It certainly seems the high profile sports like football are laxed when it comes to college board tests. I am still impressed that their GPAs are quite strong for the accepted recruits. In regards to the minor sports such as fencing, squash, golf, etc the AI from what I’m told should be about them same as the non athlete students who are admitted to the Ivy. I am quite interested in knowing among those “low profile” sport athletes who were denied admissions (despite commitment from the coach) from an Ivy school, what their academic profiles were.
^If by commitment you mean the recruit got a positive pre-read from admissions in the summer or fall of senior year (facilitated by the coach), and ideally the school paid for an official visit, and then the coach used one of his/her limited number of spots on the recruit (and ideally said a Likely Letter would follow the application), then the number denied admission should be small in the Ivies (<10%).
Admissions has the final say of course, but with a positive pre-read and definite coach support, it should be the unusual case where the recruit doesn’t get in, e.g. if they get bad letters of recommendation, or don’t take the essays seriously, or some other unusual event.
But, if the coach says something more along the lines of, “I can’t use one of my spots/Likely Letters for you, but I’ll put in a good word with admissions” , , , then the student isn’t really an athletic recruit, and who knows what will happen with the admissions office. But personally I wouldn’t expect the coach to have much or any pull once they’ve used up their spots.
The situation seems less binary in some other high academic schools outside the Ivies, e.g. D3 NESCAC where people talk about various levels of coach support (tips vs. slots). On the other hand, in the high academic D1 schools that have athletic scholarships (e.g Stanford, Northwestern), things are if anything even more clear cut than in the Ivies regarding who is/is not a true athletic recruit.
@bluewater2015 Many juniors currently are given unofficial verbal commitments from coaches offering them one of their recruitment “slots”. However, at this time, many juniors have not taken their SAT/ACT and certainly their junior yr grades are not complete, therefore, a pre-read is not possible until the summer. But what would be helpful to know, especially from athletes who were not ultimately accepted or didn’t pass the pre-read, what their best test scores were that most likely didn’t get them in. An AI index of 220’s can still include one of the SAT sections in the mid 600’s.
Well, one other data point is that for entering students in general, around 25% at HYP (and a slightly higher percentage at the other five Ivies) are below 700 on at least one section. See page 8 at the link (Princeton’s 2016-17 consolidated data set) for one example. So there are lots of admitted students, non-athletes and athletes, with at least one score below 700.
https://registrar.princeton.edu/university_enrollment_sta/CDS_2016-2017.pdf
I know there have been several threads on here about how meaningful unofficial commitments are. But if you’re talking about before even PSAT scores are available, I personally wouldn’t put a lot of stock in it. If PSAT scores are available - which are in general a strong predictor of subsequent SAT scores - that plus grades is more to go on.
Daughter’s friend’s stats- not a major sport, an ivy but not HPY- 3.72 unweighted, 4.11 weighted, 32 ACT. Coach said she was supporting the application, likely letter sent.
The band system only applies to football, although I would agree with @fbsdreams that the AI applies to all recruited (likely letter eligible) athletes. In football generally 1-2 kids per class can be in the lowest band (between 1.5 and 2 standard deviations from the mean of the last four graduating classes) and another 6 or so can be in band 2 (1 to 1.5 standard deviations from the mean). So realistically, there are no more than 16 kids a year getting in to any Ivy for football with rock bottom stats. There are maybe another 40 or so who have stats around the level @rockfish1906 is discussing. Throw in maybe another 50 recruits for basketball and men’s hockey, maybe men’s lacrosse, and you are talking about maybe 100 kids a year total getting into any Ivy as a recruit with stats pretty far below the average for the school. Those kids are also going to have very specific skill sets, and generally speaking several scholarship offers from non Ivy schools.
Personally, I would not count on admission with those stats, as I think they are more the exception that proves the rule. Also, the GPA is (relatively) meaningless. Itis true that schools are not going to want to see a bunch of Cs or really any Ds, but other than that, the real game with the AI is test scores. From discussions I have had over the last couple years with my son’s teammates and some others I have known, I think an ACT score under a 30 or 31 or an old SAT less than around a 2000 is going to be a tough admit for most kids even in the revenue sports.
