<p>I agree riverrunner. But one tends not to hear many people make comments like: “Oh, she only got in because she started a charity that raised $500,000 to fight AIDS” or “He only got in because he’s captain of the state champion debate team.” What hurts is that in many people’s view, athletics is a lower or less worthy endeavor than all other EC’s (the brain vs. brawn dichotomy). Thus when sports accomplishment serves as a hook for a student, folks consider it almost akin to cheating. Hence the “You took MY spot” comments. Also, the kid who excels in leadership or community service isn’t automatically assumed to be a lesser student, although s/he very well may be. But the athlete is judged as sub-par whether or not the facts substantiate that judgment or not. I have always admitted that sports definitely got my D in, but that is not at all the same thing as saying she wasn’t academically qualified to get in.</p>
<p>
This stigma is something that you’ll see affects even the parents of athletes, IMO, as shown by some of the perspectives on this thread: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/994992-essay-topics-recruited-athletes.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/994992-essay-topics-recruited-athletes.html</a> . Society perceives athletics as a form of universal (and de facto “lowly”) entertainment, one that anyone and everyone can enjoy but not something that requires a “refined” taste. The ballet dancer, the musician, etc. all appeal to a supposedly higher brow demographic. I think it is very much socioeconomic prejudice and it is something that has unfortunately been ingrained in virtually all of us and takes a lot to get out of us, which is probably mainly why I don’t tend to get upset at those making snide comments at recruited athletes. On the other hand, if and when those snide comments are directed at me, I do feel like (and heck, maybe I will even start) unabashedly listing all my academic qualifications and see where I stand, athletics or not. One innate immaturity for another!</p>
<p>Tell Oxford and Cambridge that athletics are lowbrow and unintellectual- at their yearly rugby match.</p>
<p>^
^
Riverrunner makes a good point…
a scholar-athlete’s sport does help open doors–</p>
<p>and
it is in addition to the academics
not instead of academics…</p>
<p>Herein lies the point…the scholar-athlete ADDS to the app the sport on top of academics, test scores, ECs etc etc…</p>
<p>The same can be said for the oboe player who adds in - the orchestral experience etc etc on top of the other ECs, academics etc…</p>
<p>People can and will be petty
–best to not let it get under your skin when you know your scholar-athlete’s academic ability is the same as the others in their freshman of the class of 2015</p>
<p>I’ll add, an oboe player may have excelled in high school, but is under no obligation to continue practicing and playing the instument in college. A recruited athlete, scholarship or not, is expected to commit to four more years at a higher, harder level than ever before. It’s different than other ECs. Not better, just different.</p>
<p>As the mother of 2 sons, one a genius, 4.0 IB, near perfect SATs, head of student government, winner of several NYS best editorial in a student newspaper awards, ran XC and track varsity etc etc etc who was waitlisted at every single top tier school to which he applied , and his brother, smart but second in NY section — in his sport who was a recruited athlete, I’d have to say that it taught our entire family a valuable lesson in what makes the elite academic world go round.
We’d say “Billy is a genius, but Tommy can throw a baseball” Look who gets in easily.
Quite a contrast, and my advise to all the smart not poor not first generation not ethnically interesting kids I know, is take up a sport and say you’ll do it in college. Can’t hurt, and seems to help disproportionately.</p>
<p>Please take my comments in the light they are intended. I am not insulting anyone’s hard work, but apparently plain old geniuses are a dime a dozen. Luckily brother A was not jealous of brother B’s good fortune.</p>
<p>oldb: i think you’re right that kids have to have a standout quality to get into top, top elites. Where I live the top 30 kids in the HS are 4.0+ with 2300+ SAT, are they all geniuses? No, I don’t think so, most just stay home and study on Friday nights. And most don’t get in to hyps. And I would imagine they and their parents are jealous of the athletes.</p>
<p>if you’re running admissions at an elite school you look for truly unique academic kids, who have something beyond a 4.0 and a great test scores…because there’s a lot of those kids out there. for instance a kid following my D to her University is 4.0 2350 and a national champion public speaker. all academic, no sports, but this kid is truly unique. the public speaking is what made the difference.</p>
<p>I think any kid who can demonstrate an ability to perform, and and perform at a top level in any subject matter, are the kids admissions wants.</p>
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</p>
<p>With all due respect, my great suspicion is that your athlete was more singular than your academic son. Its a lot harder to be all-state than it is to put up 1450 and 3.9 on the academic side. If you are in the group that overlaps both high academic and high athletic, you are highly prized at the elite academic schools. That group is not all that large…which is why the “help” seems disproportionate.</p>
<p>Actually, that is exactly my point. There are something like 70 high school newspaper editors in my S’ class at Midd. Of course, they probably all didn’t get 3 “best in state” awards for their writing, but perhaps 50 of them did. And it’s likely many had 4.0 and 2300ish SATs.
