Early Decision - Rejects automatically deferred

Colleges and Universities A-Z Amherst College
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<p>Interesting points about College Athletics. Those interested in exploring the topic further may wish to read “Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites” by Mitchell Stevens. He spent time in a selective LAC admissions office (thought to be Hamilton Collge) and he devotes a whole chapter to sports, outlining the history of college athletics and the importance of them in not just the overall college experience, but in American life as a whole.</p>

<p>Stevens talks about the role status plays in college admissions and in the way college group themselves in to conferences (I believe Stevens is an academic sociologist). schools obtain status in a variety of ways, including SAT scores, alumni activity and, like it or not, athletic success. He also mentions in his the generally “inverse” relationship between ability in the big three sports (football, basketball and jockey) and academic achievement.</p>

<p>Stevens also goes into the issue of innate athletic ability alone vs. innate ability coupled with the coaching and practice available to those with higher economic means. He concludes (more or less) by noting that there will likely be continuing “chronic tension” between athletics and academics.</p>

<p>In the interest of full disclosure, I come to this issue with a personal interest: a daughter who played one varsity sport, but dropped a second sport so she could devote sufficent time to her studies. She’s not sufficiently accomplished, probably, to play collge varsity - nor is she interested - but she achieved straight A’s, nothing but 5’s in her AP’s, and an SAT score averaging over 770 per part. She was deferred in EA from Amherst much to her (and my) disappointment.</p>

<p>regards,</p>

<p>lowdenf23c</p>

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<p>While we’re on the subject of overvaluing athletics, can we PLEASE stop overvaluing SAT scores as the sole proxy for academic worthiness. I know they are convenient because they are the only standardized element to the application, but just because they’re convenient, that doesn’t mean they are the best measure. I heard a waggish admissions officer say that standardized tests’ influence count for “less than parents think, and more than we would admit”. But look at all the posts above. I don’t think I’ve seen one reference to class rank or even GPA. Virtually every one cites SAT’s. Stop.
This is not a contest where the highest scorers win a seat. It’s a complex process where SAT scores are probably about the 5th or 6th most important factor (behind course rigor, GPA/class rank, essays, and recommendations). And I say this as the parent of a student who is good at taking standardized tests. I only wish it were solely based on that.</p>

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<p>My apologies to claudeturpin - I did not mean to mischaracterize what you said. Additionally, my understanding of your posts of the 100-150 points was in total, not per section, hence the reason for my comment of 30-50 points/section. I admit I have not read the referenced articles, and if I had, then maybe I would have known that you were referring to 100-150 points/section. My error.</p>

<p>As has already been mentioned, Amherst is not alone in this process including D1 programs that allow athletes in that may not even come close to their school’s minimum to get in - so this issue goes way beyond Amherst, whether its right or wrong. I agree with Steven’s assessment that there will likely be continuing “chronic tension” between athletics and academics.</p>

<p>loudenfc23c - I completely understand your’s and your daughter’s disappointment in her being deferred from Amherst. One of my Ds was also at the same academic level as your daughter, and although an athlete, she was not a recruited athlete, but was at a varsity level, and was waitlisted and rejected at a number of top schools. She additionally had other ECs as well. I still remember the day when she received most of her waitlist/rejects - not a good day. I’m happy to say that she was accepted off the waitlist at her first choice school (not Amherst) and was a walk-on varsity athlete for her sport. Good luck to your daughter!</p>

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<p>bellybones - I understand that you’re generalizing a bit to make a broader point about SATs, but I thought that GPA was implicit in my comments. My d has a 3.97 unweighted GPA (I guess she got an A-, so perhaps I misspoke when I said she was straight A). I did not, in fact, give her class rank because her school does not rank, but as near as we can tell she’s 2 out of 400+. Not being argumentative, but wanted to get that out there to illustrate the difficulty in understanding the emphasis many schools place on athletics vis a vis the admission process as a whole.</p>

