Anonymous
Post 10/24/2023 17:08     Subject: I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
Anonymous wrote:a friend recently describe her experience at a LAC as: it's like half the kids are in a bunch of different chamber groups and they spend all their time doing that and hang with their chamber group. all the groups are small and nobody has any interest in any other chamber group - nobody ever sees each other chamber groups play - and the people who aren't in a chamber group doesn't understand why they came to THIS ACADEMIC COLLEGE just to play chamber music.


This exactly!
Anonymous
Post 10/24/2023 17:08     Subject: I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:What’s the problem? How else are they supposed to field their teams?


This is backwards thinking. The mission of a college is not to field athletic teams and then fill in the rest of the academic seats with students as an afterthought. The mission of a school is to educate students. Because you want students to exercise and be fit and develop school spirit, you let them form athletic teams and compete with other schools. This is how college athletics started. You field the teams that current student are interested in playing, and you field those teams with existing students. If no one wants to play a given sport this year, you drop that team until enough kids sign up; but given the number of students athletes in the country, this is unlikely to be a problem anywhere. Pick your college, then try out for the team when you get there.



Amen.
Anonymous
Post 10/24/2023 16:37     Subject: Re:I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
Anonymous wrote:I actually didn’t know this because I went to a slac that didn’t do this. Kids played sports for fun. The Williams numbers are crazy and make me think less of what might have been a dream reach school for me and DC.

Where can a humanities student go to get away from this? For STEM I assume MIT admission is still uninfluenced by athletics?


Connecticut College has no football team (always the largest roster) so the numbers are much lower. They have everything else though. You can seek schools with no football.
Anonymous
Post 10/24/2023 16:33     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).

I went to Williams intending to play a sport (was recruited) and then had a bad injury before freshman year so never played. O was worried that I’d feel lost without a team and that there wouldn’t be a sports culture. Neither proved true. I especially liked how the sports culture extended to many sports including men’s and women’s.
Anonymous
Post 10/24/2023 16:28     Subject: I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
while I agree that athletes meet academic standards, AOs at top colleges say most of their applicant pool meets the academic standards. Yale AO just said 90% meet standard of being able to do the work. So then the application is about what else do you bring to the table, and for a shit ton of kids it's volleyball or squash. which .. okay.
Anonymous
Post 10/24/2023 16:26     Subject: I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
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.
Anonymous
Post 10/24/2023 16:25     Subject: I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
The high academic SLACs are great. If you are a recruited athlete or join Greek life, your social life will be fine. If not, you better be an extrovert.
Anonymous
Post 10/24/2023 16:24     Subject: Re:I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
Anonymous wrote:I actually didn’t know this because I went to a slac that didn’t do this. Kids played sports for fun. The Williams numbers are crazy and make me think less of what might have been a dream reach school for me and DC.

Where can a humanities student go to get away from this? For STEM I assume MIT admission is still uninfluenced by athletics?


MIT recruits...
https://mitathletics.com/sports/2021/4/20/information-Recruiting-index.aspx

Maybe St John's in Annapolis, MD. Unless you count croquet as a recruitable sport?
Anonymous
Post 10/24/2023 16:21     Subject: Re:I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
Anonymous wrote:I actually didn’t know this because I went to a slac that didn’t do this. Kids played sports for fun. The Williams numbers are crazy and make me think less of what might have been a dream reach school for me and DC.

Where can a humanities student go to get away from this? For STEM I assume MIT admission is still uninfluenced by athletics?


MIT recruits heavily for athletes and it is an admissions hook. But like many top SLACs, you have to meet their academic standards first.
Anonymous
Post 10/24/2023 16:19     Subject: I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
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!


Ok crazy.
Anonymous
Post 10/24/2023 16:15     Subject: I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
It’s challenging to undo unless the colleges get rid of football. My understanding is that Dartmouth tried to cut some teams like lightweight rowing and swimming to reduce recruitment but got challenged under Title IX. Football requires so many athletes, the colleges have to balance with at least a lot of women’s sports. A lot of alumni objected to the cuts, too. Football is particularly important to the colleges for alumni donations, school spirit, and simply recruiting male students. I’m in favor of change but it won’t be simple.
Anonymous
Post 10/24/2023 16:13     Subject: Re:I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
I actually didn’t know this because I went to a slac that didn’t do this. Kids played sports for fun. The Williams numbers are crazy and make me think less of what might have been a dream reach school for me and DC.

Where can a humanities student go to get away from this? For STEM I assume MIT admission is still uninfluenced by athletics?
Anonymous
Post 10/24/2023 16:06     Subject: I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
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.
Anonymous
Post 10/24/2023 16:01     Subject: I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
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!
Anonymous
Post 10/24/2023 16:01     Subject: I feel like we don't talk enough that top LACs are 40%+ recruited athletes.
At least two top LACs (Amherst and Wesleyan) don’t give legacy advantage unlike all the Ivies