There weren’t as many boys of my athletic son’s academic level also at his athletic level in his sport.Hence my advise. The cello and the french horn, and an expressed desire to play them in the school performance group, probably also help.</p>
<p>When you have extremely bright, beautiful, or other types of talented kids, you find out who your friends are. And as good as some people want to be (or pretend to be), it really ticks them off that your kid is brighter, more beautiful, or more talented than theirs.</p>
<p>Some people don’t realize how awful their comments are; it’s the ones who do know what they are saying who are the scary ones.</p>
<p>^
^
Dad…
Perhaps I mis-reading the post–however isn’t this the point–that the kids with both academic stats and athletic stats are fewer and therefore sought after…? Supply/demand etc…earns it</p>
<p>one thought to add…</p>
<p>I can say from knowing some parents IRL that a touch of humility would go a long way and help defuse things…people don’t really want to hear chapter and verse about how great your kid is…so sometimes keeping your great news private (most kids will be going through the RD process over the majority of their sr yr) will help </p>
<p>otoh</p>
<p>I know a parent of a very very bright young man–who got in HYP+ just everywhere–and one evening at a function, a parent of another student was just soooo rude and took out his frustrations about admissions on her because her son had his pick…
that is so ugly and not very mature/adult behavior at all.</p>
<p>We can only do our best to be responsible for our own behavior and realize we cannot take back words…</p>
<p>What I’ve seen is that the truly good people who simply get bitten with the jealousy bug, usually come around in time and/or respond well to humility, kindness, and our sincere interest in THEIR child. As for the other ones, well, you can be as humble as nice as humanly possible and it won’t make a bit of difference. </p>
<p>It really is a mine field to be around people prone to envy. If you are reserved and reticent to say much about your child, then the other person may go on and on about their kid and the great school he attends. But then eventually comes the question: “So, where does your S/D go to school?” If your answer is HYPSM or whatever the cool school is that’s near you, then the person can feel ambushed. I’ve tried answering their question really quick and then changing the topic immediately, like “S/D is at HYPSM. So how does your S/D like their classes, roommate, etc.” Sometimes that works, but sometimes the other parent will say some self-deprecating thing like “Well, S/D’s school isn’t as good as HYPSM, but…” and the openness and friendliness fades dramatically. I’ve tried talking about the negatives of S/D’s school or situation in order to diffuse the jealousy (to let them know that I don’t think the school is all that) but that strategy has backfired too as then the person is annoyed that you’re “complaining” about a dream school. You really can’t win if the other parent has a weakness in this area.</p>
<p>
Question: What does everybody think, in turn, of the athlete recruited to an Ivy that has something like, say, a 3.6 and 1790 SAT? Do we feel the same about them as we do about the athlete who got in with a 4.0 and 2320? Can we legitimately say that the former, because he was cleared by admissions, belongs in that school academically as much as anyone else? Genuine questions, not rhetorical.</p>
<p>Genuine question: Do athletes with 1790’s truly get in HYP? If so, are they only football players? And isn’t it true there still can’t be that many of them in that lower band, as per Ivy AI rules? (Sorry for the stereotyping there–I don’t mean football players aren’t as intelligent as other athletes, but rather that schools care much more about football than other sports and having a good team, such that they seem more likely to lower standards.) I would be more inclined to believe such kids get into Penn and Columbia than HYP, given some personal experiences with kids in our area. Maybe it’s because our experience is with a women’s, low profile sport, but when recruits discussed their stats on OV’s, no one D met who was recruited to HYP had SAT scores that low. They were all ever 2000.</p>
<p>PS.: She didn’t visit Dartmouth, but I read that due to school size, Harvard could take some kids that were too low for Dartmouth. So I doubt kids that low would get in Dartmouth either.</p>
<p>I’ve said before I know a softball admit to Princeton with an 1850 SAT and a 4.2 weighted GPA. (4.2 weighted as just above the 50% mean at her prep school)<br>
No, she wouldn’t have gotten into Princeton without athletics. However, that doesn’t mean that she wasn’t successful there as a student. </p>
<p>So I don’t really think that artificially setting a hurdle SAT or GPA rate indicates whether or not a student will be successful at HYPSM.</p>