High/mid 190s sounds about right for the bottom of band 2 at HYP. Two years ago, a good friend of my son’s was being recruited pretty hard by Yale and was trying to get into band 3. His AI was in the low 200’s (201 or 202, can’t remember exactly) and they wouldn’t spend a band 2 slot on him so he wound up in the MAC. Conversly, my son’s roommate was being recruited heavily by H and P but was in limbo with both until late fall his senior year when he popped a 31 on the ACT.
I know a kid who had an excellent GPA…tons of APs but struggled to get beyond a 31 ACT and was told by Harvard coach they could not recruit him. What @Ohiodad51 dad says is pretty spot on but I’d add there does seem to be subtle differences between the schools especially HYP. We found P to be very test score focused with H and Y giving weight to both GPA and test scores. Again certain sports yield different experiences.
@tonymom, you might be right about P being more test centric than H or Y. Thankfully, we didn’t have to worry too much about that because my son was too afraid of my wife to let his grades slip. But really what I was trying to say is that by the time most kids are being recruited, the cake is already pretty much baked as far as GPA. Sure, a 4.0 second semester junior year and first semester senior year may move the needle a couple tenths of a point or so. But taking an ACT from a 29 to a 30 will mean a much bigger jump in the AI, especially for schools that do not require SAT2 scores, since not only is the jump in a point or two on the ACT likely to be proportionally greater, but it counts twice as much as a bump in GPA in the AI formula. In the band system where a kid is hovering between Band 2 and Band 3 say, that can make all the difference.
Re my last post–Daughter’s friend’s stats- not a major sport, an ivy but not HPY- 3.72 unweighted, 4.11 weighted, 32 ACT. Coach said she was supporting the application, likely letter sent.
She was accepted with those stats.
She was also told she needed a 30 on the ACT for consideration although in rare instances they would consider a slightly lower score.
Curious why such an emphasis on test scores?..
Anyone have thoughts, speculation as to why?
Because a one point jump in a test score is worth several points on the AI calculator. As I said above, this is huge to a kid who is on the border between bands in football, but it also is important to some extent with sports that are trying to hit a target team AI. It’s the only thing that can measurably effect the AI at the time kids are being recruited.
@Ohiodad51
Not why is it important/stressed by the recruit, but why the preference/emphasis in the first place in the AI equation? Sorry I didn’t make my question clear.
Way back when this was all being crafted why give test scores more weight?..
@tonymom Strong emphasis on test scores as the team will have a specific average as does the university. For every kid they bring in with a sub 30 ACT they have to bring in 3 non-athletes that are 35 or better to keep the class average.
The standardized test are, well, standard. Same test in Wisconsin or Texas or NJ. Objective test. A gpa is very subjective and can the college AO really know if the B in French was because the student didn’t do the work, didn’t like the teacher, or really can’t understand the material? Did the calc teacher in Colorado apply the same standards as the one in Maryland? Were points taken off the grade for being tardy or messy or talking in class? Was the A+ given because the teacher really liked the student or because the student was so superior to all others in the class?
I agree with @twoinanddone that the AI is an effort to compare kids from lots of different backgrounds. Another thing to remember @tonymom, the AI was composed of 1/3 class rank (another somewhat objective measure of how a kid performed relative to his peers), 1/3 ACT/SAT and 1/3 SAT2. My guess is that a one or two place movement in class rank had a bigger effect on the AI number than moving from a 3.65 to a 3.68 GPA, so when schools stopped providing rank information the variability of that 1/3 of the score flattened out. Couple that with fewer schools requiring SAT2s, and the SAT/ACT result becomes the default largest variable in the calculation.
And interesting that my son’s HS GC always stressed that GPA was reflective of the kind of student someone would be in college. I’m a bit skeptical about that claim. On the other hand we all know there is plenty out there critical of standardized testing. As someone who works in education I hope “holistic admissions” is just that…holistic 
Grades from all schools are NOT equal.
Is rigor of school or schedule a factor in AI?
@sunnyschool
AP courses and school profile are required. It’s a application as any other and each element must be met.
@tonymom But it sounds like it’s mostly a numbers game with the grades and other parts of the formula.