<p>This article about D3 academic performance and male recruited athletes in the most selective D3 schools is interesting.</p>
<p>The</a> Associated Press: Division III colleges debate role of sports</p>
<p>Any theories?</p>
<p>I’m shocked , Ricky. Guess what. You take students with high school stats that are not as good, add in the extra demands of intercollegiate sports and you get (gasp!) lower academic performance.</p>
<p>So what? In fact, the best predictor of success in life (really) is participation in intercollegiate sports.</p>
<p>Really. Who cares about class rank in college(except grad schools, I guess). Someone has rank lower- the most important stat is whether people graduated, and then met their professional goals. I’d rather my son enjoyed his sport than got straight As.Plus I think time management and camaraderie are important parts of college life.</p>
<p>I found it interesting that so many publications picked up on the lead article (just do a google search to see the frenzy). It appears that, not surprisingly, the media did not quite drill down to see who the authors of the news release were; their biases (if any); their prior books on the subject (economic interest); their quest for research dollars, etc.</p>
<p>This is the organization which is doing the basic research:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.collegesportsproject.org/CDCA_PDF/CSP_Press_Release_3_09_09.pdf[/url]”>http://www.collegesportsproject.org/CDCA_PDF/CSP_Press_Release_3_09_09.pdf</a> </p>
<p>It appears that many more questions remain to be answered; further statistical analysis needs to be made, etc.</p>
<p>There are so many variables that years of research (and grant money) will be devoted to this question before more than speculative conclusions can be reached.</p>
<p>A better study would be to compare a college athlete to someone who works full-time while going through college. I bet the numbers would be closer.</p>
<p>Speaking as someone who briefly was a DIII athlete (I had to quit/was cut because I had too many labs associated with my major), If you are playing a sport with 20+ hours a week of practice/games/traveling and are able to stay anywhere near the GPA you get in off-season semesters, you are either brilliant or have superhuman endurance. Most collegiate athletes overload the semester their sport is not in season. They take a lighter course load when they’ll be busy for an extra 20-40 hours a week.</p>
<p>And this data supports the idea that women are better students than men. Not smarter, necessarily, but better students.</p>
<p>Nope, just that female recruits probably have better number coming in than men.</p>
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<p>This is not the case at my daughter’s DI university where she and everyone on her team (including two pre-med students) take a full course load every semester. Maybe at some schools, this is the case. </p>
<p>But…why on earth “research” this and spend grant money on it? How idiotic. The answer is plain. For the most part, it is just that athletes are pretty much working a full-time job in addition to school. In addition to training 24 hours/week, they are competing, traveling to competitions, possibly spending an hour a day with the trainer (seems to happen for everyone at least once a season), performing community service/outreach with their team, etc. At the most highly competitive DIII schools, the sport is also played for more than one season, and many athletes have been recruited for more than one sport. These kids are not flunking out, and they are most likely doing quite well…just not ranking as highly as the students who do not have a 3o hour/week EC. It is a no-brainer.</p>
<p>When I say lighter, I don’t mean less than full-time or anything like that. They’ll usually take 12-14 in season, and 16-18 out. And it’s not universal. Pre-meds have enough courses to take that they can’t take a really light course load ever. And as I said, girls are more studious in general (Anecdotally, I’d say XC or track is the most so).</p>
<p>And grades are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. If you’re not going to grad school, playing a sport while maintaining a 3.00 or greater GPA is pretty good in the eyes of most employers.</p>
<p>Agreed. ^^ Again, it’s really only tres important for a very specified career path.</p>