<p>S is looking to have a fabulous junior year swimming and if he keeps dropping times the way he did over sophomore year & then long course, ought to be down to Ivy League times or beyond by July 1. BUT... he's taken all the honors courses his high school offers and only gotten Bs/B+s in them. His school doesn't weight but DOES rank, it almost seems like they are TRYING to hurt their students. </p>
<p>I've been trying to tell myself that the admissions offices will select who is right for the school, and if he is only there because a coach gave him a slot, academically he might struggle and be miserable. Also he flat-out loved his honors humanities courses, I would call them "life-changing", so his high school experience was still by-and-large great. AP classes this year which praise the Lord they DO weigh...</p>
<p>When admissions calculates the AI I know they'll toss his A+s in his electives, but any chance they will also take the helpful step of recognizing the academic rigour of the class? Or note he has other worthy ECs?</p>
<p>(Math SAT reasonable at 670, critical reading kinda ickey at 580. Trying to talk him into doing a prep course since there is a pattern with the type of questions he misses.)</p>
<p>The AI calculator on this site [Academic</a> Index3 - College Confidential](<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/academic_index3.htm]Academic”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/academic_index3.htm) is pretty accurate. Since your son’s HS ranks, Ivies will go off his rank for this calculation, nothing more, nothing less. They won’t drop his A+s and they won’t add or subtract for other rigor. For purposes of AI, they’ll just look at his SAT I or ACT, his SAT IIs, and his actual class rank.</p>
<p>The best thing he can do now is probably continue his improvement in his times and focus on his test scores. I don’t know about the others, but HYP generally expect 700+ across the board, maybe less for football and hockey.</p>
<p>If your student has had great curriculum --then the testing scores are your sticking point (assuming the athletic numbers do drop and come into the recruiting range)</p>
<p>Your athlete needs 700s across the board in the sections…and in SAT2s.
or
an ACT in the 30s–the higher the better…whatever the freshman profile is for the school–say 32-24–your student should aim for that 33…Make sense?</p>
<p>the ACT is very different than the SATs. Definitley try both.</p>
<p>The athletics part of this equation takes your student out of a pile of 30,000 apps (of kids trying to show they have the academic stats PLUS something else)
—IF your stundet meets the coaches recruiting #(which is THE something else)
AND
all other things acadmically are in place (grades/scores)…</p>
<p>For HYP, your athlete can will need to have those academic and testing stats equal to the rest of the class.</p>
<p>Don’t limit yourself to the ivies–especially if your student would like $ to swim…</p>
<p>ACT sounds like a great idea! thanks folks. For anyone else interested in this question, I found an article on a prep school web site that indicated schools could add an extra 5 points on the 240 point scale if the program was academically rigorous. Ditto if the school had a great reputation. But getting 700s in the SAT IIs would be much more to the point. </p>
<p>We’re also trying to pay as much or more attention to the more realistic matches, which at the moment are Binghamton, UMass, Drexel, maybe Boston. Maybe if he continues to stretch towards the Ivies that’ll at least put him in contention for the Patriot League, although that seems like the worst money situation of all (no athletic scholarships and decidedly less aid available .</p>
<p>Son has LL to an Ivy in soccer. GPA is strong in a well regarded public school that sends 5-8 students to Ivies each year. BUT, test score on ACT was below 30. On SAT, only hit 700 in math (low & high 600s in CR & W). One SAT II above 700, the other was below 650. Every Ivy coach he talked to told him that he was “admittable” with his grades and test scores. He took SAT and ACT only once. Many soccer players have their academic credentials posted on their individual pages of the USSF, USSDA website. Looking at those who have announced their committments to the Ivies, you can see that many appear to be on track with far lower test scores and GPAs than posters on CC suggest are required.</p>
<p>I can second that. On her officials D (lw rowing) met several girls with SAT cumulative scores under 2100 (but none under 2050) and SAT2’s weren’t spoken of at all by coaches (some had high 600’s or just at 700) though I’m sure admissions takes note. Several of these know where they’re going next year, incl. HPS. What we have learned through this process is that one size doesn’t fit all athletic recruits in terms of scores and gpas (gpa always negotiable, anyway, depending on school rigor and reputation). The better you are as an athlete, the more adjustable the academics, within certain boundaries. But the 2100, 3.8+ gpa is not carved in stone. And the sport matters too. I know several ow women from past years whose scores didn’t get within shouting distance of 2000 --but they have fast erg scores and/or went to Nationals, often both-- and they were heavily courted. By everyone.</p>
<p>elileo, with an an assist from ByThePitch, has completely nailed it. </p>
<p>Situation also varies by sport (the helmet sports being most forgiving), number of athletes on a team (big teams, greater latitiiude, tiny teams, little latitude) and by school (Yale the most stingent). </p>
<p>if there is any rule here, elileo has stated it - “The better you are as an athlete, the more adjustable the academics, within certain boundaries”.</p>
<p>The challenge to manage for athletes and parents is where to invest the incremental effort of time and resources. It is a tough balancing act for many. For very good athletes, effort is often best spent on getting as good as they can at the sport. </p>
<p>Anecdotally, I saw a Harvard-Princeton hockey game the other night and sat right behind the Princeton bench. I can assure you that many of these boys were not rocket scientists.</p>
<p>Agree with Fog-Swimmers tend to be more academic than “helmet” sports, so there is no need to accept those with lower test scores unless they are Olympic qualifiers.</p>
<p>Our school’s HYP LL athletes had 700s plus on their SATs with A- averages. State finalists(top3) in their events.</p>
