you want to make up your own stories rather than take the fifteen minutes to read the study, here's the rejoinder from the study to your point:

"Being a recruited athlete essentially guarantees admission even for the least-qualified applicants. A similar calculation, but in reverse, emphasizes the advantage athletes receive. An athlete who has an 86% probability of admission—the average rate
among athletes—would have only a 0.1% chance of admission absent the athlete tip."

everyone wants to think that their hook isn't a hook and that their kid is deserving. which puts them in a position to argue all other hooks are bad and denigrate other kids who get in on something else. but at the end of the day, a hook is a hook is a hook. you can't have a conversation about what this topic if you're going to live in a state of denial. yes, colleges are fully entitled to have hooks. and no hook is more or less deserving than any other.

But there you again with bad information and slights. Obviously they are 'deserving' or they wouldn't get in.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

as to the rest of your post, your kids benefitted from the ultimate hook. why can't you just admit that? the data from Harvard is unambiguous- 85-90% of recruited athletes would not have been admitted to Harvard based on their academic rating.

Why do you assume that athletes aren't qualified academically? In the vast majority of cases, that's just not true. Educate yourself. The Ivy League uses the Academic Index, which guarantees team averages for recruited members are observed. Stop kidding yourself. There are plenty of kids with 2350 SAT who are valedictorians and National Merit finalists and editors of the school paper, and who have service hours on top of that, who also excel athletically. I lived with some of them.

Have a read: https://www.nber.org/papers/w26316

And if you're too busy to read it, here's the punchline:

"The admissions advantage for recruited athletes appears to be even stronger. Admitted athletes have significantly worse credentials than non-ALDC admits, and in some cases, non-ALDC applicants."

Yes, if your kid is talented enough at their sport, has stayed injury free and managed to compete at the national level ( or close to it ) they just might be recruited by an Ivy, who depending on the sport can offer as many as 6 " likely letters" to HS seniors who commit ED, BUT..... they have to pass the pre-read for their major AND SAT scores are a mandatory part of that.

An Ivy is only allowed to give a tip to a recruited athlete who is within 1-2 STD of the non-athlete admit standard FOR THEIR MAJOR. Maybe Football, Hockey and Crew can get a one athlete who is 3 STD off, but NOT the whole recruiting class.

So, to be one of the kids who you seem to think unfairly is accepted ABOVE your DC, those recruited athletes need to be A/ A- students taking all AP, get no worse than 1480-
1500 on SAT AND be a nationally ranked athlete in their sport ( meaning top 100 in USA in Tennis, Top 25 in XC or in their event in Track, IDK how BB or Crew are ranked, but you get the idea. These students need to be capable of scoring for their IVY as a Varsity Athlete in Div 1 from their Freshman year

Sorry, but if they also have the grades to be admitted to study Physics or Math or Engineering they are valued by the schools

it's nothing about fair or unfair. it's about recognizing what's going on. since you want to make up your own stories rather than take the fifteen minutes to read the study, here's the rejoinder from the study to your point:

"Being a recruited athlete essentially guarantees admission even for the least-qualified applicants. A similar calculation, but in reverse, emphasizes the advantage athletes receive. An athlete who has an 86% probability of admission—the average rate
among athletes—would have only a 0.1% chance of admission absent the athlete tip."

everyone wants to think that their hook isn't a hook and that their kid is deserving. which puts them in a position to argue all other hooks are bad and denigrate other kids who get in on something else. but at the end of the day, a hook is a hook is a hook. you can't have a conversation about what this topic if you're going to live in a state of denial. yes, colleges are fully entitled to have hooks. and no hook is more or less deserving than any other.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[Recruited athletes are at the bottom of the barrel for academic ratings.

Whether or not this is true -- and it almost certainly isn't, because I know for a fact that plenty of recruited athletes graduated with better grades than non-athlete me at our HYPS school -- is beside the point.

Clearly we disagree about whether recruited athletes add value to a university. You say no, I say yes. No one is claiming that you can't have that opinion.

The boards of trustees running colleges and universities in this country stand overwhelmingly on the side of recruited athletes adding value. Those like you who want things to be a different way, have at it. The free market has spoken.

Free market? Ha ha. None of these schools would survive 10 mins without government funding.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

as to the rest of your post, your kids benefitted from the ultimate hook. why can't you just admit that? the data from Harvard is unambiguous- 85-90% of recruited athletes would not have been admitted to Harvard based on their academic rating.

