<p>That would explain the high level of scholarship. Few HS players are of Olympic or World Cup status, but the coaches have a short list of who the future candidates are. If you’re on that list, you probably deserve the full scholarship.</p>
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<p>Actually, it doesn’t, it takes money out. Few college athletic programs break even, let alone make a profit for the school, year after year. Given complete freedom to act in their best financial interest, most colleges would be better off on the whole to substantially cut back their athletic programs, but tradition and alumni pressure to keep the programs is huge.</p>
<p>There is no offense when someone posts an opinion, but I wish you’d realize that people who happen to understand how athletic scholarships work at Stanford might raise an eyebrow or two. I mentioned the reality of a student being offered a 250,000 above, and that meant to share an opinion that such scholarship is between extremely rare and inexistent. Skieurope posted details about the number of scholarships (12 or 14) and the fact that in soccer such scholarship are divided among the entire roster. Almost each team will have a couple of superstars that were recruited based on full scholarships, but those remain the exception. Most kids receive partial scholarships. </p>
<p>Further, despite the change in 2011, it remains that scholarships are typically renewable every year, as opposed to be “flat” four years that includes all tuition, RB, and costs. </p>
<p>What did happen probably is that your cousins or their daughter TOLD you that they received such scholarship. This happens all the time along the sidelines of games all the way from the Y days to competitive select soccer, and most people know that the 1-2 percent of soccer players who get a scholarship are rarely getting a full one. </p>
<p>Obviously, words such as always or never are rarely correct … as standardized tests reveal. We cannot talk in absolute! However, why stop short at the list you suggested. How about adding an endless list of students who compile an application that has inflated academics, test scores obtained in dubious circumstances, GPA that are the result of connections to older siblings or cousins, homework that are boosted by family members or hired mercenaries, and more of the like. How about adding rigged competition results at the Intel, where semi finalists can skate by without much of a review and plenty of cronyism? </p>
<p>In the end, one could find fault in about every type of application, and spend his days being totally cynical about it. Separating the warranted from the unwarranted attacks is a fool’s errand. Perhaps, it is best to accept the outcomes and realize that a failed (if there is such a word) application is not so much a matter of the “others” having taken one’s spot but the fact that there are simply just a few kids that had a “package” that did fit the objective of that school at a particular time. </p>
<p>In a way, we do accept easily that corporations of governments (or even athletic teams) recruit targeted candidates for specific roles. It seems that only in education do we believe that the standard should be a simple combination of GPA and test scores and that the other attributes matter only in case of ties. This is akin to look at models and the clothes they show, but prefer to only focus on the hat they might be wearing! </p>
Most collegiate sports are revenue users and not revenue generators. Sure, some big time football programs and some men’s basketball programs bring in more money than they use – and don’t require funding from the college . The few colleges that have these actually rely on this revenue stream to fund most of the other sports program budgets. For all the others, the uni needs to allocate money to them. I suppose it’s possible the Tenn or UConn women’s hoops may generate postive cashflow, but I would suspect every other single women’s collegiate program in the country is money dependent on its college.</p>
<p>Sure, there are oddball scenarios (like Yale and Harvard alumni funded endowments that help fund women’s and men’s crew) – but don’t let the big dollars that Alabama or UMich or Notre Dame football or Duke men’s basketball fool you. Although very visible, they are the exception.</p>
<p>I can only speak from personal experience, but my son’s successful recruitment at Stanford did not suggest massive favoritism or privilege for non-revenue-sport athletes. He is first in his class, his SAT I score is 2290, his AI is 234, and he is national and Junior Olympic champion in his age group. Even after passing the pre-read, the coach stressed the uncertainty of his acceptance; in fact, unlike the Ivies who recruited him, she stressed the small influence she had in the admissions process. No money was promised. I was left with the impression that the academic expectations for non-revenue-sport athletes at Stanford were as lofty as for the rest of the student body, and we were grateful for this.</p>
