Hi all,
I’m currently a national level athlete as a HS sophomore and I dream of attending and competing for Stanford. From what I’ve read, however, being recruited doesn’t mean much at Stanford as it is the Admissions Office that has the final say in accepting an athlete like at the Ivy League schools. My two older brothers are both athletes in the Ivy League (Yale and Dartmouth) and graduated high school weighted GPAs of 4.4 and 4.3 out of 5 which was evidently satisfactory for these two top notch universities. Should I expect that a satisfactory GPA for an Ivy athlete would be enough to get into Stanford? In addition, aside from my sport, I have basically zero extracurriculars due to practicing up to 25 hours a week which leaves very little time in my schedule for academics let alone extracurricular activities. Will Stanford view my dedication to my sport as a substitute for extracurriculars or will Admissions view me as an inadequate applicant?
For those answering, thanks so much!!
Actually being a recruited athlete at Stanford and the Ivy League does mean something. You still need grades and test scores within the schools range. However, varsity coaches at Stanford, Ivy League, Duke, etc have an allocated number of applications they can tag as students they want on their varsity team. Admissions takes it into consideration.
I am not familiar with a 5 point grading system. A weighted GPA of 4.3 seems like it would indicate mostly grades of B’s and C’s. If that is true it tends to answer the question about whether those schools give consideration to recruited athletes.
Admissions makes the final determination at Stanford about all applicants. There was a head football coach at Stanford, Jim Harbaugh. After his first year, he complained bitterly about all the athletes he spent endless hours recruiting who were rejected. By his second year he figured out what grades/test scores athletes needed to have a chance at being admitted. A longtime coach knows what admissions expects and won’t waste time recruiting kids who are not going to be admitted.
Pretty much every recruited athlete will have a grand total of one EC. That is not an issue.
The points listed by @googledrone are all valid.