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Says who? I think this is probably so for the major sports. But if you mean “at some level” to include people who contacted the coach, but who didn’t get a recruitment slot, I say again, so what? It’s no different from the person who sends in a recording for the music department, or an art supplement. All you’re saying is that people with a lot of achievements, including athletic ones, get in over people with fewer achievements.</p>
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<p>Exactly SAY!!! You just made my point. Only speaking for Amherst of course, but roughly out of 125 ED admits, 80 are athletes. So the coach is only interested in “hooking” 15% of the class, not 32%, not 50%, and not 60%. And lets mention again that there are those hooked athletes that are cross hooked, or multi hooked. Athlete, Legacy and URM? You betcha.</p>
<p>S2 talked to a few football coaches (selective D-III and an Ivy). They were happy to have his 6’3.5", 265 lb. defensive end self on their team, but when they found out his SAT scores and his GPA/course schedule, they were very clear he would NOT get a tip from them w/admissions. A couple told him wouldn’t need it; he’d get in on academic merit, and football would be the icing on the cake on his app.</p>
<p>Ultimately, S decided halfway through senior year that he didn’t want to play football, but preferred to get involved in other activities in college without the time commitment of football hanging over his head, so football had nothing to do with admissions. This year, I hear that when he’s all padded up, he makes an effective floor hockey goalie. ;)</p>
<p>SAY is relying on “books [that] helped open up the closed world of elite college admissions.” Some of us are more concerned with non-elite schools, hence the disconnect.</p>
<p>GA212mom- you are confusing tips and protects in recruiting terms. You are absolutely corrct about the number of tips which are student athletes that would not have been admitted without lowering the admission standards. But do the math. Amherst fields something like 25-30 teams. That would only mean admission help for 2-3 students which simply couldn’t work for elite NESCAC Schools. In addition to the tips(almost sure admission at a lower standard) there are 3-7 protects depending on the sport. These students have stats equal to the 50% of admitted students but get in at a much higher rate through ED with support from the coach and admissions committee. This is an absolute fact so stop arguing. I personally went through the process. The coach does not promise you admission but he takes your application to the admissions committee for a pre-screening. He then calls you and tells you your chances and you decide whether to apply ED. It’s a huge advantage over the regular applicant but it’s not 100% guaranteed. </p>
<p>vossron- no one is worrying about admission to the 40th ranked school. Below the top 20-30 schools admission is very predictable based on grades and scores. A site like this focuses on the top schools. In America that vast majority of schools are not selective and admit well over 50% of the applicants.</p>
<p>Hunt do you know anyone playing sports in the ivies? I know a bunch from club sports and high school and every single one was recruited. Harvard even heavily recruits for sport like waterpolo and fencing. The boy down the street is going to Harvard for waterpolo with very average stats 4.0 weighted and 2100 SAT. My son’s good friend went for soccer to Harvard with 3.97 weighted and 2100 SAT. This information is well documented to anyone who takes the time to check it out.</p>
<p>Hunt outside of football and basketball the ivies compete at the top level of D1 against schools that give full athletic scholarships. To hold there own in lacrosse and soccer against Notre Dame, Northwestern, and Duke these schools must heavily recruit. The ivies heavily recruit just like everyone else and look at hundred of potential players. </p>
<p>Notice 31 recruits in one year.</p>
<p>[Talented</a> Group Makes Up Football Class of 2011 | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.harvard.edu/article/2007/5/24/talented-group-makes-up-football-class/]Talented”>http://www.thecrimson.harvard.edu/article/2007/5/24/talented-group-makes-up-football-class/)</p>
<p>[ESPN</a> RISE Recruiting Road - ESPN RISE | HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS RANKINGS, RESULTS, TRAINING, PERFORMANCE, COLLEGE RECRUITING | HOW TO WIN](<a href=“ESPN - Serving Sports Fans. Anytime. Anywhere.”>ESPN - Serving Sports Fans. Anytime. Anywhere.)</p>
<p>[Questions</a> about Recruiting | Harvard Magazine May-Jun 2008](<a href=“http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/05/questions-about-recruiti.html]Questions”>http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/05/questions-about-recruiti.html)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/sports/02iht-HARVARD.1.10613794.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/sports/02iht-HARVARD.1.10613794.html</a></p>
<p>One of our close family friends repeated his senior year of high school and is one of these 31 recruits. This is happening in all the ivies and to a lessor extent in the elite LAC. </p>
<p>GA212mom if they need to take 31 recruits at Harvard just for football alone do you really believe Amherst can form competitive teams with only 80 athletes for 30 teams. Now it is D3 but football has 22 starters plus kickers just for one team and almost every one of these starters is recruited at Amherst.</p>
<p>“no one is worrying about admission to the 40th ranked school”</p>
<p>You are clearly not worrying about admission to the 40th ranked school; I ready plenty of worry about such on these pages.</p>
<p>“Below the top 20-30 schools admission is very predictable based on grades and scores.” </p>
<p>I’ve been reading here for too many years to believe that. Courses taken count heavily, essays count, even recommendations and sometimes ECs make a difference.</p>