Why do you assume that athletes aren't qualified academically? In the vast majority of cases, that's just not true. Educate yourself. The Ivy League uses the Academic Index, which guarantees team averages for recruited members are observed. Stop kidding yourself. There are plenty of kids with 2350 SAT who are valedictorians and National Merit finalists and editors of the school paper, and who have service hours on top of that, who also excel athletically. I lived with some of them.

Have a read: https://www.nber.org/papers/w26316

And if you're too busy to read it, here's the punchline:

"The admissions advantage for recruited athletes appears to be even stronger. Admitted athletes have significantly worse credentials than non-ALDC admits, and in some cases, non-ALDC applicants."

Yes, if your kid is talented enough at their sport, has stayed injury free and managed to compete at the national level ( or close to it ) they just might be recruited by an Ivy, who depending on the sport can offer as many as 6 " likely letters" to HS seniors who commit ED, BUT..... they have to pass the pre-read for their major AND SAT scores are a mandatory part of that.

An Ivy is only allowed to give a tip to a recruited athlete who is within 1-2 STD of the non-athlete admit standard FOR THEIR MAJOR. Maybe Football, Hockey and Crew can get a one athlete who is 3 STD off, but NOT the whole recruiting class.

So, to be one of the kids who you seem to think unfairly is accepted ABOVE your DC, those recruited athletes need to be A/ A- students taking all AP, get no worse than 1480-
1500 on SAT AND be a nationally ranked athlete in their sport ( meaning top 100 in USA in Tennis, Top 25 in XC or in their event in Track, IDK how BB or Crew are ranked, but you get the idea. These students need to be capable of scoring for their IVY as a Varsity Athlete in Div 1 from their Freshman year

Sorry, but if they also have the grades to be admitted to study Physics or Math or Engineering they are valued by the schools

Anonymous wrote:Don’t worry, angry little anti-athlete poster. E-sports will be a recruited category soon enough and then you will be in good shape.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Have you been to sporting events at Yale or MIT? Obviously not. Especially at Yale, sports bring the normal people out and together. Yes, the nerds probably avoid it, but the smart, mainstream kids make it part of their experience. I know this firsthand, not from assumptions.


we know this firsthand as well, and there is lackluster attendance at best. don't try to make it something it's not. It might make you feel better to label people as 'nerds' and outside of the 'mainstream' but you're just showing your bias.

My kids were athletes at Yale and other Ivy League schools. Your reports of “lackluster attendance” may be true for some sports at some schools, but that’s definitely not what I witnessed. Students from all over the league go to the H-Y football game. Brown was PACKED last weekend for men’s lacrosse game, with a huge student section. When Harvard women played Princeton in soccer this year, there were hundreds of people in the stands. Princeton had hundreds there for the last home women’s lax game a few weeks ago. I have seen Ivy cross country meets where kids drove from Dartmouth/Penn/Yale to NYC to cheer on friends.

Sports are most certainly a part of campus life, and recruited athletes underpin that. Many of the recruited athletes I know had top grades and test scores in high school (NMSF, valedictorian, etc.), as well as clubs and the huge number of hours spent over years on their sport. These kids are legitimate applicants to these schools who would had a shot even without their sport. Add that in, and tgey make decisions easy for the admissions office.

recruited athletes are a choice. if they disappeared tomorrow from Yale, no one would care other than the athletes. the miniscule percentage of students attending games would move on to something else. sports plays almost no role in the campus culture other than the Harvard football game which is just an excuse for daytime drinking.

as to the rest of your post, your kids benefitted from the ultimate hook. why can't you just admit that? the data from Harvard is unambiguous- 85-90% of recruited athletes would not have been admitted to Harvard based on their academic rating.

Can you think of a more popular event at Harvard or Yale than the Game?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

as to the rest of your post, your kids benefitted from the ultimate hook. why can't you just admit that? the data from Harvard is unambiguous- 85-90% of recruited athletes would not have been admitted to Harvard based on their academic rating.

Why do you assume that athletes aren't qualified academically? In the vast majority of cases, that's just not true. Educate yourself. The Ivy League uses the Academic Index, which guarantees team averages for recruited members are observed. Stop kidding yourself. There are plenty of kids with 2350 SAT who are valedictorians and National Merit finalists and editors of the school paper, and who have service hours on top of that, who also excel athletically. I lived with some of them.

