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I’m in agreement with this.</p>
<p>"I, myself, am both a 2x USAMO qualifier and a 2 sport varsity athlete (MVP last year) and both activities drain close to an equal of energy. Although sports are definitely more time consuming USAMO qualification is a MUCH bigger achievement than being your average old 3.6 2150 varsity football player… "</p>
<p>the thing is that your “average old 3.6 2150 varsity football player” doesn’t exist. Players like that are very few and far between. balancing 20 hours a week during the season along with 10 hours a week during the offseason AND excelling in school is quite difficult. </p>
<p>and it also depends what school we’re talking about here. If we’re talking a big school, an Ivy league, or stanford, then an excelling varsity athlete contributes more than a mathlete because either him or his contribution to the team/school is alot greater than a mathlete would have. If we’re talking somewhere like MIT, caltech (not football), harvey mudd, or a selective engineering college, then a mathlete would prolly bring more benefit, if it didn’t seem like they were a dime a dozen (i doubt that’s the case, CC just makes it seem that way)</p>
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<p>Really? Are you sure that they are few and far between? </p>
<p>Just as an example, there are four sophomore varsity athletes in my AP Calc BC class, all of them have SAT scores that are well over 2100. I’ll give you a quick run down of three of them:</p>
<p>Person 1
Varsity Football, Soccer, Weightlifting
3.96 UW (rank: 9/460)</p>
<p>Person 2
Varsity Basketball, Weightlifting
4.0 UW (rank: 2/460)</p>
<p>Person 3 (me)
Varsity Water Polo, Swimming, Weightlifting (as well as private swimming and water polo during the offseason)
4.0 UW (rank: 1/460)</p>
<p>There are four such scholar-athletes in one of my classes, I can assure you there are dozens at my school (many recruitable). There are well over 20,000 schools so the number of such scholar-athletes is in the hundreds of thousands. So are these students really that rare? There is only one USAMO qualifier at my school. Let’s see…last time I checked 1 < dozens…</p>
<p>Now IBFootballer I’m not disputing that DI or even DII athletes contribute more to schools than qualified math students, but your reasoning is heavily flawed.</p>
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<p>The phrase “varsity athlete” means different thinks to people at different schools. It’s like the phrase “high school graduate”. There’s a big difference between a high school graduate with a 2.5 GPA and one with a 4.0 GPA. But they’re both still high school graduates.</p>
<p>A better question is how many of the 2100+ SATs and 3.6+ GPAs are good enough athletes to not only play basketball (let’s say) for Stanford, but to be actively recruited by Stanford?</p>
<p>I would like to give a unique insight in this debate, as I have never qualified for USAMO and never have played a real sport in high school myself (unless you consider ping-pong, badminton, and intramural tennis a sport). I have friends who have done both, however.
I would give the edge to USAMO (possibly biased, because I’m president of the math team and have helped a friend of mine make USAMO). The questions on the AIME are <em>gasp</em> hard, and all I could muster was a 3 (I made so many careless errors), with a decent amount of practice. It’s hard to solve AIME problems, and requires an innate ability to think creatively and to go outside the box to do well. I admit, I’m not a theoretical math person because I am much more practical math and have a better ability to lead and organize projects (which is why I’m going into finance and not math).
It requires a bit more training, albeit very different from BOTH academics and sports, and I regard those that qualified to a very high degree.
Now, I know that varsity sports are not nearly as hard to get in as USAMO (100+ of my friends are or were on varsity teams), but that is a bit unfair to the varsity person. I will then, compare D1 to USAMO.
There is a kid at my school who swims in DI/DII, and it takes him 5 hours of practice a day year-round. His grades are not nearly as high as mine because he doesn’t come home until 9 (and tends to slack off in school). I respect him for his hard work and don’t make fun of his un-Asianiness too much, but the amount of training that takes does not rival the amount of training a trained ballerina does (I have a friend who both was on varsity cheerleading and danced for a private ballet company), or even as much as USAMO qualifiers put in. I have more respect for a highly trained ballerina with mediocre grades that a DI varsity with the same grades, even though DI varsity, as many stated above, is good profit for the school (the Ivy League is a sports league after all, not an academic league). This is the reason why schools are more lenient to athletes.