<p>To me it just seems like free publicity. If a college recruits a big star and they make headlines as a result of their good play, the school gets mentioned too. Kids will read these articles about the star player, and they might not have even heard of the school before reading the article. </p>
<p>Stanford and it’s peers don’t exactly advertise the breaks some (emphasis on some) athletes get, they like it to seem like everyone gets in by the same rules, but I’ve heard numerous stories that a few athletes, revenue and non-revenue, get in with 25 ACT scores. That’s not knuckle-dragging territory, but it’s not the vaunted Stanford stats either.</p>
<p>As for academic expectations, even Stanford is guilty of the “Rocks For Jocks” ploy. As late as 2011, Stanford was circulating a “Courses of Interest” list to athletes that were known Easy-A type courses.</p>
<p>The thing is with colleges, they want a well-rounded class with different types of kids. They don’t want to have all students who just study and care about academics. Colleges accept athletes, musicians, artists, intellectuals just to show everyone that they have a very diverse school.</p>
<p>I think it’s unfair that athletes get in based on their sport ability but that’s how colleges are. </p>
<p>nb. “I think it’s unfair that athletes get in based on their sport ability but that’s how colleges are.”</p>
<p>According to the most recent statistics, approximately 5 - 6% of high school ATHLETES continue their sport into college. When you consider that the majority of HS students do not play varsity sports, the percentage of HS students who play varsity sports in college is significantly less then 5 - 6% (perhaps as low as 2%). So, can anyone really complain that a student who has climbed into the top 2% of their peers should not get credit for taking an activity which virtually every kid can do to the top level in the country?</p>
<p>One poster asserted that not every kid has the physical attributes which can translate into athletic prowess. While I agree that kids come in wide varieties of sizes and shapes, with varying degrees of “athleticism”, I do not accept that most kids who desire to find a suitable sport cannot find a sport suited to their physical abilities. Some sports are divided into weight classes (e.g., wrestling, crew); others do not penalize smaller athletes, still others reward speed over brawn, long term planning over immediate reactions, etc. In short, there is a sport available for virtually everyone which COULD be played in college.</p>
<p>What distinguishes the potential college athlete from the typical HS varsity athlete is passion and desire to go “all in” in an activity; to give up a lot of time, energy, social life in an attempt to get better - in little tiny increments. The typical college athlete did not spend several months in achieving proficiency in their sport (unlike SAT review courses); the typical college athlete has spent the better part of a DECADE working on so,etching that, for whatever reason, moved him/her to go to the extreme.</p>
<p>Do parents of non-college athleres truly comprehend the effort put into the sport? Do you really think that a pre-high school child really wants to go running, blocking, sailing, throwing, when the playing field is covered in ice? </p>
<p>Sorry about the typos, but the iPad is getting very old and the fingers are typing very slow.</p>
<p>Boiled down, my point is that the athletes who go on to play in college are the products of a very very selective system. They have shown the passion and dedication which easily matches virtually every other pre-college activity - often for far longer time periods. Athletes have experienced failures (actually many failures), worked to achieve team goals, been leaders (and followers) within a team system. All those lessons are directly translated into life after college.</p>
<p>There are a lot more to athletics then scoring four touchdowns in one game (which was an incredibly superficial view of what leads to that accomplishment).</p>
<p>No one is arguing that it isn’t an achievement, sometimes a very big one. The question is, should it override everything else? I don’t care how much time and effort an athlete puts in, why should their athletic talent override a 3.0 and a 21 ACT to get into Michigan from OOS? I’m not sure those grades and test scores would get you in from in-state. Name me a single other non-athletic activity that someone could do that would get them in with those grades and test scores. It’s one thing to treat athletics as a “plus” factor, it’s another to completely overlook everything else and count it as the only factor.</p>
