Colgate's NCAA D1 Cert. Self Study-- prospective student athletes should read this

Colleges and Universities A-Z Colgate University
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<p>I stumbled across this document on Colgate's web...loaded with info on Colgate's recruiting and "Academic Integrity"...including breakdowns of SAT averages & HS GPAs for 3 years of incoming classes (starting on page 52) with athlete breakdowns by gender and demographic breakdowns. Also info on number of recruits for various sports groups. I doubt this is intended to be readily available to the general public, so read it quickly, before it's removed!
<a href="http://offices.colgate.edu/stuact/PDFs/final%20report%206-1-06.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://offices.colgate.edu/stuact/PDFs/final%20report%206-1-06.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I calculated the overall & recruited athlete SAT averages for each of the 3 years' incoming freshmen from gender-specific info:</p>

<p>Incoming Fall / ALL M+V(CR) average / Athletes avg
2005: 1349 / 1183 (56 recruits)
2004: 1337 / 1184 (61 recruits)
2003: 1334 / 1140 (62 recruits)</p>

<p>Loads more info for those interested.....</p>

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<p>That's really interesting and I'm surprised you were able to access that w/o a password of some kind. It doesn't seem to quite jive with the last three years' worth of SAT avgs I've seen for Colgate of 1347, 1341, 1329, but is roughly comparable. It's also interesting to note that male SAT was higher than female SAT, but that female athlete SAT is higher than male athlete SAT in all three years. I also didn't realize that the freshman class two years ago was 53.7% female.</p>

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<p>gellino-- yes, I was surprised, too...just searched on SATs on Colgate's web. Can't explain these numbers vs yours...what source are your's derived from?</p>

<p>I've been searching for more of these NCAA reports from other universities & have found a dozen or 2, which I hope to post sometime soon on the College Search forum. Interesting that the 2 Ivies I've found so far, Harvard & Brown, do not exhibit the SAT numbers...Browns says they've redacted them & Harvard just leaves them all as 0's. Other schools use GPAs in lieu of SATs for the standard NCAA tables....so not much consistency.</p>

<p>Haven't thoroughly studied the other schools' reported SAT scores for male & female athletes (& total freshmen) yet, but I recall that William & Mary had the same kind of gender disparity. </p>

<p>Now that I have Colgate's averages, here's a year-for-year comparison with 2 other schools I've studied heavily, Midd & Tufts (sources are their online fact books):</p>

<p>Incoming Fall / All M+V(CR) SAT avg....Colgate / Middlebury* / Tufts
2005 / 1349 / 1349 / 1399
2004 / 1337 / 1356 / 1368
2003 / 1334 / 1334 / 1333</p>

<p>*excludes ~15% of class that were their February enrollees</p>

<p>All started in 2003 at about the same spot for incoming class (assuming the Febs do not skew the averages for Midd one way or the other), Colgate & Midd were about even for the latest complete data set, 2005 (although Midd's 2006 numbers were higher at 1364, Tufts hanging at roughly slightly above 1400, no available Colgate 2006 numbers), and Tufts has accelerated ahead.</p>

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<p>It is amazing how exactly equal Colgate, Midd and Tufts all were four years ago and how Tufts has shot up since. When I was applying, I think Tufts would have been seen as the least attractive of these three, although they all were generally at the same level. I think no matter what the SAT disparity that I would still rather go to Colgate or Middlebury over Tufts. The Colgate SAT numbers I referenced were from Princeton Review.</p>

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<p>This also shows how averages can be misleading for comparison purposes in admissions. While this study shows the avg SAT at Colgate was 1349, the avg SAT for a male non-athlete was 1384; about half-way to the 75%ile range overall.</p>

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<p>Of note is that Middlebury's admissions office does not see the SAT I scores of non-submitters (anywhere from 20-50% of matriculants) until after they're accepted.</p>

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<p>here's a Colgate web page that links the self-study which is publicly accessible, so it appears that Colgate is not trying to hide this stuff behind password protection or the like:
<a href="http://www.colgate.edu/DesktopDefault1.aspx?tabid=2495%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.colgate.edu/DesktopDefault1.aspx?tabid=2495&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Arcadia, why would Middlebury ever see the scores of non-submitters?</p>

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<p>Middlebury does that after the fact to be comparable with other schools to report the enrolled avg SAT of their class as opposed to enrolled students 'who were pleased with their SAT' avg.</p>

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<p>for those interested in other institutions' NCAA self-studies, I've posted links to all that I could find here:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=353808%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=353808&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>alas, my glimmer of hope that Colgate was trying to be open as noted in post #7 was apparently wrong....I was just trying to find some info contained on the Colgate self-study, and Colgate has removed all traces of it, except for some form blanks and meeting minutes. Guess the higher-ups found this "openess" leak and decided that secrecy is their preferred policy....thats a step in the wrong direction if you ask me for any institution professing to be academically top-knotch.</p>