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</p>
<p>If I heard of anyone being admitted to an Ivy League school with those stats I would assume they had done something else academically to balance out their scores. Maybe they went to a really hard school, maybe they have a few bad grades in one particular subject area, maybe they don’t take standardized tests well.</p>
<p>There is no minimum GPA or minimum SAT for admission to the Ivy Leagues. There just isn’t. All admitted students, including athletes, have to demonstrate some sort of minimum academic ability as determined by the admissions committee. Once an applicant demonstrates some sort of minimum academic potential then the other aspects of their application come into play.</p>
<p>When I hear that an athlete has been admitted to an Ivy League school I know that they passed that school’s academic requirements. I also know that there are thousands of applicants who also passed the school’s academic requirements who weren’t admitted. It’s just the way it is.</p>
<p>Would the athlete have been admitted to the school if they weren’t a star athlete? I can’t really say, but I know many of the students admitted to the Ivy League school bring something extra to the table. In the case of an athlete it was their athletic ability.</p>
<p>The Academic Index, a ratio of the SAT and Class Rank/GPA, does set minimum standards for the admission of athletes to Ivy League schools (search on this board under Academic Index and there are exhaustive explanations of how it is calculated and how it is used in different sports and at different schools).</p>
<p>In the example above, the 1790/3.6 (assume unweighted) GPA would yield a 190 - 195 AI. The league minimum is 171. HYP school AIs are around 220 and their athlete average AIs are in the 200 - 210 range. In one of the helmet sports or basketball, this would be a good mid range candidate, not one that would require a stretch to admit.</p>
<p>Athletes or teams that offer 4.0 GPAs and 2320 SATs are boosters, creating the opportunity for that school to recruit specific athletes with lower AIs or have teams with lower average AIs and still meet the AI standards agreed upon by the Ivy League.</p>
<p>Why do we struggle with the idea that these schools have considerations for their admissions that extend beyond academic performance? Although there primary consideration is academics, athletic ability, musical ability, or other truly exceptional EC performance can drive an admission to the communities that these admissions officers are forming with their decisions.</p>
<p>^ I have a friend who has similar criteria to those I gave (even higher, frankly - 90% Grade Avg, 29 ACT) who was recruited by an HYP. He however opted instead to go to an ACC school (one of the lower-ranked ones academically) and was only considering Big East and ACC schools, never even giving this HYP a serious thought. When I asked him why he didn’t pursue that option, he said that he simply knew that he wouldn’t fit in academically and that he couldn’t conscientiously pursue the school, knowing that every year pretty much all the top-ranked kids from his HS with 2300+ SAT scores get rejected from HYP. It was an interesting take to hear, especially from the recruited athlete himself, and while I didn’t agree with the majority of what he said, it still revealed what often might be going through the heads of the athletes themselves, let alone the jealous kids and parents who don’t even understand the work it takes to be a D1 athlete. </p>
<p>
Because we don’t know what to believe from the adcoms anymore. What does academically qualified mean exactly anyways? Capable of doing the work and graduating, sure - but can’t a lot of people cruise through an Ivy League school, so long as they only go through the minimum prereqs (and believe me, I’m not suggesting athletes do this in particular at all, just simply challenging the vague standard of academic qualification)? When exactly is the point where the student-athlete turns into the athlete-student or, as we’ve seen in some pretty strange cases (like that Gtown basketball player with a 1.something and 300s per SAT section), just the pure athlete? If we don’t use numbers to determine that then what do we use?</p>
<p>If the only criteria is academic performance without regard for achievement in other, meaningful areas of life driven by the student’s passion, ability, and desire to succeed, just use the numbers. I suspect the concern on the part of the ad coms (and the leadership of the Ivies) is that these school communities would become significantly more one dimensional and certainly less interesting places to study, work and live.</p>
<p>I know a male lacrosse player with similar stats that got into Cornell.</p>