<p>Grace - I think I use the term "recruited athletes" a little differently but agree that we are agreeing! No doubt there are many among the admitted ED pool who hope to play sports at Williams, and many of those students will be on teams when they get to Williams. Something like 75-80% of incoming Williams freshmen played varsity sports in high school. Many have been in contact with the coaches. But just because a prospective student has spoken to one of the coaches, I wouldn't consider that student a recruited athletes - I view the tips and protects, those likely to be impact players at Williams, as the recruits; maybe there are a few additional students with very high stats who are also recruits but didn't need to be tips/protects.</p>
<p>We do agree. I was including the applicants who had been on official visits and had been told that they were being "supported" by coaches (who acted as liaisons with admissions people, made sure their documents were received, etc.) -- they will definitely play, absent injuries. I think that there are a lot more than 42 of these already, but most of them don't seem to be "tips" even though a good number of them may well qualify as "impact" players (potentially 4-year players, already nationally ranked, etc.).</p>
<p>I suspect that you and I are thinking about different kinds of sports, jrpar. I'm thinking more about volleyball, field hockey, women's crew, golf, swimming, and other lower-profile (than football, men's ice hockey, and basketball) sports, as the former are the type of sport I know the best and therefore probably pay the most attention to.</p>
<p>The best definition of "recruited athlete" is probably the one used by the admissions office. At the time of acceptances, before students have set foot on campus, students folders are tagged with a designation of "likely 4-year varsity contributor". This designation comes from the athletic department lists and, logically, could only be given based on recruiting contacts.</p>
<p>This designation is a pretty stringent definition. There would obviously be many more students who were accomplished high school atheletes and who intend to participate in college, but may not project as "four year varsity athletes" because they are either not good enough or because they will fall by the wayside due to their higher priorities on academics, etc.</p>
<p>Last year's enrolled freshmen class of 528 (or so) had 151 students designated as "likely 4-year varsity athletes".</p>
<p>
[quote]
The confusion does not stem from Nesbitt..
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I disagree, perhaps not in this case, but overall. I think colleges and admissons officers intentionally blur the definition of the various athletic recruting terms they throw around. Specifically, they love to create the impression that the 66 tips represent the full cohort of recruited athletes, etc. Or, quickly shift gears to tout the academic qualifications of all enrolled varsity athletes when the conversation started with the tips, etc. I have found that you have to parse any statement about athletic admissions very, very carefully. The degree of obfuscation can only be intentional to some degree.</p>
<p>In the long run, I think colleges hurt themselves (and the highly qualified athletic recruits) by not being completely transparent about the different bands of recruited athletes, how many, etc. What ends up happening is that the highly qualified athletes get tarred by the questionable academic credentials of the tips, something that could be avoided with more transparency. The problem is that the colleges are embarrassed by the academic qualifications (or lack thereof) of many of their tips.</p>
<p>Here's a pretty good report prepared by a faculty committee on recruited athletes at Williams.</p>
<p>There are 66 "tips" and 32 "protects" available per class at Williams. The "protects" are rated 3s on Williams' 9-grade scale for rating the academic qualifications of applicants. The 66 tips go to athletes with lesser academic qualifications (those who are assigned a rating of 4, 5, 6, or 7 (Williams says that it does not admit applicants with a rating of 8 or 9)). About 25% of Williams athletes are neither tips nor protects - their academic ratings are a 1 or 2. (By athletes, I mean those assigned an "A" rating as impact athletes who are likely to be 4-year starters.) Conversely, something like 10 admits per class are low-band applicants (an academic rating of 7).</p>
<p>One note - the data used in the report (although the report is relatively new) is a little bit old so the number of low-band admits may be lower . .</p>
<p>Torasee:</p>
<p>To put those numbers into perspective, the average academic rating of enrolled Williams students is now close to a 2. A "3" would be highly unlikely to be accepted without a strong hook -- URM, athletics, outstanding musical talent, legacy, etc. Basically, an unhooked "3" gets a courtesy waitlist.</p>
<p>The Williams system is fairly typical for liberal arts colleges. Certainly all of the colleges I've looked at have similar "tip" programs....although they vary in the balance of power between the admissions office and the athletic department in determining which tips get admitted.</p>
<p>My concern with Williams is the degree of autonomy given the athletic department in selecting 98 members of each freshman class (the tips and protects). From what I have seen, Williams is very close to having a completely separate parallel admissions track, starting with campus visits. The question of admissions office versus athletic department control of the admissions decisions is admittedly a gray area. However, with two high school athletic recruits hospitalized with alcohol poisoning during campus visits in the last few years, I would be taking action to decisively shift that balance away from Harry Sheehey and back to Tom Nesbitt. I think the dual-track contributes to some of the factionalization of the campus culture.</p>
<p>I think the appropriate admissions process must start with a determination, "Is this student a good fit (not just a barely passable fit) for Williams, including academics?" Then, procede to determine the athletic issues. It seems to me that the admissions office is only group suitable to make that first determination. Too much autonomy for the athletics department probably tends to undermine that first determination.</p>
<p>Does anyone have enough of a handle on the 1-9 rating system used by Williams to specify what level of achievement is required for each of the ratings?? Or is there some element of subjectivity so that the criteria are not that hard and fast (e.g., to compensate for the variations in grading standards from school to school)?</p>
<p>I haven't been able to get a handle on it. Most attempts to quantify it look at just SATs, but that is too simplistic. It's a subjective evaluation based on test scores, class rank, high school curriculum, type of high school, etc.</p>
<p>I think the article in the Alumni Review last year that looked at the process for admitting the class of 2009 had some hints at the criteria that went into the rating. It was definitely more subjective than the pure numbers driven academic index that Dartmouth uses. (Dartmouth's scale is also the opposite of Williams' in that at Dartmouth, a 9 is the highest rating, whereas at Williams a 1 is best.)</p>
<p>The topic of the Williams Academic Rating system comes up all the time. Here are some links, only using publicly available information.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ephblog.com/archives/002905.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.ephblog.com/archives/002905.html</a>
<a href="http://www.ephblog.com/archives/003489.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.ephblog.com/archives/003489.html</a></p>