<p>I don't think sports will really make the difference between getting accepted vs. not, but the admissions officers do take notice when a coach asks for you.</p>
<p>Anecdotal evidence: For five years, I've always been one of the slowest girls on my school's crew team, but I love rowing, and I figured it wouldn't hurt to fill out the recruiting form on the team website. Sure enough, the coach e-mailed me to ask if I was planning on visiting - I had already done my school visit, but I promised to stop by the boathouse when my team went to compete in the Head of the Charles (I wasn't actually competing, I just went to watch, so I had plenty of time to wander around Cambridge looking for the MIT boathouse). Even though I am by no means an excellent athlete, the coach offered to attach an "orange card" (a recruiting card) to my application, and still to this day I don't know how much weight it had on my acceptance, but I do know this:
When I showed up at the CPW registration desk, the admissions officer who took my name looked up at me and said "Hey, you're an athlete, aren't you?" She had recognized my name from the orange card.</p>
<p>I think that's the first time in my life anybody ever called me an athlete. :-)</p>