My sense from people being recruited in “niche” sports by highly selective colleges is it ends up sorta like legacy. These kids are usually in the academic range where they plausibly could be admitted unhooked at these highly selective colleges, but the odds if you are not hooked in some way are on the low side (note for a few colleges, this is true for everyone unhooked, including the 4.0/1600 types). But because they are a recruited athlete who passed a pre-read, their odds are extremely high.
This of course is no small thing for those individuals, but on the other hand is not necessarily doing anything substantial to distort the distribution of academic qualifications. And I personally think you are quite right that if you just turned off that recruiting process for these niche sports, mostly these admits would just be replaced by rather similar kids but who did not get recruited.
In fact, on a typical selective private HS niche sport team, you are likely going to have some small number of kids who get recruited, and then a bunch more varsity players who do not. These are some combination of kids who don’t have the same gifts, or don’t do the sport year-round, or started the sport later, or whatever.
But at least coming out of these high schools, if they have good enough academics, they will likely go to some very selective college anyway.
So again I think it is quite right that if you stopped recruiting these sports but still viewed them as a good EC, a lot of what would happen is just a bit of shuffling around of which exact colleges all these kids went to. But unless you did more than just change this one factor, I think we already know almost all these kids would still be taking their spot at some very selective college.
Because we are already doing a natural experiment like that with the varsity kids who are/are not recruited off these teams, and the not recruited ones are still doing quite well in college admissions.
I don’t understand what the controversy is all about.
Universities like Harvard are private, so they are allowed to make their own admissions decisions except when they are discriminatory against applicants based on age, gender, race, disability, or sexual orientation.
They have never pretended to admit applicants solely on academic achievement.
They value other characteristics that are outside the academic realm and this is their right to do so. That doesn’t mean their method isn’t “fair.”
They have been enormously successfully with their formula, so successful that most highly rejective US universities emulate this formula.
Outside the US, there are identified problems with university systems which admit applicants solely based on academic performance (ex. China, Japan, India, S Korea).
With regard to Harvard and their Ivy League counterparts, sports have been an integral part of their identity for over 100 years.
Harvard crew 1852
Harvard baseball 1865
Harvard football 1873
Harvard track 1876
Harvard lacrosse 1881
Harvard fencing 1893
Harvard ice hockey 1897
Harvard basketball 1900
Harvard soccer 1905
Harvard wrestling 1913
Harvard golf 1923
Harvard squash 1924
Harvard tennis 1925
Harvard sailing 1928
Harvard swimming and diving 1930
Harvard skiing 1933
Harvard field hockey 1974
Harvard volleyball 1980
Harvard water polo 1980
Harvard women’s rugby 2013
1359 US colleges are members of the NCAA (1118) or NAIA (241). Organized sports is an ingrained part of the culture of the entire US higher education system, not just the Ivy League.
There are over 2000 US 4 year colleges and many more outside the US. Dissatisfied families are free to send their children elsewhere.
I don’t see Harvard changing its admissions process to remove its preference for athletes.
Similarly, i definitely don’t see ANY school removing its preference for donors.
I don’t disagree. I just want to point out when Stanford/Dartmouth/Brown went to eliminate some sports, the backlash from “Friends of (NAME OF NICHE SPORT HERE)” donors was significant. In one specific case, eight figures of $ donations were at risk. The sport was quickly saved.
So while attendance may be low, and a sport may be niche, alumni donations are part of an administration’s decision matrix.
If we want lots of FA, then donations are important. And several niche sports that are erroneously referred to as “rich white sports” could not be more incorrectly labeled.
As the parent of a student who does a non-recruitable club sport which has required intensive practice since the age of about 7 (at one point, she was training about 30 hours a week - nearly the equivalent of a full time job)…I disagree. I think her sport absolutely helped her admissions in multiple ways (her skills specific to her sport, the leadership, time management, commitment and determination, resilience - e.g. a number of desirable qualities). And although not a recruitable sport, I think the university she’s at now has an eye on athletes for this sport as they have a competitive team that often ends up regional champions and nationally ranked. So although not recruiting, I think there can be a boost.
And, of course, beyond admissions, I feel it was a worthwhile use of time as she actually did develop many of the qualities parenthetically listed above.
We have a strong sports tradition, and many of the top students academically are also on varsity teams. True to stereotype, we have a lot of varsity teams, including a lot of niche sports, for a HS our size, so there are a lot of such opportunities. Indeed, a lot of the top students are on multiple varsity teams.
But many are not recruited, because of the factors I discussed above. They are not necessarily gifted enough, and they definitely are not devoting the year-round time to a single sport most of the recruited athletes are devoting. They are just doing the normal practices and games, and maybe some summer practices/camps. And they are finding they can balance all that with getting top grades in hard classes, and also doing some other activities. Like, there are varsity athletes doing great in debate too, that sort of thing.
