Athletic Recruits Affect on Other ED Applicants?

Hello!

We found out yesterday that a student from our private school is a varsity athletic recruit for the same college our child applied to ED. They are the same gender. The two students are very similar academically - same classes, roughly same GPA. Our child has requisite extracurriculars as well but not at the national level in a varsity sport.

I wish our counselor had told us about this other student because our child was strongly considering applying ED to another school. I am right to be sad that our school didn’t tell us?

We are not sour grapes, by the way, and do recognize that this other student is highly qualified.

Thank you.

Depends on the school. Is this a NESCAC school? They may sometimes limit the # of students they take from a particular HS, mainly because their class sizes are so small.

But for Ivies and all other athletic leagues, this really doesn’t matter too much since the incoming class size is so large.

I don’t think the GC’s role is to tell parents the schools to which other kids are applying. Kind of a privacy issue. So I don’t think you should be sad/upset. Looking on the bright side, if your child is as good academically than the recruited athlete, the admissions department might be embarrassed not to allow your kid in along with the athlete. After all, sports are not supposed to be the be all and end all.

No. You are not right.

In the first place, no college has a quota/min/max on accepting students from any HS, as much as some like to believe otherwise.

In the second place, recruited athletes are in a pool of their own. Your kid is not competing for the same slot. The recruit is competing for a specific gender/sport/position slot and is only competing against those applicants of the same gender/sport/position,

I have never heard anything that would suggest this is true. And I find it highly unlikely that the admissions department would believe that, having taken one kid from a high school, they have to take all kids from the school with stats as good or better or risk being embarrassed.

I’d be upset if the GC was telling other parents where my child had applied.

The school counselor should not share that information without permission, regardless whether it’s a private school or public school. The purpose of ED is to apply to a school that is clearly the first choice. You can always apply ED 2 to the second choice if ED does not work out.

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Yes, athletes are in a pool of their own, but they are not competing against each other. If the coach has 6 slots, they may rank those 6, but there is no competition between the athletes. And, imo, if your school has a lot of admitted athletes, it may count against others applying from the same school.

I understand the school can’t tell you who else is applying. Perhaps, however, they could have shared that your child was not the very strongest applicant from your school to apply to that college. Or something to indicate competition was fierce for that particular school. I think there is a way for counselors to respect privacy while acknowledging that other applicants have hooks and it may be better to look elsewhere.

@roycroftmom Now you want GC’s making admission decisions? Having insight into one other applicant isn’t very much at all. The whole HS quota thing is something made up by parents justifying why their kid wasn’t accepted. I don’t know for sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the AOs looking at general pool applicants doesn’t even know what is going on in the athletic pool.

This is completely anecdotal, but it might make you feel better. At our small public high, we hadn’t had any admits to Harvard for many years, until 2016. That year, we had one athletic admit and one academic admit. Based on observations of admits to other top schools, there does not seem to be a limit for individual high schools. My understanding is that the limits are for geographic areas.