And to break it to you, USAMO qualifiers do NOT always get 2300+ and 4.0 GPA’s. This is because many of them are relatively <em>gasp</em> weaker in English and History. It is much more common for USAMO qualifiers to get ~2200+ and a 3.7-3.9 because of this “weakness” (albeit I only know about 10 or so USAMO qualifiers during my 2.5 years, so I could very well be wrong). I’m only speaking from experience, so don’t dinge me on this.
Although it doesn’t matter for me anymore. I’m going to college. :P</p>
<p>I respect the person who created this thread, but sports take much more of a committment than doing math problems and such.</p>
<p>and for those highly qualified athletes in your school, how many schools across the nation do you think are missing varsity athletes for hightly recruited sports who have competitive grades, schedules, and SATs, as well as good performance on the field/court? and of those athletes that are so blessed, how many of them are willing to put in the commitment to keep playing in college? hell, i’m not even talking only division I here. </p>
<p>the acceptance process for colleges is based on admitting people who will fill a certain niche, add a certain something to the class. Let’s say you’re an admissions person for a highly selective engineering college that has ncaa athletics. You see two applicants. a football player with alright statistics who is planning on continuing playing in college, and a successful competitor in math olympiads. looking at no other factors, you may be tempted to pick the athlete because he probably has something more to offer to the school. now, if this person has things like really dry essays, demonstrates minimal personality, etc, whereas the math person is some quirky, entertaining, interesting uber-nerd who can add dimension and diversity and fun to your school, you’d prolly pick the math guy. it depends on what they have to offer to your school. i’d say that playing football or basketball (sports where you often stand out in the team if you can count as high as your jersey number, i know this from experience) and have excelled in school with a rigourous schedule and in athletics, i’d say you have more going for you than a mathlete if you just looked at those two aspects. one gets you more than the other. i don’t think there’s anything wrong with that because in many schools, athletics bring more to the school than excellence in math competition (although in many schools, such academic competition is a bigger thing). Moreover, if you’re a top school, you probably have alot more in the way of mathletes applying than committed and skilled athletes. </p>
<p>what does a person have to offer? i’d say that good stats and good athletics are a bigger advantage than great stats and excellence in academic competition. but if those things are the only thing either applicant has to offer, they’re both going to get rejected.</p>
<p>IBFootballer seeing your obstinacy, inability to comprehend contradicting points, and constant demeaning of math olympians (i.e. calling them mathletes…) I no longer wish to continue mindless and useless debate this issue. Frankly, in my mind and the minds of most people who have their facts down Olympiad qualification outweighs varsity athletics anyday, you may have a differing opinion which is completely okay.</p>
<p>I guess you can compare the number of USAMO qualifiers (500 or somethin like that) to the number of high school All-Americans in varsity sports, instead of comparing the number of USAMO qualifiers to every single high school athlete in the nation. That would be a more fair comparison, as USAMO (so i’ve read through this thread) is the “best of the best” for all “mathletes” (for lack of a better term), and receiving an All-American award means you are one of the best in your sport. </p>
<p>Databox, I apologize if I called USAMO qualifiers “mathletes”. I thought they were one in the same, as most people on this thread obviously did too. </p>
<p>The main arguing point here is this: while USAMO questions are not like normal math problems, they are still classified under the academic leg of the “whole person triangle”, and rightly so. Yes, it takes a different kind of studying, but it is not the same as athletics, and therefore won’t be treated the same as athletics.</p>
<p>^ +1, I totally agree.</p>
<p>Yes Databox… I am grateful of the AoPS forums…</p>
<p>ARE YOU KIDDIN ME?
Colleges love USAMO so much more than sports</p>