<p>I assumed the resentment came from our own high school memories of the social strata at school and the location of the varsity athletes (on Mount Olympus with the other gods and goddesses) and the rest of us mere mortals. I was surprised that athletics was such an important factor in the LAC admissions, but I suppose it makes sense (they have to field teams). My son has no athletic ability at all -- and does not play an instrument. It will be interesting to see how that plays out next year in the college app process.</p>
<p>Interesting. I saw a special on PBS sometime ago about the college admissions process. Cameras were allowed access behind the scenes to prestigious LAC Amherst. They had "yes," "no," and "maybe" piles. Most of the kids they admitted had high test scores, great ECs, and so on. The kid I remember the most though, was a girl from a poor immigrant family. She had low SAT scores and a decent GPA, but her background story was the thing that put her through, as told by her guidance counselor. The exact details are fuzzy, but I think she had to take care of her parents during the afternoon/evening and could only study late at night in the basement. Again, it's been quite awhile so I don't know if that's all factual, but you get the picture.</p>
<p>I think we sometimes have a misplaced image of who a Varsity Athlete is. For instance, my S does not have his identity tied up in athletics much at all. Academics and music were the keys to his high school "identity." Yet, he is a Varsity Athlete. He played soccer all four years (and of course since kindergarten before that). He made the Varsity team in his Senior year; was a supporting player, a "team player", but not who some might conjure up when picturing Varsity Athlete in the mind's eye. I would venture to guess that many of the 98% varsity athletes admitted to CMC are more similar to my S than the D-I (or even D-III) Big Men on Campus some may be imagining.</p>
<p>If 98% are varsity athletes, should a "non-varsity athlete" even bother to apply to CMC? </p>
<p>My D is JV as junior (swimmer), and I don't know if she'll be varsity senior year either. So, I guess CMC is out of the question . . .</p>
<p>How many schools have a 98% varsity athlete composition?</p>
<p>This may not make all that much of a difference, but it does say that those data are not unduplicated, so every two-sport varsity athelete (like a few of your children on this thread) get counted twice. The real % of varsity atheletes accepted will be at least slightly lower (although i have no idea how much).</p>
<p>mstee- I think (but I may be wrong) that the squeeze for athletes is on the mens' teams. Scripps is a part of their athletic group, so they do have a bigger pool of women to fill their womens' teams. So their needs would be similar, and maybe even less, than other small schools when it comes to the women.</p>
<p>The two athletic combos (teams) are HMC/ CMC/ Scripps and Pomona/Pitzer.</p>
<p>
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If 98% are varsity athletes, should a "non-varsity athlete" even bother to apply to CMC?</p>
<p>My D is JV as junior (swimmer), and I don't know if she'll be varsity senior year either. So, I guess CMC is out of the question . . .
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm rather surprised by this statistic. I'm a college student at a highly selective university, but I was admitted to CMC three years ago when I was a HS senior. I visited and was very pleasantly surprised by the school - it's a GREAT place, top SLAC, and produces really awesome students - and particularly its academic rigor.</p>
<p>When I came for a visiting weekend, I sat in on a freshman-level literature class and was blown away by its complexity and the intellectual discussion going on (ok, so I could only understand half of it!)...probably more academically rigorous than many/maybe even most of the similar courses I have taken over the past years at my top-ten university!</p>
<p>I think CMC's data about varsity athletes refers to students who played sports "at one point in HS." I could be wrong, but I don't remember meeting an overwhelming number of athletes when I visited (in fact of the girls I stayed with - a quad suite - only one was an athlete and only half of the room had been an athlete in HS).</p>
<p>On a little side note (though slightly related to this admissions topic), there's an absolutely heartwrenching article by one of the adcoms for MIT.
