Does Harvard’s preference for athletes (As stated in the lawsuit) hold true in admissions time or was that just a way to limit numbers of Asian Americans to Harvard?
If it holds true, does Harvard uniquely prize athletes over other candidates or do schools of similar status do the same?
If they are a recruited athlete, yes, there is a preference. That is to say, they have an easier path to admission. For the non-recruited athlete compared to one with strong ECs outside of sports, no.
BTW, the same holds true for almost every college with selective admissions.
I will caution that the conversation does not diverge into a discussion of the lawsuit (which was covered on another thread) or the role of race in admissions (which is limited to the race thread in the admissions forum).
Here we go again.
Kpap, it’s not that H “prefers” athletes (as in, would rather have them than other kids.) It’s that the final pool of the coaches’ recruits has a slightly easier admit process.
We keep getting multiple variations of the same thread. Let me summarize again. Harvard wants a diverse class of future leaders which includes many different races including blacks and browns as well as athletes and students who show potential but whose families never had enough money to game the system
FWIW: The folks at Inside Higher Education are beginning to question that way of thinking: https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/views/2018/06/25/harvard-admissions-data-raise-questions-dont-demonstrate-discrimination
IMHO: It makes perfect sense for Harvard to assign an athletic rating for athletic recruits. However, when done so for non-recruits it seems to boost their overall rating. Or conversely, a student who does not participate in athletics – and is not an athletic recruit – may receive a LOWER overall rating and it may LOWER their chances of being admitted.
Alone, that doesn’t mean any (non-recruited) athletic activity is a tip or hook, in itself. It’s the old causation vs correlation. We also don’t know what aspect of athletics is rated. Actual skill (next to impossible to judge, from afar,) the commitment to the challenges, team, personal engagement and the coach’s direction? Or whatever.
And plenty of kids of various backgrounds do play sports. OP needs to do his/her personal best in class and in the rest of what matters.
Harvard’s athletic rating is interesting. According to lawsuit docs presented by Harvard:
~90% of applicants receive a 3 or 4 in the athletic rating. Unlike every other rating category, getting a 3 instead of a 4 in athletics was not associated with a statistically significant difference in chance of admission after controls. For the overwhelming majority of applicants who play a varsity sport in HS, the athletic rating does not appear to distinguish applicants in a way that notably impacts admissions decisions. However, a small portion of varsity athletes applicants receive a 2. As the quote above notes, a 2 is not a recruited athlete, but still was associated with a significantly increased chance of admission after full controls. That boost in chance of admission for a 2 in athletic was similar to the boost associated with a 2 in ECs.
The typical varsity HS athlete gets a 3, which was not associated with a benefit in chance of admission above no athletic participation, so I’d expect that for the typical applicant, athletics are not going to increase chance of admission more than other types of ECs. This raises the question about why Harvard makes a special category for athletics, rather than just using the existing “ATH” label for recruited athletes, and considering athletics in the ECs category, which “summarizes the strength of the applicant’s involvement in activities during high school and potential to contribute outside the classroom at Harvard”, for the other >99% of applicants who aren’t recruited athletes? Several other highly selective colleges use this approach, without a special “athletic” rating category. The ~10% of applicants who receive a “2” in athletic could be impacted since the effect of a “2” in EC and “2” in athletic are cumulative. Maybe Harvard needs to make a special effort to have enough capable non-recruited walk-ons?
@Data10: According to the lawsuit docs presented by Harvard . . .
As such, it stands to reason that Harvard judges an applicant based on the AVERAGE of ratings in those four areas.
So, while I agree that a student with a 3 or 4 rating in athletics does NOT get a boost or a tip – a rating of 3 or 4 in athletics would seem to LOWER a student’s overall rating.
For example: a straight ‘A’ student who is the first violinist in their HS orchestra but does NOT participate in athletics MIGHT – and I’m stressing MIGHT – receive an overall LOWER rating than a straight ‘A’ student who plays percussion in the orchestra but also plays athletics and would be a competitive Division 3 athlete at another college. In other words, the dweeb with zero athletics MIGHT get a lower rating than a smart-jock!
Thing is this: everyone wants in (or at least would like to think they have a shot, some magic lightning bolt, if only in their dreams.) Not everyone is qualified, even with top stats.
But this lawsuit, like Fisher, makes for a media and popular frenzy. Nearly everyone wants to see a giant get its comeuppance. Whether or not any true facts support that. As I read various comments or google through articles, so many (most?) just declare what the plaintiff alleges is true. After all, H is the giant. 95% get rejected, so something is clearly amiss. Lol.
And it spins from there.
All the factors like geo diversity, balance in majors, gender balance, other institutional needs- or even if a candidate is truly prepared for his/her major or is likely to add to the community- etc, just get lost in the desire to see things magically equalized: They got a 4.0, those got a 3.9, “they” all get in and “those” don’t. It’s not that simple.
You know my saying: “I think it, so it’s true. And I read it somewhere, so Iknow it’s true.” Try to get past the insinuations and (a sort of) mob mentality.
It’s not just stats. Just getting top stats doesn’t make one interesting, likely to contribute or even a clear thinker. It isn’t just one group that gets set aside. It’s 95% of all applicants.