<p>“A site like this focuses on the top schools.” </p>
<p>You make it clear that you focus on the top schools!</p>
<p>“In America that vast majority of schools are not selective and admit well over 50% of the applicants.”</p>
<p>Those well under 50% who weren’t admitted had reason to worry, and I bet some even did!</p>
<p>SAY, sorry I wasted time on this thread as I just read your other posts. Some people are just a joke. Peace out.</p>
<p>Edit: SAY, a football team is not recruited EVERY year. They are filling in spots. How on earth do you think they need to field an entire new team yearly? Seriously? Duh.</p>
<p>SAY-
I’ve got the Golden book, and although he makes the same general point you are making, I believe your statistics are not in his book. I could be wrong however, it’s been a while since I read it.</p>
<p>Since you’ve mentioned this book several times, it should be pretty easy for you to give us a few direct quotes and page numbers, rather than just an Amazon.com citation.</p>
<p>As far as these multiple URLs you keep posting, I’m not sure what the point of them is except Ivy recruits must meet some Academic index cutoff.</p>
<p>GA212mom- Why are you getting upset about issues that have objective truth. You seem fixated on the the belief that only 80 students at Amherst are admitted based on athletic acheivement. If your child plays sports there you can easily find out this is untrue. Simply ask her to find out how many students on the team were unrecruited. At my son’s school every single person on the team was recruited at some level. My son’s best friend plays soccer at Claremont Mckenna and this is true there as well. This is not some political issue where reasonable people may disagree. My posts are based on objective facts and did not originate from emotions. The books you don’t want to read were heavily researched with footnotes and are written by the former president of Princeton and an investigative reporter from the WSJ. I simply read the books and then did some of my own research and learned from the experiences of my own children. What about this makes you angry. Go read the books before you dismiss them. </p>
<p>vossron- I’m not putting down schools below the top 20. There are many fine schools that can provide an excellent education. My point was that no one is spending time stressing about whether their child will get admitted to say Univ of Colorado which has open admissions. What most parents stress about is a child with high SAT/GPA still not being admitted to the top 15-20 school because so many other students have various hooks. At the very top handful of schools the process may not be fixed but it is very much influenced by things out of the control by many applicants. My point in all of this is to try to help others understand exactly how admissions works at the top schools. As I have stated before both of my older children chose ED to give themselves the best chance. This worked out for them but may not be the best approach for everyone.</p>
<p>SAY, my D is on a sport, not one that she was recruited on. She was burned out after 20/hrs week on the other one. That being said, just because a student “talks” to or gets an “ata boy” from a coach is not a hook, much less a tip. You say ask all her athlete friends that talked to a coach? Yeah, unless there is a comittment, that’s all it is, talk. Yes, talk to the people that were UNRECRUITED! They did not get a “slot” in the 15% at D’s school. They may have got a tip, nod, handshake or hokey pokey, but not a 15% slot! That is the point. There are MANY great DIII athletes, but not all of them are there becuase of the coach. And even if they are there as recruited, do you know their stats? Did they take you S or D’s place? Please stop the whining. There are many schools that take students that have parents like you. Being bitter and angry shortens ones life span, just saying.</p>
<p>bovertine it’s also been a while since I read the books and since my children are already in college I probably won’t re-read them. My point here that most parents when they begin the process do not understand how admission works at the elite colleges. They think that because their S/D has a 3.74uw and an SAT of 2150 which is the 50% for most top schools that they have a good chance of admission. This is not true and is a very rude awakening for many familes. I freely admit that my numbers could be slightly off. But when I first said that 30-60% of students were playing varsity sports at the top LAC’s a few posters said I was wildly wrong. Well then I posted straight from the Haverford web site that over 40% of the students play varsity sports. Maybe I should have said 30-50%. But then another poster doesn’t even believe the web site from the school her child attend which states that 32% of students play varsity sports. Then other posters claimed that most of the varsity players were not recruited and did not receive some help with admissions. This is patent nonsense well known to every parent that had a recruited child. My son two years ago sent his file to six highly selective schools for review by the coaches and the admissions committee. Two coaches ultimately offered no admissions help, two offered some help but no guarantees, and two told him he probably would be admitted. All four who offered help told him he needed to apply ED. I have four children who have all played club sports at the highest level. From this experience we know well over a dozen players that were recruited by D1s and D3s. This is how it works for sports and it is not a secret. My posts about Harvard show just how seriously even the ivies take recruiting. GA2012MOM seems to have taken offense when none was intended. But if she read the Harvard Article carefully it said that the recruiting class of 2011 included 31 players. This is large but not unsual because over time a number of players quit/get hurt etc. and it takes a lot of players to field a team. My point to her was that if Harvard recruits 31 it is realistic to believe that Amherst recruits only a handful. At my son’s school the football recruits number well into double figures every year though not 31. College admissions is a crazy process but it certainly helps to know how the process works.</p>
