<p>Daughter is a junior and we are in the midst of getting a list of schools together to look at over spring break. U Chicago, WUSTl, a few nescac schools, a few of the slower ivy's. Her times would put her 1 or 2 on the current depth chart at most of these schools.(not ivy)</p>
<p>There are division 1's where she could swim and get some money, but academically they are not what she wants.</p>
<p>My question is: all of these schools are hard to get into. Are coaches more likely to use their slot for someone who academically has less of a chance over someone with A band stats. I guess there are some who have no pull, too.</p>
<p>If you are in A band will they not use a slot for you and hope you get in on your own merit is essentially the question I am asking. </p>
<p>I am assuming A band is based on AI? I am also assuming she is A band ( 33 ACT, 4.0uw/4.51w. 4/400)</p>
<p>The next 8 months should be an interesting ride.</p>
<p>State meet next week end, so exciting times.</p>
<p>There are multiple issues for a D1 school. Typically the teams AI is as important as any individual student’s AI. Therefore they might be interested in a student who has a very high AI but not the best times to compensate for a less academically strong athlete. However, typically the AI for any individual is more a go/no go binary tool.</p>
<p>Also, Ivy and like minded schools employ a “broken leg test.” That is, if the student/athlete were to suffer a career ending injury who s/he be someone who would still bring something to the campus?</p>
<p>In our scholar athletes case,
the academic stas had to be equal to the admits of the freshman class…
…the sport stats had to be compelling to get the slot…for a school with less than 10% admits</p>
<p>This topic comes up a lot. Here is a recent (Ivy-specific) thread. In short, a coach will not leave a top recruit to take their chances in a sub 10% admissions pool no matter how great their academic marks. </p>
<p>So in a situation of top AI and middle to top athletics, and coach needs his slots for more advanced athletes/less academically inclined athletes and wants the kid to go through regular admission process – does the sport then act instead of “leadership” or EC, and is it a distinguishing enough factor for admissions?</p>
<p>My understanding is that the bands apply only to football. Each band represents a standard deviation from the campus average AI and the coaches get a certain number of spots per band. </p>
<p>In sports other than football, the coaches average AI across their recruits. For example, one coach told us that the six or seven recruits on his list had to have an average AI 210. He also said that he would have a hard time getting a recruit admitted if his AI was much below 200 even if the coach had a couple of players with very high AIs to average the low scoring player up. </p>
<p>I have heard of coaches pulling in players with a high AIs to average up more desirable players with AI’s below the average. A friend’s D with an AI above 230 got a likely letter to an HYP. When she got there, she got little or no playing time and realized that the coach had used her to aid the case of a borderline recruit he really wanted on his squad. </p>
<p>Ultimately, it must depend on how many spots the coach has and what the pool of potential recruits looks like as a whole.</p>