<p>Yes, sometimes we all might tend to over emphasize SAT scores, but our fixation can seem justified when we hear stories like the one amfrebourg shared earlier in this string.</p>

<p>konathedog - thank you for your “well wishes” and continued good fortune to your daughter.</p>

<p>regards,</p>

<p>lowdenf23c</p>

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<p>lowden-you’re right. Sorry about that. I was overly broad about there being no posters who referred to grades. Hope your daughter gets accepted. She sounds like a great candidate.</p>

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<p>Many of the contributors to this thread feel that Amherst is being unfair to them or their children, in that perfect or nearly perfect grades, class rank and test scores do not guarantee acceptance; to the contrary, applicants with lower grades, rank and scores are admitted because, at least in part, they are good at a sport, or music, or are a URM or a legacy. They call the process “shameful” and “indefensible.” But Amherst and the other elite colleges have the luxury of picking and choosing who they want in order to create a diverse class. What is wrong with that?</p>

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<p>Gratefuldad: I think I’m going to take a break from this thread, because I seem to be spending most of my of my time responding to people, like yourself, who think that the best way to rebut an argument is to mischaracterize it. If you read my previous posts, I never said that it was wrong to consider excellence in the admissions process, be it athletic excellence or musical excellence. What I said was that it’s wrong, seriously wrong in my opinion, to reserve places for football and hockey players who, on average, have SAT scores 100-150 points lower than other applicants. And as I’ve also said, the facts upon which I base my opinion are beyond dispute, since they come from Amherst’s own admissions director.</p>

<p>What’s been fascinating about this discussion is the strong emotion, indeed the outright hostility, that questioning Amherst’s priorities generates. For an institution that aggressively promotes its commitment to intellectual excellence, it seems that certain subjects, such as whether Amherst overvalues athletic achievement, are beyond objective discussion, at least in the CC community.</p>

<p>Interestingly, I don’t think Tom Parker shares your hostility to these kinds of questions. As I’ve said in other posts, he’s a pioneer in the recruitment of economically disadvantaged students. And in the interviews I’ve read, he seems well aware of the moral ambiguity of institutionalizing lower admissions standard for athletes and legacies.</p>

<p>[Campus</a> Revolutionary](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>

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<p>Claude:</p>

<p>You have made a wise decision.</p>

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<p>Violao: If you seriously believe that giving a preference to an athlete is comparable to giving a preference to a URM, then you’re really beyond rational argument.</p>

<p>Sorry I hurt your feelings or your son’s by raising this issue. Amherst must be grateful to have advocates like you in its corner.</p>

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<p>Claude,</p>

<p>I don’t know how the “preferential” treatment of athletes is any different than Harvard’s preferential treatment of legacies, which your son clearly benefitted from since he had an older sister there.</p>

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<p>Here’s an attempt at a “rational argument” for the equivalency of recruited athletes and URMs: let’s assume that 70% of Amherst’s applicants can do the work. But they can only accept 15%. And let’s further assume that a smaller number, say 50%, are “deserving” of admission. (I think implicit in the case for URMs being appropriate recipients of preferential treatment over athletes is the very debatable position that they are more “deserving”) So, Amherst has the luxury of selecting a class that includes lots of athletes (although by NESCAC rules, no more than 65-70), and lots of URMs. All of whom can do the work and all of whom are “deserving”. One can differ with some of those opinions, but it is not an irrational argument.</p>

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<p>If I might re-direct the string a little more in line with what I believe the Original Post asked, claudeturpin posted the following in message #5:</p>

<p>"…her guidance counselor called the admissions office and was told that only five or six out of roughly 160 deferred applicants were admitted in 2010 as part of the regular decision process."</p>

<p>Has anyone else come across similar (or, indeed, ANY data) like this? I’m not doubting the poster, mind you. But, if this is accurate, then perhaps Amherst is doing a lot of kids no particular favor by deferring them, instead of rejecting them outright. I’m pretty sure I read that some colleges greatly increased their rejection rate for ED’s out just such a concern. Interested in what others think…</p>