OK, then these kids are getting into very selective colleges. As a whole, they have a much higher batting average at Ivy+, the more selective LACs, the most popular OOS publics, and the military academies than their raw numbers alone would explain. Like, at approximately a 3 times rate on average, give or take.
There is a lot behind that–we have a lot of very rigorous classes, these kids tend to get really personal teacher recommendations, they get great advice on college selection that helps them avoid stepping all over each other, and so on.
But being a non-recruited varsity athlete demonstrably is not a big hinderance, and in fact I think it may well be helping.
I am not saying that schools shouldnt consider athletics. Im saying that it is time to get rid of the separate, privileged admissions pathway, in which athletics are the primary criteria, followed only by a need to meet a bare minimum academic criteria, and completely outside the admissions process for all others.
I don’t agree with that take. If the athlete is spending a significant amount of hours per week/per year at their sport, is captain/co-captain, and also adds in coaching/volunteering/refereeing that can be a highly compelling EC package. AOs absolutely consider those direct and adjacent activities as whole, alone with combining those with the many positive qualities of athletes (e.g., time mgmt/grit/perseverance/ability to work as part of team). That’s how I think of apps of talented student athletes, even if they aren’t recruited.
Yeah, the non-recruited club sports kids are in an interesting position sometimes.
And even when there is a recruited varsity team in your sport, I think colleges often place a lot of value on club and IM sports anyway. Not necessarily more than student publications and performing arts and political organizations, but not necessarily less either. And I think it is quite right that dedication and time management and leadership and kindness and so on can all be demonstrated through sports–not exclusively, of course, but it is not like it is worse to do it in sports.
I gather the argument is something like, well, if you put all that time into a sport and don’t get recruited then you could have been doing something else that would be more impressive.
And maybe, but just from what I can see, I am not so sure it is that easy to impress these colleges. So I think maybe you still have to do very well academically, but then if you can also nail the personal/fit factors, I am not at all sure you need some activity that will be “more impressive” than varsity sports.
Right, but that means getting rid of competitive varsity teams.
And these colleges have their reasons for wanting competitive varsity teams.
So, they are not likely going to answer calls to end athletic recruiting as we know it, because they are not likely going to want to eliminate competitive varsity teams.
Why would they want to do that? They can’t run a successful athletics program without recruiting. Athletic recruiting requires a streamlined, early admissions program. For most sports, it is based on the NCAA recruiting timetable.
They obviously feel that keeping athletics is an important part of their identity and name brand. Athletics seems to be integral to the success of the entire institution- this is what SportyPrep alluded to earlier.
How does removing the 10-15% recruited athlete population and substituting them with higher stat kids further benefit the school?
I think what you are perceiving is commenters simply making sure that people know the admissions bump for a dedicated unrecruited athlete is not even remotely in the same category as a recruited one. It nevertheless can definitely be a compelling part of an applicant’s story, especially with leadership and volunteering elements.
You say “meet a bare minimum academic criteria” with such condescension.
In our kid’s case and those of others we know in niche sports - because they weren’t the absolute top recruits, this “bare minimum academic criteria” was a 35 ACT. Strong preference for single test, no superscoring. These student-athletes aren’t dumb.
I would disagree that a bare minimum academic criteria is necessary, unless you think that having above a 4.0 weighted GPA in highest rigor academics at a college prep school, along with a standardized test score that is well within the 25-75% range of the scores of admitted students to an Ivy league university is “bare minimum academic criteria” . This is what my S24 has, and he has a likely letter from an Ivy. It was clear that his sporting ability initially caught a coach’s eye, but if his academics were not up to the level they were expected to be of most incoming students, he would not even be considered. Additionally, he does not get any extra tutoring or academic advising as an athlete from the HYP school he is attending. His coaches actually aren’t even allowed to see his grades. He is expected to maintain the schools standards on his own, with the help available to all students.
Good point. I think there is sometimes a deep history here where over time, there will be these check-box arguments about how every kid should do X. Every kid should have N hours of volunteer work. Every kid should play an instrument. Every kid should do a sport. Every kid should do a research internship. And so on.
AOs have made it quite clear there are no such check-boxes when it comes to activities, they actual value quality/depth over quantity, and it is totally OK to not do some things because you are focused on other things.
But then it appears the pendulum sometimes swings from “every kid should do X” to “doing X is worthless.” But that is not what these AOs are saying either, they are saying each X is an option, and you can totally do any of them if that is what you want to do, just don’t do them only because you think it will look good to us to check that box.
I get the sense that you don’t care to understand the recruiting process at the elite private colleges and universities. These athletes are vetted to make sure they can take the academic rigour. That their academic stats are on par with the general population. Yes, you can always find the exception that proves the rule. My son’s stats and academic rigour are high enough for him to be admitted to any college or university in this country. He wanted to go the recruited athlete route because he wanted to compete at a school where the coach wants him and will foster him. For me, that’s a good enough reason. Curious, what is your child’s situation?