I doubt that abolishing athletic recruiting is likely to occur, so rather than looking at that angle, maybe the way to approach it is to try and equalize boosts for other talents such as musicians, artists, dancers, etc. It already happens internally in the admissions process since schools value such traits and often they become distinguishing factors to gain admittance. But, perhaps by making it more external such that they are “recruited” as well with a similar process ahead of the admissions cycle would make it feel more transparent.
You do know why the Ivy League is called the Ivy League, right?
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It’s 3 weeks every 2 years for the Olympics. And many people care. They also care about non-Olympic sports too.
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I wouldn’t phrase it as “regardless of their academic strength.” Even the athletic factor athletes still have to meet high academic strength requirement compared to the general population to be admitted to Amherst, but often not as high as non-athletes. This may be done as a pre-screen before applying.
For example, the NYT article suggests that 19 recruited athletes at Amherst were permitted to be in the lowest of the 4 academic bands at the time of the article, which may have been reduced to 12 since then. Pre-COVID likely corresponded to something in the neighborhood of 1300s SAT score + corresponding lower GPA compared to an average of ~1475 SAT + higher GPA for the full class.
The previously referenced Place of Athletics at Amherst report mentions that the Athletic Factor athletes had a slightly lower average cumulative GPA than non-athletes while attending Amherst and significantly lower rate of doing a senior thesis. However coded athletes did not appear to have less academic success at Amherst than non-athletes. Instead coded athletes had a higher graduation rate than non-athletes.
Of course many other colleges have very different policies for athletic admission than Amherst, making it difficult to generalize to other colleges.
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This is a timely counterpoint to the concept that athletics can make money for the school and enhance its profile. Rutgers’s burn rate on sports is astounding and they lost $73 million last year.
For small college with lots of sports teams to fill, wouldn’t it be likely for the general (non-recruited in either category above) applicant pool that athletic ECs are prioritized over other ECs, because of the need for walk-ons?
I.e. if two applicants had some state level championship, award, or recognition, and one did it in a sport (that is not of recruiting interest to the college) and the other did it in a non-sport EC (that is not of particular interest to the college), would the one who did it in a sport be favored? We know that Harvard considers athletic achievements particularly important, since it has a whole category for that, along with categories for all other ECs (combined), academics, and personal qualities. It seems that a small sporty college has even more incentive to keep the walk-on pipeline full.
As a practical matter, students aiming for small colleges with lots of sports teams may want to emphasize achievement in athletic ECs if high achievement is possible for them in addition to high academic achievement.
Not sure the last two years are the best measure of the fiscal health of any college athletic program. A significant chunk of those program deficits are Covid related, including not just the inability to generate revenue, but reductions in conference payouts, licensing and sponsorship agreements, as well as increased costs for dealing with Covid. I wouldn’t necessarily expect Rutgers to break even either, but the 73 million amount doesn’t represent an expected annual deficit going forward should things return to normal.
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Go 'cats baby! Big 10 athletics AND Top 10 academics. Who else can say that? Definitely to that Chicago place.
Not a lot of choices if you want a top academic school that offers big time sports
- Stanford
- Duke
- Northwestern
- Vanderbilt
- Notre Dame
These schools occupy a very nice niche.
Schools don’t break even in a lot of areas like the English department or the theater groups, but they still add value to the college experience.
Schools that don’t like athletics don’t offer them, but those are a lot fewer than those who do think athletics are important and that athletes can be terrific students. If that’s the experience you want (or want for your kids) go to one of those schools (Reed, St. Johns Annapolis/Santa Fe; MIT, Cal Tech give very little preference to athletes). If you don’t like the admissions bump athletes get at the top schools, don’t get into those application pools for the Ivies or big flagships or the NESCAC schools.
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University # teams enrollment. teams/1000
Ohio State. 36 46,984 0.77
Michigan 29 31,329 0.93
Alabama 21 31,670. 0.66
Texas 16 40,048 0.40
Oregon 18 18,045 1.0
——————————————————————
Harvard 42 5222 8.0.
Yale 35 4703. 7.4
Princeton. 37. 4773. 7.8
Stanford 36 6366. 5.7
Dartmouth 35 4170. 8.4
Duke 27 6717. 4.0
Northwestern 19 8194 2.3
The average number of varsity teams a D1 school fields is 16. 14 is the minimum.
Is it really necessary to have that many varsity teams? In comparison, the college sports heavyweights have done very well averaging < 1.0 teams/1000 students.
One can argue that they have done much better raising the profile of their school, increasing enrollment, improving campus culture but more importantly making money while fielding fewer teams and just concentrating on the high profile ones.
Harvard has the most varsity team sports of any university. What is the advantage for supporting teams in niche sports that make no money in which few people participant in or pay attention to? Is there really a tangible benefit to supporting every possible varsity sport known to mankind?
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Are you suggesting that a smaller percentage of athletes improves campus culture?
There is to those students on the squash, fencing, water polo, and softball teams. Harvard is giving 1 in 5 of its students the chance to be on a varsity athletic team (and more on club and intramural teams). Good for them.
Does everyone who wants to be in a school play or in the orchestra get to do that? How about in an a capella group?
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The participants of many of these niche sports all come from a very narrow segment of our population because the rest of the country doesn’t have any access to participate. Coincidentally, it’s the same segment of our population in which another special populations comes from - the donor group.
Is it a real plus to add more athletes from Greenwich, CT to improve the campus culture?
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Define “big time sports”?
Vandy has won baseball championships, but isn’t very good at basketball and football. And Michigan just made the CFP playoff and won a B1G football championship and is considered is many circles as a top academic school.
And Northwestern has won a B1G East title in football but not much else. Stanford has won a few men’s and women’s soccer championships recently, but their football stadium and basketball arena aren’t very full like Michigan’s.
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Northwestern won national championships in Women’s Lacrosse from 2005 through 2012, except for 2010.
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I think you’re conflating the California small colleges (the Claremonts, plus Occidental, Whittier, etc.) with NESCAC and the Patriot League. Completely different animals. The Claremonts struggle to fill out rosters for many sports and, in fact, have to share teams between colleges. The eastern colleges have an established pipeline; it’s called recruitment. A non-recruited athlete has no more chance of being admitted to a NESCAC than a non-athlete with a good LOR.
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This wasn’t directed to me, but diversity of all sorts is good for campus culture. I have seen reviews of some of the NECSACs that critique the athlete-nonathelete divide. So there’s that. Another critique I have heard is that big sports breed a big drinking culture. That is a turn-off for some culture-wise.
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Just curious - what is the athlete vs non-athlete divide? Do you mean people with similar interests hanging out together? If so, it’s going to be the same way once they are no longer in college, too. People are just more likely to be more comfortable around others who have something in common.
Also, alcohol is prevalent at colleges no matter how big the sports culture is. People are always looking to blame a group be it the athletes, the fraternities/sororities, etc. when it comes to alcohol. Would it be ok (hypothetically) to say that the “artsy” students are more likely to be stoners? I think not and I would not.
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I’d also be curious to see which groups on a college campus perform the most community service (besides a designated community service club). I think it’s fair to say that a lot of individual sports teams perform community service at all division levels. If we’re saying that college athletes make up a large percentage of students, then that’s a huge additional benefit to the surrounding communities.
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