<p>OK. I pulled out my Golden book because I thought these statistics were higher than what he found. Here is what it says on the bottom of page 6</p>
<p>“At least one third of the students at elite universities, and at least half at liberal arts colleges are flagged for preferential treatment in the admissions process. While minoriities make up 10 to 15 percent of a typical student body, affluent whites dominate other preferred groups: recruited athletes (10 to 25 percents of students), alumni children, also known as legacies (10 to 24 percent), developmental cases (2 to 5 percent), children of celebrities and politicians (1 to 2 percent), and children of faculty members (up to 1 percent). Some applicants benefit from multiple categories.”</p>
<p>So SAYs point is certainly valid to some extent, but the stats are not the same as what Golden found. I don’t think anyone who has read this site for a while would deny such a thing as a hook exists.</p>
<p>GA2012MOM I’m not sure where you got the idea I’m bitter. My children both were admitted to the schools they wanted to attend and are very happy. The point of the posts had nothing to do with any complaints but only to point out how it really works to help other families. If you want to believe that only 15% of students athletes received admissions help at top LAC’s that’s fine with me but if flies in the face of reality. The attached post is from this site earlier this year. This site contains most of the answers we have been discussing from many different posters. There are many posts about the NESCAC which is what we have been talking about. If you want to argue that being on a list given in advance to the admissions committee by the coach offers no admission advantage so be it, though few on that thread would agree. The students you are talking about are the slots which have slightly below standard stats and that list indeed is rather small. At the top D3’s unlike the ivies they don’t really go very far below the standard except in football and boys hockey. </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/846888-schools-where-athletic-recruiting-doesnt-even-count.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/846888-schools-where-athletic-recruiting-doesnt-even-count.html</a></p>
<p>bovertine I agree and at the very top five schools the hooks are even slightly higher. I’m not really sure how/why this became an argument since this data is widely available. As I recall I believe the Price of Admissions looked specifically at Harvard and concluded that the hooked students there approached 65-70%. But this is from memory since I have loaned the book to a friend a while back.</p>
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<p>I’m quoting the Price of Admission.</p>
<p>Again, I don’t remember it that way and I’m not going to scour the book to find out. I really doubt it.</p>
<p>What I posted is a direct quote from the book you’ve been referencing. THese numbers are significantly less than what you’ve been throwing around. </p>
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You keep saying this, and it may be true, but unless you have a source (an actual quote, not just the mention of the name of a book) this is just you saying it.</p>
<p>These other statements you make may be true but I’ve yet to see any substantiation from you (please, if you are going to post more links, post links that substantiate this statement, not irrelevant links).</p>
<p>So since I posted the only actual quote from the book, I guess people can take that for what it’s worth.</p>
<p>Note: A major chunk of Price of Admission is free on Google books. So if anybody wanted to check this out they could. SAY may be correct, but I don’t remember it mentioning anything about 70% hooked at
Harvard. And I’m not really interested enough to look.</p>
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<p>No, I am saying that 15% received admissions HOOKS, not simply help, which is another word for tip. Others received tips, as did musicians, actors, science and math award winners, great community leaders etc. I don’t know why you keep harping on how many students play vs. how many are taking up “slots” in the way you think. The numbers are not the same.</p>
<p>I also agree that Bowen’s book had a lower number for hooked students but he was generalizing about elite schools in general. The Price of Admission showed admission stats for students of parents on certain Harvard Committees of over 50%. but as I said I currently don’t have a copy of the book to check. At any rate the point of all of this discussion is that for unhooked(most applicants) they are really applying for a much smaller number of available freshman seats which is what makes admission to the elite schools so difficult. Here is an old reviews of the book which summarizes many of the key points we have been discussing. Notice the first review that quotes from page 7 that only 40% of the slots are available to non-hooked students at ivies in general. That of course means that 60% of the students have a hook which was my point from the beginning. Now GA2012MoM and vossron seemed not to have much faith in this book but keep in mind that the author is a Pulitzer Prize winner and no credible source has ever stepped forward to refute his numbers. In fact the ivies and top LAC’s just ignored him hoping no one would read the book. I hope we are done on this topic and it’s makes me glad I don’t have another child appying for three more years. </p>
<p>…
[Carolina</a> Review | Book Review: Daniel Golden’s “The Price of Admission”](<a href=“http://www.unc.edu/cr/features/books/golden-the-price-of-admission.html]Carolina”>http://www.unc.edu/cr/features/books/golden-the-price-of-admission.html)</p>