<p>"Some people think if they get a certain A.I., they will automatically get into an Ivy League school, and that’s not the case, because so many factors come into that decision."</p>
<p>Sounds like BS. They claim it helps them keep on par with non-athlete admissions, yet say a 3.0 and 1140 SAT are sufficient. What a joke. Tell that to all the 4.0 1500+ students. Let them know these schools claim much worse students are their equals.</p>
<p>I’m tired of the smoke and mirrors approach of recruiting athletes. To all the top schools, just admit it: if a kid is ranked well nationally in a sport, you don’t give a good gottdam if they have any intelligence to speak of. Just stop denying it, because the denial is what pizzes us all off.</p>
<p>It’s crystal clear to everyone that athletics is a huge business that brings millions of dollars as well as intangible benefits to a Div I school that few universities are wealthy enough to forego. Recruited athletes are de facto employees who get free tuition and other perks as long as they produce. I think the fiction that they are first and foremost students is just that and it does everyone, especially the athletes, a diservice. I’d like to see the Div I schools set up a system that treats athletes like employees with an automatic admission for a degree when their sports ‘career’ at the school ends, if that’s the direction they want to go.</p>
<p>It’s not always free tuition. At the Ivies they just get an acceptance letter that some of them otherwise wouldn’t have EVER, EVER had a chance at.</p>
<p>It’s important to note that, as the article describes, the approach to student-athlete recruitment is quite a bit different in the Ivy League from the way it is in the rest of the NCAA.</p>
<p>Of course, sometimes you have a scholar-athlete. Years ago, we had an extremely smart, accomplished girl (Valedictorian IIRC) who held a couple state records as a sprinter… she runs track at Harvard now.</p>
<p>I agree; a student with a 1610 SAT would never be admitted unless they were a recruited athlete, or some combination of legacy, massive donor, and URM all at the same time.
Also “recruit had not taken chemistry since 10th grade” what kind of reason for rejecting someone is this? I don’t know many people who take Chemistry twice, and most people I know who took it took it in 10th grade or earlier.</p>
<p>As a non-recruited athlete at a top ivy, I must say that the comments on here bashing recruited athletes are completely unfounded. I would say that 95% of the recruited athletes at my school are just smart and academically successful as everyone else. Sure, being amazing at a sport may have pushed them in the door and eliminated the luck factor in admissions, but they are no less qualified than anybody else. Even the other 5% who may be noticeably less academic than others are still quite intelligent enough to be successful academically. Also, there are really NO special privileges for athletes in the ivies.</p>
<p>Don’t forget that most ivy athletes aren’t that great, no offense. It’s shouldn’t be too surprising that there are good athletes out there that also have pretty good grades/scores.</p>
<p>Regardless, those athletes are bringing something to the school that you cant… so they deserve to be there… If the school wanted you over them they would have picked you…</p>
<p>Don’t forget, the graduation rate for Ivy athletes is far, far higher than for other D1 schools. They don’t get all that much special treatment, and there aren’t very many majors at the Ivies that are just a walk in the park, so it is actually pretty impressive for an athlete to make his or her way through the curriculum.</p>
<p>When most schools recruit, they offer athletes four years of life for free and the chance to get a degree; when Penn recruits, for example, they offer student-athletes placement in Wharton and, while they don’t get free tuition, they do get the opportunity to graduate from the top undergraduate business school in the United States, and since it’s very rare for Ivy athletes to go pro, that is an excellent incentive not only to attend but to graduate.</p>
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It depends on the sport. In my kids’ sport’s NCAA rankings, 4 of the top 10 ranked teams are from the Ivy League.</p>
<p>^agree, definitely depends on the sport. Sure, maybe not in football or basketball, but theres 2 ivy’s in the top 20 for field hockey, three in women’s lacrosse, and three in men’s lacrosse, with cornell ranked 3rd.</p>
<p>Athletics do NOT bring millions of dollars to schools. Only a very small number of universities show a that kind of $$$ from athletics, for the vast majority of schools athletics are a drain on the budget. As for intangibles like school spirit, alumni involvement, yes, but $$$, not usually.</p>
<p>Sorry but nothing anyone can say will convince me that my classmate who took the SAT 5 times to get an 1800, took not one AP when my school offers over 20, took 2 honors classes in an entire four years, and has a 3.4 UW GPA deserved to get into the HYP school he got into last week. Literally nothing.</p>
<p>I wanna know what the AI’s of Harvard’s latest basketball recruits were. Not accusing them of anything; I’m just curious to see if Tommy Amaker balanced academics with basketball. He’s done an awesome job with the basketball part.</p>
<p>Ivy league sports are not revenue producing. This is an arguement many recruited athletes and parents want everyone to believe.</p>
<p>Another way to look at this, though, is that the Ivies are admitting that you don’t have have to meet their average admitted student profile to be capable of doing the work. (In fact, if the imputation of grade inflation at the Ivies is not a myth, it might be easier to do the work than at a non-Ivy.)</p>
<p>Its funny how IVY’s often let very qualified candidates go and they take in student athletes who have the academic credentials of someone applying to an average private college if not less. Yeah…getting into a so called “academic” institution on the basis of a fleeting physical capability. That is very respectable.</p>
<p>I hate when people say their spots got taken by athlete recruits. It wasn’t yours to begin with.. If a school has an athletic program, they’re going to need capable athletes. They’re not going to cancel the athletics program just because many other applicants are extremely well qualified. It’s pointless to compare your stats to athletes because you aren’t competing with them. And it’s not like there is no standards for athletes too. The standards for Ivy athletes are still higher than any other colleges in the country. It’s just a different league of standards than the non-athletes have.</p>