<p>Will also mention that a friend of mine who worked in the Harvard admissions office about 30 years ago stated that Harvard wasn’t looking for the students who were the smartest, they were looking for those who would be most successful. With everything that has changed in the past 30 years, that might be the one constant of admissions. I really think that Harvard is selecting based on the predicted long-term outcomes. They are not necessarily going for those who may contribute most to the campus while they are there, both in terms of academics and outside activities. In my opinion, EC’s are valued because they serve as proxies (to some extent) for the personal characteristics likely to lead to “success.”</p>
<p>QUANTMECH:</p>
<p>I agree on your point that it goes beyond just finding smart students and it is a lot about potential for success and in many ways, ECs often demonstrate personal characteristics necessary to become successful. You have to be smart and do well academically, no question, but these other factors are important in admissions and in careers and in life.</p>
<p>I say sports recruiting via guaranteed spots for coaches IS controversial.</p>
<p>YES, winning teams and competitive contests build community, loyalty and school spirit (and draw alumni dollars). But concerts and plays and art expositions and literary magazines can do the same.
YES, athletics creates a sound body, and balances out the intellectual pursuits, but participation in Arts also takes the student in a different direction.
YES, athletic facilities require big investments, but so do Arts facilities.
YES, teams need to be filled, but so do slots in the orchestras, bands, newspapers, theatre companies, dance groups, art studios, film groups, photo studios…
So, why are artists also not recruited with a TIP or HOOK rather than just a “supplement”?</p>
<p>One could argue that Athletics should be down-graded in importance by the fact that very very few of Ivy/Tippy Top or LAC top athletes pursue a professional career in sports.
For contrast’s sake, many who pursue the Arts in even just EC’s at these colleges/unis do become professional artists.</p>
<p>Possible reasons, no idea:
- Historically, alums recommended athletes, so another way to keep alums happy
- Excellent athletes were NOT up to the academic standards (but artists were!!)
- Hiring of coaches impossible without giving them the power to select some players, as a way to compete for players in D I and II, in being part of NCAA</p>
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</p>
<p>I can only speak for Brown admissions, but yes, the admissions office at Brown is given this information (donations and involvement) for all legacy applicants. </p>
<p>I don’t know what impact this information has on admissions decisions – I’ve known double legacy applicants whose parents are consistent donors and very active who have been denied, and legacy applicants whose parents haven’t been on campus since graduation and are not active at all who have been accepted.</p>
<p>I am biased, but I don’t have an issue with legacy being used as a tip for applicants. From the colleges’ perspective, if they are deciding between two students, if they reject the unhooked kid that student and his family are disappointed, but he will attend a different school and will most likely be very happy and forget the whole thing in a few months. If they reject the legacy applicant, the kid will go on to be happy somewhere else, but they risk alienating the alum, losing both their money and volunteer time.</p>
<p>yes. There is a high correlation between athletic success and success later in life. Why would they NOT recruit bright athletes? It would be foolish.</p>
<p>Also, for those of you who are very concerned with this, the athletic recruit to an Ivy school has to be within 1% of the average admitted student stats to even be considered. And Yale is notoriously not a good recruiting school (from the perspective of the athlete.) So, it’s not like some kid is sitting there going, “Hmmm, Auburn or Harvard?” It’s not like that. The athletes who go to the Ivies are also amazing students, and I’d be surprised to find they didn’t do just fine academically.</p>
<p>ETA: performersmom, talented performers really are recruited by these schools. It may not be the same process as it is for athletes, but it is going on all of the time.</p>
<p>I think QuantMech’s last point is completely right. They have an understanding of how variegated “success” is, too. Lots of different ways to be successful, certainly including scholarship – it’s not that they don’t value it highly. But they want Horatio Alger types, too, as well as some people who will succeed by inheriting the company Grandad started and being a good steward of it.</p>
<p>poetgirl,
if the athletes are all bright, then why do they need a hook? or a tip/boost?
That is what I was focusing on.