This is hysterical. The OP asks about the role of athletics in admissions and gets told it’s more than stats. I almost wonder if there’s a bot programmed to include “it’s not just stats” in every thread no matter the topic.
Just to let you all know, I wanted to see how that athletic rating system for each applicant would impact me as I believe I would be considered a 2 (National Level tennis player but not good enough to be recruited). Thank you all for your responses thus far.
The lawsuit includes an in depth analysis of how ratings contribute to admissions decisions. Both Harvard and the plantiff agree that the admission decision as well as the overall rating are not based on a simple average of the category ratings. One can crudely estimate the relatively contribution of different ratings components to admissions decisions by looking at the regression coefficients for the component ratings after controlling for a wide variety of additional factors.
Arcidiacono’s model with full controls found that getting a 4 (worst standard rating) in academic had a regression coefficient of -2.328 (0.102), which is extremely significant. The admit rate for non-recruited athletes who received a 4 in academic was only 0.07% – almost impossible if unhooked. The admission rate for applicants with 4’s in ECs or personal was also extremely low. In the final 5 years of the sample, the admit rate among applicants who received a 4 in personal was 0.00% (every applicant rejected, regardless of hooks).
In contrast, the regression coefficient for a 4 in athletic was a tremendously smaller magnitude of -0.041 (0.037) that did not reach statistical significance. As such, unlike all other category ratings, admits with a 4 in athletic were common. A 4 in athletic and 2 in the other three categories was actually one of the most common patterns among admitted students. Students with this 2/2/2/4 combination had a nearly 50% admit rate, yet unhooked applicants applicants with a 4 in any of the other three categories had a near 0% admit rate.
Glad it gave you a laugh, roethlisburger. Sorry you find it hysterical. My point remains that it’s more than athletics. Or academics. No easy formula.
How do they separate out athletics and extracurriculars? Would an athlete with a 1 or 2 rating in athletics also get a 1 or 2 rating for their extracurricular activities in the sport?
And this sums it all up - we’re all making assumptions.
While we all know that a “1” in athletics is a recruited athlete, none of us knows what 2-6 means. So, my assumption is that a “2” is a nationally ranked athlete, perhaps in sport that Harvard does not have. So IMO Nathan Chen is a “2.” Therefore, a “2” is still going to be very rare. The vast majority of applicants will be a 3 or below.
Which gets back to my opinion as stated above. OK, so I’ll concede that there might be an advantage to a few more applicants than I presumed at first. But getting back to my earlier example, it did not seem to help Nathan. 
Kpap - are you a five-star or blue chip recruit? H’s team is 4-5 star recruits, and blue chips. They took a 2-star this year, but that kid is legacy, and I suspect there are other factors at play with his recruitment.
My guess is that the rating in athletics is basically an indication of usefulness to the school’s athletic programs. “1” would be RA, “2” would be a potential walk-on and “3” and “4” are just different levels of ECs. After all, Harvard is limited to some 12% of RA but it needs to field all kinds of varsity teams that require participation of 20%+ of students. There has got to be some signal in the rating that tags the 10% potential walk-ons.
Yes, possible a 2 could mean potential value to the team but not recruited.
Still, Isuspect it’s an old, vague category they know how to use, but never redefined or re-named.
Don’t athletic athletic recruits at Harvard have an 83% admit rate? If you are a reasonably smart athlete that Harvard wants for one of its teams you’re golden. I’ve got no problem with that, btw, but people should be under no illusions how powerful the hook is.
While the lawsuit does not spoon feed every detail, it provides enough detail to draw conclusions. It specifies that a “1” indicates a recruited athlete and 5+ indicates “there were special circumstances that caused the applicant to have fewer athletic accomplishments, such as significant family commitments or a physical disability.” Together these groups only compose ~1% of applicants. The other ~99% of applicants receive ratings of 2 to 4, with 2 being best and 4 being worst. The distribution among applicants in the 6-year sample group of nearly 200k applicants was as follows (ignoring +/- modifiers):
2 – 9% of applicants
3 – 51% of applicants
4 – 39% of applicants
The lawsuit also mentions that 33% of applicants said their primary EC was playing a sport. 22% said their primary EC was playing a sport at the varsity level, yet fewer than 10% received a 2 or better in athletic. This indicates that only a minority of applicants whose primary EC was playing a varsity sport in high school get a 2. The vast majority of this HS athlete group instead gets the more common 3 rating. Given that 9% of applicants receive a 2, it also seems unlikely to me that it would require playing at a national level since it seems unlikely to me that 9% of non-recruited athlete applicants would play at a national level. So I’d conclude that 2 requires more than just being on a HS varsity team, but does not require playing at a national level. My guess would be it indicates being likely to make a contribution to Harvard athletics as a walk-on. Walk-ons compose a large portion of many Harvard teams and are a key component of Harvard athletics.
This leaves distinguishing between the 51% of applicants who receive a 3 and 39% of applicants who receive a 4. My guess would be a 4 simply means not listing athletic participation on the application. A large portion of applicants do not list athletic participation on the application, and participating in athletics is by no means a requirement for admission to Harvard.