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<p>That's interesting as Harvard is considered the most academically top notch and they have historically been very unforthcoming with even basic stats like % in the top 10% of hs class and % of students over 700 Math and Verbal on collegeboard and the like. Ironically, one reason I didn't realize how strong Middlebury was when I was applying was the version of USNWR that I had only had the address for Middlebury and they provided no other stats of any kind.</p>

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<p>yes, I have a problem with Harvard's policy, too! I just think that academic excellence requires an environment of open enquiry, and a school's treatment of their most prized internal information is a clue as to the maturity of their openess, or perhaps in Harvard's case, their haughtiness. Whether its immaturity, haughtiness, or just plain fear....not good in my book. Some seem to have no problem with putting info on the web, Williams comes to mind. Some are good at making public selected info (e.g., Middlebury, Tufts & BC factbooks) but withhold or "creatively" present other info.</p>

<p>Worthy of a separate thread, as every institution seems to express their openness or lack thereof in different ways. In Colgate's case, they don't publish CDS's and they seem to be stuck on class profile stats for the "accepted" class, rather than the "enrolled" class....the latter a practice employed by Tufts as well, which I happen to believe is less than fully open. Colgate does publish their annual financials, though!</p>

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<p>Since they both have yields in the 30-35% range (and in one case losing almost all their best applicants to Princeton, Dartmouth, Williams and in the other case to Yale, Brown, Columbia), the accepted, but not attending SAT avg for Colgate and Tufts is probably at least 80 points higher than their enrolled SAT avg.</p>

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<p>fwiw:</p>

<p>Michelle Hernandez wrote in her book that H accepted athletes that did not get past Dartmouth's admissions office, so its not a surprise that H fails to publish such data.</p>

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<p>found a link I packed away with the draft Academic Integrity section (the juicy section full of SAT breakdowns, etc...hand written here)....which still works at the moment. Download the PDF quick!</p>

<p><a href="http://offices.colgate.edu/stuact/PDFs/aprildraftAI.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://offices.colgate.edu/stuact/PDFs/aprildraftAI.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Papa, for those of us interested, but who don't follow this stuff as closely as you do, what do you infer from the data? Either as to Colgate or similar schools? </p>

<p>Off the top of my head, it doesn't seem to reveal much that one wouldn't intuit or assume even without seeing it in black and white (or here, pixels).</p>

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<p>mhc48…..hmmm</p>

<p>1st, I tend to gravitate to any information a college doesn't apparently want to make public….in Colgate’s case, this info was posted on their web, then withdrawn (except for the draft I posted above, which will be withdrawn I am sure soon enough); in other cases of the more selective schools, some portions of the web-available Study were held as confidential, like the SAT breakdowns. I admittedly have a negative bias toward any institution that appears to be secretive, as I can only surmise that they either lack confidence in making public how they do things or are afraid of reaction to descriptive data on their students, or want to maintain enough of a black box to give themselves wiggle room without the general public knowing what they are doing….or both. That said, I applaud any efforts such as the NCAA Studies here to get the process out in the open for potential students and families to better understand how it all works…..and I have absolutely no problem with the fact that special policies and programs do exist for athletic recruitment….it is simply a part of the landscape.</p>

<p>To your question on what I might infer from the data….well, perhaps nothing terribly new, like the fact that certain sports recruit aided athletes with differing academic backgrounds, and that might be handy to know for prospective recruits. I think we all know that athletic “tips” exist and special evaluation policies exist….the NCAA Studies merely put more flesh on the bone.</p>

<p>The main audiences standing to benefit from reading the NCAA Studies, particularly the AI section, are the prospective athletes and their advisors. Recruiting is certainly a complex process for the students, and knowing how it all works…or is intended to work… from the school’s side can only be helpful in my opinion. Take the brief discussion of athletic scholarships and improving academic credentials mentioned in Colgate’s AI section 2.1 about the increase in academic metrics of aided recruits positively associated with new athletic scholarship awards….that kind of info might be very helpful to a prospective recruit.</p>

<p>I also find the SAT breakdowns to be interesting….not that SAT scores are the end-all of course.…male-female, athlete-non-athlete, etc. Any prospective applicant might stand to benefit from having this kind of info, which is more finely broken down than general SAT totals that are posted on Colgate’s admissions page for accepted, rather than enrolled students (two overlapping but different populations.) Take the example of male SAT scores for the class of 2009: 1364 avg total, 1154 for aided athletes. Using the data for number of students in each category, one can calculate the SAT avg for every male but the aided athletes…answer: 1384…a number that some prospective male applicants might want to keep in mind, albeit, this is old info at this point, but the pattern might be enlightening to some.</p>

<p>If you really want to have a heyday with similar Institutional Research data, peruse this Colby directory: Index</a> of /administration_cs/ir/upload</p>

<p>In general, it gives me faith that schools are doing this kind of research and study, I just wish they made more of it available to us.</p>

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<p>If the information were made more available to us what would we do with our time? After all, Superbowl and the World Series only come once a year. Besides which, my son knows a lot more about the chances for getting into those for his teams than I do. At his age, this allows me the last chance I may have to demonstrate paternal omniscience.</p>

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<p>lol.....how true mhc48</p>