Graduation Rate Analysis: How athletes and URMs stack up at Ivies

Applying to College
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There is a lot of debate on preferences for athletes, URMs, legacies, and other groups at elite colleges. This basically boils down to the question of whether students should get boosts for non-academic attributes at elite colleges or not.

Many have argued that a much, much larger numbers of people can “do the work” at elite colleges than can be admitted. What this “do the work” floor is and how it can be quanitified is an issue. Some have suggested 1200 SATs as the floor at schools such as Harvard. At that point, if students can contribute other attributes to the university (athletic ability, diversity, musical talent, legacy status), they are given extra consideration where those without those attributes have not.

Let’s look at two controversial preferential admit categories where we have good numbers: black students and athletes.

Black Students
<a href=“http://www.jbhe.com/features/45_student_grad_rates.html[/url]”>http://www.jbhe.com/features/45_student_grad_rates.html</a>

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education has some great numbers on this stuff year after year. As the link shows, there is a gap at the top universities between the overall graduation rate and the black student graduation rate (the article gets into reasons why this may be). Within the Ivies, the difference ranges from -4% at Columbia to -12% at Cornell. The top 4 Ivies in pure black graduation rates are Harvard (93%), Princeton (93%), Yale (88%), and Columbia/Dartmouth (85% each). At many schools, there is a negligable or positive black/white graduation gap comparison (Mt. Holyoke +3%, Wash U +1%, Amherst -1%, Emory -2%).

Some would say the difference proves that there is a problem with affirmative action. However, all of the top 20 or so schools with the highest black graduation rates are academically elite schools with strong affirmative action programs. In addition, the admit rates greatly surpass the average black graduation rate (40%) and greatly surpass the top graduation rate at HBCU’s (Spelman is top at 77%, Morehouse is next at 65%, Howard is 5th at 52%). Clearly, the best black students in the nation are attracted to elite schools that practice affirmative action and they do extremely well.

Student Athletes
<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=22438[/url]”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=22438</a>
<a href=“http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1998/01.15/HarvardRatesIts.html[/url]”>http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1998/01.15/HarvardRatesIts.html</a>
<a href=“http://www.vnews.com/01022005/2180196.htm[/url]”>http://www.vnews.com/01022005/2180196.htm</a>
<a href=“http://www.athletics.cornell.edu/taskforce/student-athletes.html[/url]”>http://www.athletics.cornell.edu/taskforce/student-athletes.html</a>
<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/football/coach.html[/url]”>http://www.princeton.edu/football/coach.html</a>
<a href=“http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/printerfriendly.cfm?ID=1800[/url]”>http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/printerfriendly.cfm?ID=1800</a>

I posted all of thes examples, and the articles are all about different athletic issues, but one truth comes out in all of them-- student athletes at elite schools graduate at rates at or higher than the student body as a whole. Clearly, the athletes can “do the work” and graduate with the valuable Ivy degree. In addition, athletes tend to do well in job recruiting, which means they tend not to be at a disadvantage to other students in post collegiate success.

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<p>Interesting!</p>

<p>A few comments: it was my understanding that at the elite schools listed here, there is less of a differential between the academic qualifications of athletes and other students. Prowess at a sport may help one's app, but the standard for academic achievement is still pretty rigorous. All this to caution people from drawing the misleading conclusion that ivy-league calibre schools do a "better job" educating and graduating this problem group of special students. They're working with a different type of athlete, on average, than the Division I schools who make exceptions for scholarship-worthy athletes.</p>

<p>As for the minority piece, one cannot argue with such high graduation rates. They speak for themselves. </p>

<p>However, when one looks at other colleges, it's important to remember that graduation rates are not the inverse of the dropout rate. Too often people think that those who didn't graduate 'couldn't hack it.' However, not all students leave in academic difficulty. Nor should we assume that they never got a degree. Some students successfully transfer (for a variety of reasons), and those students do not show up in institutional-level retention or graduation rates.</p>

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<p>Most African American students do not leave college because they can't hack it, they leave because they cannot afford it.</p>

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<p>Well as an almost recruited (too short) Ivy athlete (yeah i was talking about myself in the last post, not a friend) I can say this: Check the football players majors. Nothing rigorous at all. Or maybe there is some hidden correlation between football and psychology...</p>

<p>Anyways, the advantage athletes have is in personality traits and social skills. Those are inherent to sports. But, at the same time, it isn't fair to the people who broke their tail (and don't feed me that crap about how athletes develop a different talent... I was captain of very good western PA team, I understand this) to get good grades and scores. And i'm not just bitter either. I was still recruited by some patriot league schools and some prestigous D3 colleges. I'm still critical of how athletes are treated there. Schools shouldn't lower academic standards for athletes.</p>

