Hello,
I was wondering if a recruited athlete was to be offered official visits as well as full admission support through a coaching staff at the University of Chicago, what kind of shot does this athlete have at getting admitted?
Is it just as good a shot as the atheltes offered by the Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, etc. have? Or is admissions at UChicago stricter with what kind of athletes they admit?
Thanks.
bump
Okay cjrs I am not the best source for this, but I can tell you that an athlete does not have as much leverage with UChicago (or other elite DIII schools) as they do certainly with DI athletic programs and even the Ivy League. The best you can hope for at a DIII school like MIT or Williams or UChicago is to have the coach go to bat for you with admissions and maybe get an early read of your application. But the DIII coaches simply do not have the same leverage.
What kaukauna said is true, but I think if you are reasonably qualified in terms of grades and test scores, and you’re not a completely awful writer, and you really have the “full admission support” of the coach of a varsity sport, that’s going to be good enough to get you in. The trick is knowing whether you really have the coach’s highest level of support, because the coach’s support can be of the “this is the one person I want most” variety, the “I really need to get at least three of these five people” variety, or the “this person would be an asset to the team” variety.
The coaches at DIII schools generally know the admissions people and their standards quite well. They don’t usually waste time recruiting people who can’t get in even with the coach’s support. It’s not perfect, and wires can get crossed, but the coach should be honest with you about where you stand if you pin him or her down. They don’t have much to gain by encouraging students to apply (and maybe to forgo other opportunities), only to be rejected.
I agree with the posters above that being on a coach’s list at Chicago, in general, does not have the same impact as at D1 schools like the Ivies, Stanford and Northwestern (and especially places like Stanford and Northwestern that have athletic scholarships).
Those schools have formal pre-reads with admissions before inviting a recruit to an official visit, a defined number of admissions slots they can advocate for, and often Likely Letters from admissions in advance of the regular admissions timeline. If a recruit has made it to the stage of being offered a spot and often put up for a LL at Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, etc., they are generally going to be admitted.
I think JHS is correct in general, but I do think it’s important to ask the coach specific questions like, how many recruits are they supporting? How many of their recruits got in last year? Etc. You certainly hear some unfortunate stories at some top D3 schools (such as MIT) where maybe 1/3 of athletic recruits get in . . .better than the baseline admissions rate, but a lot lower than let’s say 90% at the Ivies, Stanford and Northwestern (of those who have been pre-screened by admissions and made it to the coach’s short list).
As someone who has been recruited by many D3 colleges, I can tell you that “full support” of a coach from UChicago definitely helps your admission chances, it is the smallest “bump” in d3 recruiting, along with the likes of MIT, Cal Tech, etc. Almost every other school, NESCAC included, has a much higher acceptance rate of supported athletes. U Chicago’s track coach supports “a couple hundred” applicants every year in hopes of getting 25 to enroll. Basketball coaches support 40-60 recruits a year in hopes to get 2-6 enrolled. Admissions for athletes is much harder when a school does not have an ED plan, admission officers don’t waste an acceptance on athlete with lower stats only for him/her to go to another school. d3 athletic recruiting is a crazy world, and is usually never fully understood until you’ve gone through it all and it’s too late.
If you are waitlisted, an athletic coach maybe able to push you over. I know two examples under that condition.
hcrump thanks for those numbers, which are really helpful in showing how this works at Chicago. And you’re right that the whole process can be hard for recruits to understand, who unlike coaches are only going through it once.
By way of comparison, a typical Ivy track/cross-country program will support ~10-15 men and ~10-15 women per year with the expectation that pretty much all of them will be admitted and will enroll (and many will apply SCEA at HYP or ED at the other five Ivies). Even at HYP where the athletes don’t technically have to enroll, the yield is very high for athletic recruits. There may be more walk-ons who get in on their own, but that’s a typical number for admissions support. So it’s a different approach than at Chicago.
If coach really likes you and you apply EA, then coach will really pull for you with Admissions. Unless you have Ivy coaches getting pre reads on you and offering Likely Letter, I would suggest applying EA. Also the new No Barriers program makes financial aid packages on par with Ivies.
After comparing financial aid and then having Likely Letter EA with UChicago, it was easy decision for my son to jump at acceptance with UChicago.
Don’t be afraid to have frank conversation with coaches. They have no reason to hurt their reputation with future recruits by not being totally honest with you?
Good luck!