It muddies the waters to now introduce the Pac12. Remember, the topic of this thread is selective d3s, which is worlds away from huge state schools.
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As others have stated, there is a large variation depending on schools. I realize this thread is focused on highly selective DIII colleges. However, I was an athlete at Stanford and am more familiar with Stanford, so I will focus on that school.
When I attended and I expect today, Stanford had plenty of opportunity for free tutoring and study sessions, which many students took advantage of, including non-athletes. I both worked as a tutor who assisted other students and have taken advantage of tutoring. Study groups were extremely common, particularly in engineering classes. Professors encouraged students to do problem sets in groups and study in groups. The overwhelming portion of students studied together – both athletes and non-athletes.
Stanford also had special efforts that targeted students who were more at risk of struggling academically and/or socially. These groups include things like URMs pursuing tech, FGLI, etc. Like most of the schools discussed in this thread, Stanford also has incoming freshmen take placement tests to identify students who have weaker HS backgrounds and start them at a appropriate levels, particularly in things like math. There are many possible math starting points – both in course material and in levels of rigor. Once the student catches up, they pursue major-specific classes, which are at a more uniform rigor level (some have honors options). The idea is to better support students from weaker HS backgrounds who want to pursue math-heavy majors, rather than specifically focus on athletes and the like.
However, athletes were one group that was targeted as more at risk, with programs to support athletes academically. This includes Stanford having an “easy” class list for athletes, at the time. A news story about the list is at https://stanforddaily.com/2011/03/09/1046687/ . This list included classes like intro to statistics and elementary economics. It was not all classes that an outside observer might think of as “easy.” Stanford also included encouraging athletes to be successful in academics in other ways, including giving awards for athletes with a 3.5+ GPA in any particular quarter (at time when I attended, threshold is likely higher today), coaches being mindful of academics and working around academics/classes, etc. As I noted earlier in the thread, in some sports, such as football, athletes were more likely to pursue majors associated with being easy. However, the overall distribution of athlete majors is not dramatically different from the student population (less tech, more STS + Hum Bio).
I say having an easy class list, “at the time” because the news story is from 2011, and I doubt the list still exiets. With grade inflation and increased selectivity, there is little reason for such a list today. As previously noted in the thread, the Harvard senior survey lists a median GPA of 3.9. Yale’s honors threshold suggest a median GPA of 3.8 to 3.9. Princeton’s senior survey lists a median GPA of 3.8 for non-athletes, in spite of having a history of grade deflation. I haven’t seen numbers for Stanford, but I’d expect in a similar range, maybe higher.
With the vast majority of students getting A’s, few getting B’s, and hardly anyone getting lower than B; there isn’t a big issue with students failing to get adequate grades or even failing to get grades that an outside observer would think of as “good.” I expect Stanford athletes are more likely to be towards the bottom of the class academically than average, but that towards the bottom of the class is still probably an A- type GPA, with average of >3.5 GPA . I expect most students in this GPA range generally understand the class material well are not what I’d consider out of depth academically.
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All consistent with all I’ve been told over the years, by athletes and non-athletes at Stanford. As I’m sure you know, different sports have different thresholds, with no-surprise football being the most forgiving, and crew amongst the least. The gap between some athletes at Stanford to gen pop and that at highly selective LACs are leagues different, and for understandable reasons. The % of people from the general population who you need to field a D1 P5 football team is pretty low to begin with, and Stanford won’t get them all. To be able to even be on the field at that level you need to relax admissions in a major way relative to normal Stanford admissions. That P5 level is a game changer.
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When our daughter was doing her recruiting tour she visited with several top academic schools. At one particular school the coach said they discourage their athletes from majoring in stem/engineering… for that very reason. The time commitment and then the travel during the school year eats into the academics; such that even excellent students can struggle.
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Really? I never heard of that, though there is plenty of support available - to anyone who seeks it. Are you talking about a specific school?
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Yes, that is one of the perks for athletes. Of course I cannot speak to every school, but our daughters D1 school had mandatory study halls, tutors, and helped navigate scheduling of tests/quizzes during the season.
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Which Ivy is this? I had not heard of programs specifically for athletes. My D certainly never mentioned one at her school.
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Not every school provides special tutoring for student-athletes.
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Interesting. I had not seen that. To be fair, it’s not something that came up for us.
Still, these schools provide the same sort of help to everyone, though some groups have “offices” that offer not so much extra support, but help navigating the system/connecting them with support.
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But 150 responses in, the original question isn’t always clear and you can’t fault people for answering the title of the thread, which says nothing about only applying to top D3 schools (and how ‘top’ is defined’)
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To be fair to all posters on this thread, it is not clear to me what level the OP is referring to until I drill down several posts. If it’s not in the header or the initial post, the onus is not on everyone else to slog through and decipher.
As it is, I’m questioning how long this discussion needs to continue since in my mind, the obvious answer is "it depends "
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If I had the power to modify the initial title to help others out I would. That is above my pay-grade, unfortunately.
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Didn’t fault anyone. I actually also asked the OP to clarify specifically which schools they were referring to as to gain a better understanding of the original question, myself.
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Only one Ivy League program my son looked at suggested they had special services available to athletes. Others seemed to feel they had sufficient support for for all students. The school he wound up with has plenty of help available, both tactical and strategic, but it is available to all students.
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Our kids must be at the same school - at least for her sport there is no special help area outside of what is available for all too.
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That’s the same for us too.
She did not attend but the Ivy she toured was Princeton. Yes, most of the schools offer academic support to all students, however, as a student-athlete, there are a lot more accommodations offered.
What do you mean by accommodations? That word typically has a specific meaning in education.
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Sorry should have retrieved my thesaurus. Accommodation= having a proctor sit in classes missed to take notes, reviews for tests not during the usual office hours, access to class registration before all other non-athlete students, classes where the professors are more lenient, etc. Our daughter had an advisor specifically tasked with arranging her academic schedule around her athletic training and was a go to if there were problems. Yes, most universities offer academic support but for student-athletes at D1 schools it can really help to manage the experience.
That’s the deal at the NESCACs (and many other LACs): there’s plenty of support for all students. But no special study hall or service or facility or access for athletes. That kind of thing is anathema to a SLAC and I suspect other HSD3s like MIT, Chicago, JH, etc. I’m also surprised to see any Ivy with separate programs for athletes, but there you have it upthread.
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