<p>Anyone applying EA with an athletic endorsement? Coaches will call it an orange card. I've got one from the men's lightweight rowing coach.</p>
<p>That's pretty cool. I've heard from athletes at my school that Princeton allows coaches to 'nudge' 5 players each. Not sure how MIT does it, but I'm sure it's a selected few... good luck!</p>
<p>Basically if a coach thinks that an applicant will be a good addition to MIT and the team in question, he/she can basically add what amounts to another letter of recommendation to the applicants file. They don't get "extra points" or anything for being a recruited athlete, they just get some general extra positive info in their app, to be included in the whole package. Does that make sense?</p>
<p>But wouldn't an endorsement from an MIT coach hold more weight than a rec from my school's coach?</p>
<p>You almost have to be able to get in on your own. A coaches rating might get you in over the top. No slots or rank order on the coaches list. Their hands are tied.</p>
<p>suarezr1: Not necessarily. I mean, if your HS coach knows you really well and can say awesome things about how dedicated/motivated/responsible/(fill in positive adjective here) you are, that will add a lot more than an MIT coach saying "Yeah, they seem cool."</p>
<p>Honestly, I don't think the coach's endorsement would be treated very differently than any other positive aspect of your application. It would just be an extra nudge showing that you could add to the MIT community. Admissions isn't going to be like "well this kid has awful grades but we really need a quarterback" or anything remotely like that.</p>
<p>Here's a quote from Bowen, "Reclaiming the Game," so that you can get a sense of where MIT stands in the recruiting spectrum:</p>
<p>
[quote]
at MIT . . . there is very little recruitment of athletes, there is no recruiting budget, and there is only the most tenuous link between admissions and athletics.</p>
<p>The athletic deparment at MIT has a card that goes in the admissions packet to identify athletes, and coaches are able to follow up on students who look promising. Coaches also send lists of candidates to admissions. . . . One MIT coach who was at a NESCAC college prviously said that, whereas at the NESCAC college she would get her top recruits (presuming that they were reasonable candidates academically), at MIT she is not even sure that submitting recommendations is a good use of her time.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>As far as I know, there haven't been major changes in MIT's policy. While having a card can help your case, it doesn't give you anything like the admissions bump you get at they Ivies, for example, where things are VERY different when it comes to recruited athletes.</p>
<p>Simply put there is no athletic recruiting at MIT. You don't receive a slot or get on the coaches list. However, their conference is less competitive than other D3 Schools ie. NESCAC.</p>
<p>Well, MIT rowing is D1. The lightweight coach filled an entire boat of eight with recruits for the class of 2010, and said he's trying to get twelve for this incoming class. It's not that I don't have the grades, or I wouldn't have applied. Part of the reason I chose MIT over Princeton was that I was able to be part of something that was growing; this was their best season in years, and the lightweight program is growing faster than ever. I turned down the Princeton endorsement for this, and now the MIT coach and I have such a great connection. I speak to him every week via email, I've spoken to him in person many times, and we've phoned each other many times. He even let me stay overnight with a kid on the team. I have friends who are applying to schools where the coach knows nothing about them, and all they'll probably have is a "He's cool" for a rec.</p>
<p>Wow...jealous! But congrats, and good luck!</p>