<a href="http://ben.mitblogs.com/archives/2006/03/its_more_than_a.html%5B/url%5D">http://ben.mitblogs.com/archives/2006/03/its_more_than_a.html</a></p>
<p>73% of this year's freshmen at Williams played at least one varstiy sport at Williams. About a third were identified by the atheletic department as likely 4-year varsity players at Williams (i.e. recruited).</p>
<p>The thing you have to remember is that elite colleges are enrolling disproportionately from private schools, where playing a varsity sport is almost expected.</p>
<p>Good point, ID- athletic participation is pretty much required at my son's private school. There are a few "outs", but most of the kids are on a team most of the seasons.</p>
<p>My son is at a private school and if there's a requirement he take a sport, it somehow missed my mailbox (he's been required to take PE, and if you take a sport they accommodate it in your schedule, but his counselor never told him he's dead meat because he's not in a sport). But now that I think of it, every one of his friends is in a sport. Does this 98% only apply to LACs? Do HYP etc. also have 98% varsity athletes?</p>
<p>i doubt it, it's probably because CMC is very small, thus if they want athletes, it has to take up a very good percentage of their student body.</p>
<p>At my alma mater (college #1), they require approximately 1/3rd of the student body to be COLLEGE varsity athletes (not counting junior varsity, club sports, and intramurals), and need to accept a greater portion than that from the high schools to ensure the team rosters are stocked. In other words, you are at a very significant disadvantage if you not only don't play high school sports, but also that there is little indication that you would continue doing so in college.</p>
<p>You are all mostly looking at the athletics thing a little differently than how I would interpret it. Husband is a CMC grad (granted, a very long time ago!!) and I see it more along the lines of louisie. This has nothing to do with them trying to "stack" the teams. It's about leadership--CMC looks for leadership to be evident, and is open to many different ways of demonstrating that in an application. It seems to me that 98% of accepted applicants have been varsity athletes. They are not necessarily requiring it, but applicants who are a "fit" for CMC have a strong tendency to be athletes or student council leaders etc. Husband was a varsity athlete, but didn't play at all in college, and student body president, but didn't run for office in college! Definitely the CMC type, but NOTHING like the negative stereotypes of the "jock" college student! That being said, we're concerned our son, stellar student that he is, may not "demonstrate" the CMC fit because he is neither varsity athlete or "typical" HS leader. Who knows?</p>
<p>I wouldn't feel so bad if they said 98% were varsity athletes OR student leaders -- my son has leadership up the wazoo. But they're saying 98% athletes -- so we're sunk. I'm still wondering, sunk for LACs, or for all competitive schools. But my posts tend to be invisible, so I'll have to wait till next year to find out.</p>
<p>The title of the graph is Leadership Indicators. This is just for CMC, not all LAC's. They are just saying that athletics is an indication of leadership in many applicants--the 98% is misleading, and they explain that each sport is counted once, so it could mean that 49% are in 2 sports! If your son has leadership in many other areas, that will definitely be viewed positively at CMC. Don't worry.</p>
<p>That is an odd way to present that statistic. I think a lot of athletic kids are in 2 or 3 sports, so that statistic is probably way skewed if they are counting each sport, not each kid. Just today, I was reading the track honor roll in our local paper and was surprised to see how many kids I know from other sports who run track -- I had no idea. </p>
<p>Also, it doesn't necessarily say that the high school athlete will participate in a college sport. My son lettered in golf and swimming as a freshman and a sophomore, and probably will as a junior and a senior, but he knows he won't be a college athlete. He probably could at a smaller school but he knows that the grad school program he wants to attend will require a high GPA and he won't be able to do both.</p>
<p>BurnThis: I think the 98% is probably quite inflated as many hs athletes play 2 or even 3 varsity sports. Please don't give up hope; my son had absolutely no hs athletics but was accepted to numerous top LACs and universities, many with likely letters or early writes. In fact, his disinterest in athletics (he's not non-athletic, just not into organized sports at all) actually helped him to narrow his choices for applications; if division sports was huge at a particular school, he was less likely to feel a part of the mainstream there and so eliminated it from his application list. I too was terrified that his lack of sports would kill him during this process; we were very happy to find out that this is not the be all and end all of gaining admission to schools with low admit rates.</p>
<p>I think the main point in the debate should be why sports have anything to do with colleges in the first place. There have been numerous books and articles which claim that almost all college sports lose money for their schools - even football at big 10 schools. Why is this going on when tuitions are thru the roof and many middle-class families are going into debt or being priced out of the market. And the losing money figure includes additional alumni money which allegedly is raised because of the sports. Supposedly the sports emphasis was originally to cut down on "brainy, urban" types i.e. Jews back in the days when the Ivy league first lowered their quotas. If we must train athletes for professional careers must we have every sport at every college?</p>
<p>And of course the obvious argument is do you care if your future doctor or lawyer was a great squash player?</p>
<p>Although I am not an athlete by any means and did not go to a college with a big name,nationally ranked sports team, I do see the value of athletic programs at the university level. There are intangible benefits that happen besides just the cost of athletics namely name-brand university recognition on a national level. Notre Dame is a fine example. It is more likely that a pre-teen will recognize a college name because they saw a game on tv vs. a specific academic program. Later on, these kids learn about specific majors. </p>
<p>Watch what happens to George Mason applications next year. I predict that their applications increase drastically.</p>