<p>regards,</p>

<p>lowdenf23c</p>

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<p>^While it is an oranges to apples comparison, Stanford admissions is quite clear about wanting to provide applicants a final answer through their EA and restrictive EA and will simply reject, deferring as few applicants as possible to RD. This provides applicants a black and white understanding of their candidacy. I suspect that NESCAC schools, wish to hold the deck of applicants, and shuffle it as needed largely to effect enrollment management. The comparison using Stanford perhaps offers a macro view of dealing with a large number of applications, a large number of qualified candidates and how to respond to those applicants. For example, recent CC posts re: Stanford indicate that alumni parents / legacy are receiving letters about how competitive admissions are today, at Stanford, as compared to when the legacy attended. And provides notice that it may be difficult for their son / daughter to be admitted, this year. Essentially a “legacy unlikely letter” that perhaps, lets the legacy down a little easier. I have spent some time professionally reviewing referrals for an “alternative” type of private school. I found that the more referrals that I had coming in, the more selective the school could be. However, when those referrals were being scooped by other similar schools, I had to ratchet up efforts to showcase the program and ensure that the programming needed for each referral was available, ultimately defining fit of the referral to the program. I guess that’s what I see here, and it’s relationship to the objective of effective enrollment management. When you know you have enough qualified applicants, you know how many admits you need, and you have different tools such as ED, defer, RD, athlete/legacy, URM and others specific to the enrollment class, I believe the dilemma is having an abundance of highly qualified applicants and finding that your admissions team must exclude more than it includes. And you lose some great students. Perhaps small schools should have some strategically planned academic/residential life/student services / housing inventory to at least set a goal to include more of the highly qualified students that they now find themselves forced to deny. Why not be equipped to take a few dozen more exceptional students?</p>

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<p>Thank you @Claudeturpin … your honesty and directness are appreciated. </p>

<p>The rationalization and defensiveness of some of the admits and their parents who obviously had some advantage is interesting. </p>

<p>For some reason they get defensive about the fact that lesser academically qualified students are accepted. Funny how they don’t mind that higher qualifieds are told to retake SATs. </p>

<p>The bi-modal distribution on SATs is intersting too. It all makes sense.</p>

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<p>amfreborg:</p>

<p>My child has not been admitted to Amherst. I am not the least but defensive about test scores as my son’s are nearly perfect. I am defensive about comments like this: “that lesser academically qualified students are accepted” that are attached to athletes, legacies and urms. I find it interesting how so many have a such a hard time with rejection and look for a scapegoat in the form of the URM, Legacy or Athlete and label them as not academically qualified.</p>

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<p>Amen, violao. It takes more than grades and test scores to be “qualified” and, yes, many qualified applicants will not be admitted. That’s life, amfreborg. BTW, my son has not been admitted; we are prepared to deal with the upcoming news, whichever way it goes.</p>

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<p>Well - the elite sure are defensive. Truth definitely hits nerves … </p>

<p>The Claude guy is right …</p>

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<p>I have no skin in this game, but would like to point out that recruited athletes in the NESCACs are no more or less likely to graduate or flunk out than anyone else, nor are SAT scores highly correlated with success in college or in life after college. So why not take some students with different abilities and focuses? As long as they are able to do the work and contribute to the life of the college, why not?</p>

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<p>This is not a response to claudeturpin, simply my impressions after reading this thread.</p>

<p>The process may be flawed but don’t blame it on the athletes. Within the guidelines set forth by the NESCAC or the Ivy League, the admissions office can do whatever it wants to do. Period. </p>

<p>Interestingly, NESCAC and Ivy adcoms can take a student who is not an athlete with low test scores and/or GPA but they cannot take an athlete with scores that fall below the NESCAC/Ivy AI guidelines. The NESCAC and Ivy League ARE athletic conferences. </p>