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<p>Kirbus, why hold athletes to a higher standard than the rest of the student body?</p>

<p>If athletes major in psychology or whatever, then they aren't doing "rigourous" work? Given that at least 66% or so of Ivy League students major in political science, history, economics, psychology, english, "social studies" @ Harvard, psychology, etc., it seems that most Ivy League students aren't choosing "rigourous" work (of course all of these majors are challenging and can be extremely rigourous, but you get the point).</p>

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<p>Schools are very good at knowing who can make it through. I didn't know a single URM at Harvard who left for anything other than cultural alienation.</p>

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<p>If athletes major in psychology or whatever, then they aren't doing "rigourous" work?</p>

<p>Spoken by someone who doesn't knwo what it is to be a psych major.</p>

<p>Have you ever sat through a course in Experimental Design, Methodology, and Data Analysis Procedures, Neuropsych, Statistical Reasoning for the Behavioral Sciences, Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences? Being a psych major is definitely not considered to be doing non-rigourous work.</p>

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<p>"Kirbus, why hold athletes to a higher standard than the rest of the student body?"</p>

<p>How about just the same?</p>

<p>And I'm sure that psychology is rigorous, but I'm positive that there are more rigorous majors. Besides, something like 85% of the people have 4.0s at Harvard anyways.</p>

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<p>Did you notice that at Macalester, Mount Holyoke, Pomona and Washington University, the graduation rate for black students was higher than that of white students?</p>

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<p>To ditto Hoedown, many students indeed leave for an assortment of reasons and graduate elsewhere. It would be nice if these schools could spend a little money and track these "dropouts".</p>

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<p>i know one of the reason for my school is that students are asked to be on a leave of absence for one year -- unfortunately of those many don't come back :-(</p>

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<p>So far, 4 kids from my school (public) have been recruited to Ivy League schools- Cornell (tennis), Dartmouth (ski), Yalex2 (diving, soccer). None of them, except <em>maybe maybe possibly</em> Dartmouth, would have gotten in otherwise.</p>

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<p>Exactly my point. Athletes shouldn't have zero chance of getting in without athletics...</p>

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<p>"It would be nice if these schools could spend a little money and track these "dropouts"."</p>

<p>It's not just a matter of money. Until recently, it was nearly impossible to get information on where students had enrolled. Unless they told you personally, what are you going to do? </p>

<p>However, more analysis is possible with the widespread participation in the National Student Loan Clearinghouse. It's not just for people with loans--they maintain data on who is enrolled where. This was originally just so the govt and other entities could ascertain that students really were enrolled, but now it is being used more widely, by participating institutions, to learn where students enroll after they leave.</p>

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<p>I think that it's wrong to assume that athletes who got into places like Ivies would not have done so if they hadnt been athletes. Being a top athlete takes a lot of time. If instead of doing athletics, those students had spent the same amount of time doing some other EC or academic endeavor, they may have made a state or national accomplishment, plus even had higher gpas, which would have made them desireable to places like Ivies.</p>

<p>Stellar athletes tend to be very driven people as is the case with people who are exceptional in virtually any endeavor. If their energies hadn't been dedicated to athletics, more than likely, they would have put their heart and soul in something else that would have made them very desireable to top colleges.</p>

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<p>interesting stuff ... a couple thoughts ... </p>

<p>I'd love to see the athletics stats split between football and non-football kids (or maybe football and basketball) ... in general, those are the two sports that bring in the most recruits that would not have been accepted otherwise. I know in my experience, my college coach was very proud of the XC and track teams having higher GPAs than the school average ... that is pretty typical in the minor sports ... the kids are excellent students also (perhaps focus and discipline carrying over to studying).</p>

<p>
[quote]
So far, 4 kids from my school (public) have been recruited to Ivy League schools- Cornell (tennis), Dartmouth (ski), Yalex2 (diving, soccer). None of them, except <em>maybe maybe possibly</em> Dartmouth, would have gotten in otherwise.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I do not recommend jumping to conclusions about why kids got accepted ... the Ivy league has set rules about how many athletic recruits can be accepted at varying degrees from the typical admit ... and in general those few slots do not get used up on minor sports such as tennis, diving, and skiiing (although Dartmouth may go to the mat for a skiier as they are a national power in skiiing) ... in general the bigger sports such as football and basketball (and hockey) draw most of the athletic recriuts who got a push beyond breaking a tie with another applicant.</p>

17

<p>Good point, hoedown, but schools need to be interested enough to make the small investment necessary to put this info together for analysis.</p>