Anonymous wrote:Lax and football teams are the most popular people on campus. I can understand the resentment for all of the attention they get. Unfortunately it is a select group of kids in peak athletic shape and it’s hard to compete against that in social settings.

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Anonymous wrote:I don't get why people hate athletes so much? When we don't hate the made-up research or non-profit that Mom started for their kid and then got shut down before the kid even left for college.

There has been plenty of hate on that as well. I have become so disenchanted that my default is to assume that these things are bogus and manufactured. I do alumni interviewing and I am usually super easy going and nice but I love ripping apart the kids who have these fake research/non-profit/international service type things. And I am very pleasantly surprised when I meet a kid for whom it really is legit.

Colleges/universities are supposed to strive for the ideal of the well-rounded human being. So a good athlete should be recognized and that should be given weight. But it has shifted from being a positive factor at many of these schools back in our generation to having way too much influence on the process. And when a lacrosse roster has 50 kids at a small school, that is a lot of seats.

And this is coming from someone who is absolutely obsessed with sports and went to a major D1 sports school.

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Anonymous wrote:Bottom line is the SLACs love athletes because they are more successful post graduation and are better alumni because they tend to give back more and help recent graduates get job offers. Athletes bring a lot to the table from team work, competition, dealing with adversity and failure, commitment, leadership - all traits that employers are looking for.

You have a causation problem. You need to get your chickens and eggs straight.

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Anonymous wrote:If anything, ice hockey is worse than lacrosse. Pretty much a 1950s country club look for the ice hockey team at ultra-woke Middlebury:

https://athletics.middlebury.edu/sports/mhockey/roster

How to showcase your ignorance: calling Middlebury ultra-woke.

Anonymous wrote:cross country probably the worst example of this - most nescacs are fielding 30 men and 30 women when only 5 score most of the year. terrible way to bring in full pay white kids. The house settlement reduced the SEC to 10 runners per x country team. Joke that Wesleyan Bates Bowdoin have 60 kids on these teams

Anonymous wrote:lax bros and football meatheads stick out like a sore thumb on these campuses and rarely interact with kids outside of their athletic circle. I know I’m going to get the DCUM mom saying “not true my kiddo went to Wesleyan and he was friends with everyone!” simply not true. Whereas the tennis player, cross country runner, and even soccer players tend to be more balanced and humble in nature, and seek out new experiences and a diverse friend group - and ultimately fit the overall SLAC school culture much much better. Football and lax the absolute worst lol

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Anonymous wrote:Really I think what people are complaining about is the differential admissions standards applied to athletes at many schools.

It would be one thing if the admissions slots reserved for lax/ hockey at these schools were filled by students who had more or less the same grades/ test scores/ academic profile as everyone else.

But this is objectively *NOT* the case. Study after study shows that being a recruited athlete confers an admissions advantage equivalent to ~150 SAT points or more, or perhaps a whole point of GPA. Athlete routinely make up the lowest part of the admitted "stats" ranges for most schools. Don't protest about how your DS or DD athlete has great grades...this is just objectively a fact.

If schools are going to do this, reserving "slots" for otherwise unqualified athletes needs to become a *much* more restricted practice. Fine, bring in a few low GPA/SAT ringers. But I think everyone would feel better about selective college athletic if coaches were generally forced to build the rest of their teams out of walk-ons from the general pool of smart kids. In a school the size of many SLACs, where there may be only 700 or so total male students, special preferences for lacrosse (~50 students) and ice hockey (~40 students) and football (~60+ students) add up fast. The solution is not to abandon sports altogether, but to significantly, if not totally, eliminate the influence of coaches in recruiting and admissions.

Make it about character, sportsmanship, and fun, rather than winning. The way it was always supposed to be.

Let’s use the NESCAC since we are talking Lacrosse. Supported athletic recruits is about 70 kids across all sports 2 per team plus 14 for football. These b/c band recruits can fall in the 25-50 percent range academically with a few c band being lower, generally less than 10 across the entire school. Taking a C band recruit usually costs you your other b band spot as well so they are used sparingly. There are another 70 or so who are tipped and in as long as their academics are above the mean.

The idea that there are huge groups of less qualified athletes at NESCAC schools is flat out false.

The point is that recruited athletes (who are “qualified” just like 90% of applicants) get in, and others don’t. We don’t care about the 2 subpar kids per team. The entire team would likely not have gotten in except for being recruited athletes — or at least 90% of them. Just like “normal” high stats, top extracurricular kids don’t get in either.

But if you think it is cool that the majority of white kids who get into these schools are recruited athletes well, then, party on!

Anonymous wrote:The jealousy on here is truly deeply pathetic.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get why people hate athletes so much? When we don't hate the made-up research or non-profit that Mom started for their kid and then got shut down before the kid even left for college.

lacrosse bros are not athletes. hockey is actually a difficult sport.

If you look at a lot of the division 1 lacrosse rosters you will shocked at the other sports the lacrosse kid plays. They are also frequently the starting quarterback.

Anonymous wrote:Bottom line is the SLACs love athletes because they are more successful post graduation and are better alumni because they tend to give back more and help recent graduates get job offers. Athletes bring a lot to the table from team work, competition, dealing with adversity and failure, commitment, leadership - all traits that employers are looking for.