<p>OS, your last paragraph made me laugh… remembering a few Ivy hockey games of my youth. Enough said. </p>
<p>In any event, OldBatesieDoc and others, I do take your point. D’s sphere includes athletes of high academic distinction and they have been actively pursued. At the same time, her world is a small one, unlike the much larger pool (or so I assume) of swimmers where great talent and great academics commonly intersect and where coaches can pick and choose freely. The same must hold for xcountry and track I think. Just giving a little insight into our experience which seems to disprove a hard-and-fast rule of 2100.</p>
<p>Just be wary of your S attending what would be a big academic reach, and trying to manage the demanding academics while training harder than he ever has before. The bodily fatigue that sets in after weeks of practice–some days double sessions–will make it pretty difficult to study late into the night or pull an all-nighter to finish a paper like so many college students do. In sum, it ain’t easy to balance two high-level involvements. Make sure your student is up to it.</p>
<p>^^So true - My D is extremely happy rowing for her ivy but I was amazed when she said that more often than not, she is in bed by 10:30/11:00 p.m. - I had imagined late nights burning the midnight oil, but as she explained, when many of your days include double work outs, or even just one very intense session, the physical fatigue must be addressed. The upside is the great time management skills adopted, with academics and training being the priorities, and this is really showing up in her grades. Another good thing is that she still feels she has a full social life as the team is the epicenter of that anyway. But yes, if she was in over her head academically, this would all be very difficult, discouraging and overwhelming, I imagine.</p>
<p>^ Same expereince for our athlete Mayhew.
Very busy, 2 a days. Practices are “very demanding” and this is from a kid who was at the top of the sport going in–and very very fit.
Because of great mgt skills, kiddo is managing fine with academics/sport/social.
In bed with similar schedule as your athlete.
Only Sat night partying–though this past weekend was studying for mid terms this week…
Team provides a good bit of the social life/social circle though the res college/dorm connections are growing as well…and of course people met in class/labs etc.
Our student is a STEM maj.
I cannot imagine how anyone without the strong academic prep/rigor could handle the demands/pace of the classes kiddo is taking and a sport.</p>
<p>Re: “Just be wary of your S attending what would be a big academic reach, and trying to manage the demanding academics while training harder than he ever has before.” </p>
<p>First, I think that most of these Ivies are infinitely harder to get into than they are to stay in (with the exception of STEM majors!). Second, standardized test scores (on which there is definitely flexibility depending on how highly regarded the athletic prospect is) are vastly less reliable as a predictor of academic success than the quality of the high school curriculum and the student’s work ethic and time management skills.</p>
<p>I’m aware of research that states that SAT scores are not a very reliable predictor of college achievement. However, this research was done at the U California system with a much wider range of students. In the ivy leagues, your student is competing against kids in the classroom with high GPAs, many from the top schools in the country, AND high test scores. Add to this the time commitment as an athlete and the fact that many schools grade on the curve, and it can be quite challenging. Try to evaluate your school’s high school curriculum and perhaps figure out why his test scores are a bit low. Does he run out of time, does he think too complicated, does he not read the questions properly, does he have problems with the content?</p>
<p>D had a rigorous high school schedule of all honors and AP classes, earned a high GPA at this competitive school, and scored 2300 on the SAT score (one sitting, no prep). Nonetheless, she is finding the academics difficult at her elite university–sometimes because of content, but mostly because of time limitations. Last year when when she was a freshman, she learned that several teammates had failed a class. One of them had been a good student in high school, but not tippy top. Took maybe 3 AP’s per year rather than 5 or 6 like D, and might not have been used to the heavy workload. He had planned to study engineering, but now has dropped that plan. It’s possible he might have managed it at a lower-ranked school, or without the athletics.</p>
<p>I really did try to get S2 to go to a less selective school, as he was thinking pre-med.</p>
<p>There are two factors for him: he started a new language(that doesn’t use the alphabet)at Midd, which equals 9 hours of scheduled class time a week. Therefor, more than 1 lab science a semester is just not do-able with practice time. If he continues to think medicine, he’ll need to go to summer school or take a fifth year(somewhere cheaper). His father and I are resigned to that. </p>
<p>That’s the compromise with athletics at schools without grade inflation. My son graduated IB with unweighted 4.0, one of the top 3-5 students in his class(no rank), but it’s nothing compared to his current workload plus 25-30 hours of practice a week.</p>
<p>As a former Ivy League athlete myself (different school than S), I’m comfortable S can do the work. He plays soccer year round now with a lot of travel on weekends and handles a full AP load. He has 5s on all of his AP tests to date (though these are not a component of the AI). In contrast, his SAT was below 2050, though coaches told him that for purposes of this AI, they could replace his low CR with his one high SAT II. I might think differently if he was engineering or pre-med, but I think it would be hard to be a DI athlete and be engineering or pre-med at any state school. Rigor is not limited to the Ivys. It might even be harder at a state school where athletics is considered priority number 1, and more games are scheduled midweek. Anyway, he’s a humanities type of guy and a disciplined student who didn’t bother to try to get his ACT or SAT up once the coaches told him he was fine. I will add that he was not recruited heavily beyond the Ivy league. He had some interest from a handful of D3 schools and some second tier DIs, but most interest was from the Ivys.</p>
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