Have a read: https://www.nber.org/papers/w26316

And if you're too busy to read it, here's the punchline:

"The admissions advantage for recruited athletes appears to be even stronger. Admitted athletes have significantly worse credentials than non-ALDC admits, and in some cases, non-ALDC applicants."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

as to the rest of your post, your kids benefitted from the ultimate hook. why can't you just admit that? the data from Harvard is unambiguous- 85-90% of recruited athletes would not have been admitted to Harvard based on their academic rating.

Why do you assume that athletes aren't qualified academically? In the vast majority of cases, that's just not true. Educate yourself. The Ivy League uses the Academic Index, which guarantees team averages for recruited members are observed. Stop kidding yourself. There are plenty of kids with 2350 SAT who are valedictorians and National Merit finalists and editors of the school paper, and who have service hours on top of that, who also excel athletically. I lived with some of them.

Have a read: https://www.nber.org/papers/w26316

And if you're too busy to read it, here's the punchline:

"The admissions advantage for recruited athletes appears to be even stronger. Admitted athletes have significantly worse credentials than non-ALDC admits, and in some cases, non-ALDC applicants."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine the undergraduate experience at a school with no athletes and only academic grinds. Sounds like fun!

how many students at MIT or Yale attend the typical game there? Check the attendance at the average baseball or lacrosse game. It's less than 1% probably. No one would miss it.

so sad that your definition of 'fun' limited to going to a game. you should get out more.

Have you been to sporting events at Yale or MIT? Obviously not. Especially at Yale, sports bring the normal people out and together. Yes, the nerds probably avoid it, but the smart, mainstream kids make it part of their experience. I know this firsthand, not from assumptions.

+1 and I’ve attended sporting events at both of those schools.

I’m not sure anyone on this thread has pointed out the benefits particularly to women of participating in sports- greater confidence, better grades, and less depression. These factors absolutely contribute to lifelong success. I can’t tell you how impressive my Ivy League womens crew teammates have been in the sciences, business, medicine, and law twenty years on. Total rockstars who know how to work hard and stay focused.

if this is true, then sports at college should be open to all students, since they can all benefit from it. recruiting athletes runs counter to this - admit the kids who are actually qualified and let them benefit from this.

Exactly. When Univ football coaches are paid several multiples of the Univ Presidents' salaries, you can tell what is wrong with the whole system.

But help me understand what is wrong with it? Just because you and/or your kids don't like or aren't skilled at sports, doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them. Thousands and thousands of alumni stay connected to their alma maters largely through sports. I know I do. I was a magna cum laude grad and former lacrosse player from a top 10 university. I am now a successful adult who stays connected to my school and supports it through the sports programs. People like me make it possible for many students to attend the university. What do you do for yours? How are you supporting the less privileged Ivy league students? If sports are a pathway to a great education and a life of purpose, please tell me, what is wrong with that?

And students who are not athletes are not successful, connected and supportive? Why would you imply that the PP does nothing for their school - or at least less than you do for yours because you were an athlete?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[Recruited athletes are at the bottom of the barrel for academic ratings.

Whether or not this is true -- and it almost certainly isn't, because I know for a fact that plenty of recruited athletes graduated with better grades than non-athlete me at our HYPS school -- is beside the point.

Clearly we disagree about whether recruited athletes add value to a university. You say no, I say yes. No one is claiming that you can't have that opinion.

The boards of trustees running colleges and universities in this country stand overwhelmingly on the side of recruited athletes adding value. Those like you who want things to be a different way, have at it. The free market has spoken.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine the undergraduate experience at a school with no athletes and only academic grinds. Sounds like fun!

how many students at MIT or Yale attend the typical game there? Check the attendance at the average baseball or lacrosse game. It's less than 1% probably. No one would miss it.

so sad that your definition of 'fun' limited to going to a game. you should get out more.

Have you been to sporting events at Yale or MIT? Obviously not. Especially at Yale, sports bring the normal people out and together. Yes, the nerds probably avoid it, but the smart, mainstream kids make it part of their experience. I know this firsthand, not from assumptions.

Anonymous wrote:

as to the rest of your post, your kids benefitted from the ultimate hook. why can't you just admit that? the data from Harvard is unambiguous- 85-90% of recruited athletes would not have been admitted to Harvard based on their academic rating.

Why do you assume that athletes aren't qualified academically? In the vast majority of cases, that's just not true. Educate yourself. The Ivy League uses the Academic Index, which guarantees team averages for recruited members are observed. Stop kidding yourself. There are plenty of kids with 2350 SAT who are valedictorians and National Merit finalists and editors of the school paper, and who have service hours on top of that, who also excel athletically. I lived with some of them.