<p>Colleges act in their own best interest. The genesis of ED is to lock up the top candidates. Each admissions department defines what “top candidates” means to them. Within the NESCAC and Ivy League this always includes athletes (at MIT it does not). Athletes take 65-70 spots in NESCAC classes but that is a constant. Other constants are (in smaller numbers) legacies, URMs, musicians, activists, writers, artists, a student from every state, a student from as many countries as possible, a certain number of students from the home state/home town of the college, a balanced class comprised of 50% male students and 50% female students etc. Admission is also swayed by intangibles: a gut feeling about or strong connection to certain candidates. Long ago I read an article where an admissions officer from Harvard said something along the lines of “we admit unbalanced individuals to create a balanced class”. I believe that is what all of these schools are trying to do. </p>

<p>Several years ago, Tom Parker told me that 96% of the applicants that year were fully capable of being successful at Amherst. Yet they needed to reject 84% of them. </p>

<p>Who wants to reinvent the admissions system? Who wants to decide the fate of these students and devise a better way to include all of that diversity in a class of 400-500 students? And what would the new criteria be? Perfect test scores and perfect grades? How would that be better than these oddly balanced classes? Nobody gets into the top schools without some kind of hook. There has to be a “brilliance” that sets the individuals apart…and the truth is… there are enough kids who exhibit “brilliance” to fill these classes over and over. This is why it does feel like a lottery and it is a lottery for athletes, too. But I believe the one TRUE advantage athletes have (and legacies are afforded the same advantage) is the information they receive in an early read about their ED chances. Part of the reason the ED athletic admit rate is so high is because inadmissible athletes have already been weeded out and that does not happen for the RD pool.</p>

<p>I think what has changed this game, probably irrevocably for the foreseeable future, is USNWR rankings, the common application and the economic divide. In the interview with Tom Parker, he pointed to affluence as the biggest inequity in admissions (even influencing the ability to be a successful and admissible athlete). The admission of athletes is one of the few things that has not changed, it has only gotten more competitive for the athletes themselves.</p>

<p>Isn’t this very common knowledge?</p>

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<p>I go to one of the best prep schools in the country (consistently ranked 1-5th in rankings) and everyone knows each other’s GPAs. </p>

<p>Prep school athletes always get funneled to NESCAC schools because of two reasons: </p>

<p>1) New England Prep School athletes tend to be more D3 talent than D1
2) They go to pretty rigorous schools with idiosyncratic grading scales (mine was out of 6) so its tough to identify someone as academically sub-par, especially since nearly everyone who went to my school was an academic ‘star’ at their old schools.</p>

<p>What happens though, at least in the microcosm that is the New England Prep School, is that athletes who go to schools like Amherst or Williams get 4.5s and 5.0s out of 6 - they aren’t the brightest (top 20% get a 5.3 or higher) but they’re academically strong and obviously they’re top athletes. </p>

<p>What that means though is that very very few kids from my New England prep school will go to Amherst unless they’re athletes. Why? Because Amherst or Williams will only want a few students from one particular New England prep school - there is no quote I presume but they also don’t want to accept more than 5 or 6 students, and most of the ones they do accept will be student-athletes. </p>

<p>What this means at my particular school is that if you are not a recruited athlete, you probably won’t get into Amherst or Williams. Instead students with above a 5.3 go to Harvard or Yale (where there tend not to be many students good enough to be recruited) , recruited athletes go to Amherst and Williams and those in the tier below (think 4.5-5.3) miss out on both the top LACs and top Ivies. </p>

<p>Then again, if you’re so good at football, lacrosse, cross-country, or crew for a New England prep school that you can play Ivy League, you can get into Harvard or Brown with a 4.0. One of my friends from the class of 2010 got into Brown with a 4.2 out of 6 and a 1900 on his SATs. </p>

<p>Public school student-athletes who end up at Amherst may have similar grades to their future peers but you see real discrepancies at top New England boarding schools.</p>