<p>@MrMom62 your post goes back to the original poster’s question. Does that athlete with lesser academic chops deserve to take away a slot from a more academically accomplished non-athlete.</p>
<p>But football can be such a blunt example. Why not look at the rise in Women’s sports? Haven’t they coincided with the increase in women into college? It’s not so simple an equation of One Dumb Jock = one less non-athlete.</p>
<p>Why limit the question to athletics? Why should the time and effort to develop one’s theatrical, musical, singing talents, etc override their 3.0 and a 21 ACT to get into Michigan from OOS? Why do colleges have anything else but classrooms and libraries? Do we even need classrooms or libraries anymore? Should admission simply boil down to two numbers (GPA and SAT/ACT)?</p>
<p>Both my older brothers received offers to swim in college. My oldest brother received offers from UCLA, Michigan, UT Austin, Yale, Harvard, and a couple of top schools. He ultimately ended up choosing Yale and was admitted early. Would he have gotten in if he didn’t swim? Probably, he had a 1580 out of 1600 on the SAT along with a 3.78 GPA. My second older, currently at Johns Hopkins, was recruited by several Division I schools but they were not known for academics (Florida, FSU, Oklahoma, Alabama, and LSU). He was heavily in touch with the Hopkins swim coach when he was a junior. He applied Early Decision after the coach pursued him to go. He was admitted Early Decision with a 2200+ and 3.65 (I believe) GPA. </p>
<p>I know it is just two cases but NOT ALL athletes are stupid and unworthy of admission to top schools. All of the guys on my brother’s swim team at Yale all had SAT scores above a 1300 (on the 1600 scale). Sure, it is not the highest scores in the world but athletes give something scholars can’t. My brother swam with Team USA for a while, I am sure not many have that as an EC. Not all athletes are dumb and stupid, there is something about them that is deemed worthy of acceptance at top schools. (Just an FYI, my oldest brother majored in Economics at Yale and he currently works in London at a big bank. You gotta go something after college. Not many athlete can go through life just being good at throwing a ball or running with a stick ) </p>
<p>Show me someone who got into Michigan with those numbers and a performance talent and you might have an argument, but I doubt you can do so, so your argument is specious.</p>
<p>I’m not even arguing that athletes are taking away spots from non-athletes, because as long as you have athletics on campus, you’re going to have recruited athletes. However, can’t we at least ask that the athletes who are recruited be something other than JUST athletes, who at least somewhat represent academically what the rest of the school represents? After all, when Michigan’s mid-50 is 27 to 31, even the most ardent football supporter has to admit that 21 is pretty darn low compared to the rest of the school. That’s somewhere between 3 and 4 standard deviations off the mean, which is just huge and says you have virtually no academic standards whatsoever concerning athletes. Maybe not UNC level, but it’s getting there. </p>
<p>Is a student at that level even going to get anything out of going to school where they are so far off the mark? If we’re looking out for the welfare of student-athletes, shouldn’t they be getting something out of their ability to play - like an education? Wouldn’t that student be better off attending a school where they stand a chance in the classroom as well, rather than having a high likelihood of never graduating? Perhaps if schools were penalized for having students who were recruited but didn’t graduate within 6 years by losing one scholarship for every recruit who didn’t graduate or turn pro successfully for two years, they might pay closer attention to the academic needs of their recruits.</p>
<p>One other thing that many of you are missing…even the kids who do receive a “full ride” athletic scholarship to schools outside the ivy…it is on a year by year basis only. They can yank their scholarships at any point. There is NO 4 year guaranteed athletic scholarship. The kid could accept the scholarship, tear an acl and have it pulled the following year only to be told sorry you are on your own now to continue with college if you choose. Different for Ivies…it’s academic only. So if you quit your sport after year 1 or 2 etc…you still have a full ride. Sports outside of football ie baseball are for the most part partials.</p>
<p>^ and that is why I told my D to keep the focus on her academic work and play her sport for fun if she chooses. Academic scholarships are guaranteed for 4 years as long as clear criteria are met (GPA, normally). </p>
<p>I can’t imagine choosing a school for an athletic scholarship and then losing it. What on earth do lower income people do then? Drop out? Transfer?</p>
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