<p>
This has been debated for several years.</p>
<p>Bilsky's</a> 'radical' idea: grants-in-aid - Sports</p>
<p>Questions</a> Remain With C.U. Financial Aid Packages | The Cornell Daily Sun</p>
<p>Like more.</p>
<p>If I didn't like a school, I wouldn't do well...So the prestige wouldn't help me. But doing well would.</p>
<p>The article posted by IB supports my argument. It just talks about the overall issue of Cornell FA vs. the ivies that offer better packages to all.</p>
<p>It further talks about an athlete having to leave because his financial situation changed--ivies just don't pony up money when there is no need. </p>
<p>Is there any ivy athlete or parent here who can give input?</p>
<p>If a student has a 3.1 with 1060 SATs and his/her family makes less than $180,000 a year, then they can get recruited for a full ride by the Ivies. They may not call it an athletic scholarship, but it's essentially the same thing. </p>
<p>As for the athletic quality in the Ivy League, it is on a very different (lower) scale than many other top academic universities, including Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt and Notre Dame which also recruit top student-athletes. Furthermore, the quality of the athletic life that surrounds the collegiate athletic events, particularly for football/basketball (men and women)/baseball is far superior at Stanford, Duke, Vandy,Notre Dame and, to a lesser extent, Northwestern and Rice. (One could also extend this comparison to additional privates like Georgetown, USC, and Wake Forest and publics like UC Berkeley, U Virginia, UCLA, U Michigan, and U North Carolina)</p>
<p>The area of athletics and the surrounding athletic life is truly one of the most differentiated aspects between the Ivy colleges and Stanford, Duke et al. The Ivies may have more "prestige" in some circles, but for students who enjoy an active, nationally relevant athletic environment that can materially energize a college's campus and enhance one's undergraduate experience, then I would contend that the "feel" of these colleges make them superior choices for this group of students.</p>
<p>Hawkette, no one with an income of $180K is getting a free ride at any ivy unless they are better systemic liars than Bernie Madoff. It would just be to easy for an athlete to tell another school what they were offered to out them.</p>
<p>As you can see above in the Cornell article, the athletes show other schools what they were offered. If they could buy athletes the way other schools can, they'd have much better teams.</p>
<p>hawkette's example is extreme and I don't really buy it. The football team, for instance, gets two players sub-1250 or something like that which they can flag, but hardly ever are the low SAT, low GPA athletes that are flagged additionally given money unless there is need.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If a student has a 3.1 with 1060 SATs and his/her family makes less than $180,000 a year, then they can get recruited for a full ride by the Ivies. They may not call it an athletic scholarship, but it's essentially the same thing.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Really? Those are some pretty precise stats, care to post a link?</p>
<p>
[quote]
"TOO MANY KIDS MY AGE FEEL THEIR ENTITLED... TOO MANY ARE HAPPY WITH THE EVERYCHILD GETS A TROPHY BULLCRAP.... "
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is not really true. I have been to so many competitions and failed and succeeded and trust me ever time you lose it makes it that much better when you win. In fact the trophies and accolades mean nothing it is the actual competition and knowledge that you were successful that truly makes something worth competiting.</p>
<p>hmom asked,</p>
<p>"Where's JD? Did your DS see a cent from Dartmouth?"</p>
<p>nada, zip, zilch.</p>
<p>^Jdjaguar's son is a Dartmouth football recruit who had many offers including full rides if I'm remembering right.</p>
<p>I can imagine differential packaging for desired athletes at the Ivies. Imagine the top rated 17 year old squash player in the country with 1450 SATs and a conscientious high school record. I can picture Yale and Princeton jockeying for that kid.
All my imagining. No data whatsoever.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, private universities do not have to share factual data and cannot be audited, so they do not have to release data on their athletes. As such, we will never really know.</p>
<p>Below is a passage from a quasi-reliable sources that would seem to indicate that even the Ivy League give athletes preferential treatment. </p>
<p>"The University of Oklahoma and the University of Florida, whose football teams play Jan. 8 for the national championship, ranked near the bottom in standardized test scores. Florida’s freshman football classes of 2002-04 ranked 50th in average score out of 53 schools for which football SAT averages were available, and Oklahoma’s freshman football classes of 2001-03 ranked 42nd. Florida’s football players ranked last in average high school GPA, at 2.54. The average for all football players in the study was 2.93.</p>
<p>This season is typical. Five of the last seven public universities to win college football’s national championship ranked among the study’s bottom 20 in football SAT scores.</p>
<p>It’s true not just in big-time college sports but even in the Ivy League. Football players in the Ivies’ 1995 freshman class scored 144 points lower on average than other Ivy League men, according to Bowen’s book “Reclaiming the Game.”</p>
<p>AJC</a> investigation: Many athletes lag far behind on SAT scores | ajc.com</p>
<p>William Bowen is a credible source. He is an alumnus of Princeton University and served on its faculty for decades. He was even president of Princeton University for close to two decades! His book, Reclaiming the Game, was published by the Princeton University Press. </p>
<p>Calculating</a> the Ivy League Academic Index</p>
<p>Bowen</a>, W.G. and Levin, S.A.: Reclaiming the Game: College Sports and Educational Values.</p>
<p>Now 150 points may not be a lot, but it is significant, and generally speaking, Basketball players score slightly lower than Football players. Like I said, I seriously doubt that the average SATscore for Harvard football and Basketball players is 1500. I would be willing to bet it is closer to 1300 or 1350, with a significantly number of them scoring well under 1300.</p>
<p>I think we've conceded the point on admission. The 150 point difference is also about the number sited in a recent book by Golden, a WSJ reporter. Still, when you figure 2200 is the median at a mid tier ivy (Dartmouth), 2050 isn't too shabby and they all graduate.</p>
<p>Still up for debate is whether they get more aid than other students. While I imagine they get every benefit of the doubt calculation wise, I think the fact that athletes tell other schools what they were offered would have brought it to light if one or more schools was not following it's own stated policy.</p>
<p>I agree hmom. I never said there was a huge difference. I personally think that 150 points on the SAT is negligible. As far as I am concerned, if those athletes focused more on their SAT than on their sport, they would probably improve their SAT by 150 points. The SAT is very easy to master.</p>
<p>Still, I do believe that admissions standards are dropped a little for athletes and I believe their financial aid packages are more generous. I could be wrong and I have no proof to offer, so I could well be wrong.</p>