Not arguing that schools should not accept athletes.</p>
<p>Good artists are not recruited or tipped.</p>
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</p>
<p>Actually, I think it is a hook or a tip to be an outstanding artist. </p>
<p>However – there are many more talented oboe players and painters and actors than quarterbacks. The play will still be performed if you don’t have the most talented actor and students will still attend – but third-rate athletes means your team loses all the time, and people will stop attending because no one likes to watch a losing team.</p>
<p>I also think if you are truly outstanding in the arts, it will be a tip.</p>
<p>Yes, talented actors are recruited by the Ivies. I know this. They are highly valued. The problem is visibility…there is a system in place nationally which allows coaches to see the best athletes compete with each other, and there are objective measures in place which can say which athlete is “better” than another.</p>
<p>However, when an actor has shown him or herself to be outstanding, he or she WILL be recruited by the Ivies. Definitely hooked.</p>
<p>Of course good artists are recruited AND tipped, if they are good enough. Certainly tipped – why do you think everyone accepts supplemental portfolios for artist types? Recruitment is a little tougher, since there isn’t anyone whose job it is to do that, or whose job depends on attracting a steady stream of artists. But I know top-quality 18-year-old artists can get a lot of attention from faculty and administrators during the application process.</p>
<p>By the way, maybe things have changed, but my Yale class certainly included a number of athletes and at least one legacy who were not amazing students. They weren’t the only non-amazing students, however, and they weren’t typical, either. I only knew a handful of people who were miserable at Yale, but one was a fourth-generation Yalie whose grandfather was a member of the Yale Corporation.</p>
<p>Yes, ECs are valuable. All ECs, not just sports; I am not arguing that sports, properly weighted, are not a very valuable addition to a college and its community, just as a good theatre program and music program, etc., are. Nor am I suggesting for a moment that they be jettisoned in favor of extra library time. I just don’t understand sports are so much more valued than other ECs: why, for example, there is not a category for “recruited musician” in the ED round. The fact that athletes are recruited by coaches and dealt with in a different manner than all the other applicants, is what bothers me. And I am sure, for that matter, that some, perhaps most, of those recruited athletes are perfectly qualified for admittance on their scholarly merits–as is the case for most legacy admits, as well. But I question the rationale for the preference that such athletes receive, going into the admission process. If commenters on this board are concerned by whether legacies should be accorded an advantage that might be “worth” as much as 120 points on the SAT, all other aspects of the application being equal, why is it heresy to suggest that the more substantial advantage enjoyed by recruited athletes is incommensurate with the goal of admitting the class most likely to succeed in college courses at a highly-ranked university? To say that sports should be extra-curricular rather than a primary focus is not to say that they shouldn’t be an important part of the college experience; how important, is the question. You can have sports teams without recruiting for sports. Those same well-rounded, high-achieving kids who do sports as their significant ECs would no doubt also play in college, and they should, because it’s something they enjoy, whether the college wins that season or not. In fact, many sports are played on this basis. Why do, say, football players need to be recruited, if squash players aren’t?</p>
<p>JHS–</p>
<p>Yale is the hardest to get into as an athlete if you aren’t a stellar student, as well. They are practically against this, on principle. They are known this way in the recruited athlete world. fwiw.</p>
<p>JHS, my question was much better worded by marysidney:
'why, for instance, is there not a “recruited musician” category in the ED round?"</p>
<p>The point I was making is that the supplement process for artists is not a guarantee of a spot as it is for athletes: coaches are given a certain number of spots to fill themselves on their teams. IF a kid he wants on the team (has recruited) meets a minimum academic criteria (quoted by all colleges coaches we have spoken to as LOWER than the average for the rest of the class), the kid will get in. And the coach always gets a certain number of kids in. All our meetings with coaches have been about my D’s stats and whether they meet the SPORTS minimum for the college.</p>
<p>I am not saying that athletes are not bright or successful later in life. I am saying why this process just for them? or at all?</p>
<p>Applying Artists can contact faculty, meet with them, or just send in samples of their work (supplements), but there are no guaranteed spots set aside in the ED/EA round for the ones that the faculty member recommends, and there are no lower minimum academic criteria in place to boost their chances of admittance.</p>
<p>I am just wondering how the athletic hook in the ED round started, and whether it is still valid or even necessary today?
I mean, the college music department would probably love to recruit an oboist in the ED round!</p>
<p>poetgirl, based on my D’s experience with one coach at Yale three years ago, I would respectfully have to disagree. The academic standards he quoted were definitely lower than than those of the LAC’s she was being scouted for.</p>
<p>performersmom, while the artists may not be “recruited,” I DO believe there are “slots” in the class allotted to them and that elite colleges will consider it a “hook” with applicants who are extremely strong in the arts. They don’t just build a class with the top “stats” on the applicant file pile. They DO want some top performing arts and if they get some top musicians or thespians or dancers on the application pile, these will be tipped as the school desires to have very talented students in those areas in the class. They want athletes but they also want artists to fill slots in these departments or EC endeavors on campus.</p>
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<p>I had three reasons I didn’t want my S applying to his legacy school:
- It was in our backyard and I felt he should spread his wings
- There are a few other schools that I think could be better in his particular area of interest (though this one is perfectly fine)
but most importantly - I was dreading, absolutely dreading, how we would all feel if he got rejected. I had my heart in my throat over it the whole time. A rejection from “our” school would have had a sting to it that a rejection from another school wouldn’t have. Thank goodness it didn’t happen, but I know there but for the grace of God …</p>
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<p>Because (and I know you know the answer) football players bring in $X revenue for the school. And in many cases (and I’m not talking Ivies specifically, but just in general), they are coming in at appreciably lower academic levels.</p>
<p>So the lesson learned is:
- If you’ll benefit the college’s coffers by giving a tip to legacy kids – even though such legacy kids are either at or above the rest of the pool in terms of academic credentials (by virtue of being kids of smart people and raised in environments promoting academics) – that’s a Very Bad Thing.
- However, if you’ll benefit the college’s coffers by giving guaranteed admissions to athletes in major spectator sports – even if they are appreciably below the rest of the pool in terms of academic credentials – that’s a Great Thing!</p>
<p>I would also add that the investments schools make in sports is often justified (and possibly quite rightly) in terms of building a community who is affiliated well beyond their college years. That’s apparently a Good Thing if that community is built through watching someone throw a ball, but not a Good Thing if that community is built through multiple generations of the same family attending a school (a la JHS’ extended family).</p>
<p>S-,
Yes, I am aware if all that . I have experience with both processes.</p>
<p>The point I am making is that the ED spot for an athlete is a guarantee, whereby the COACH with only a superficial vetting by the AdComm based on a lower set of stats than for other applicants can fill a certain number of spots on his/her team with athletes he/she recruits.
The artist process is more gentle; the AdComm makes the decision. The recommendation by a faculty member in the college art department becomes one more highly regarded plus in favor of the artistic applicant; an oboe player will get two stars! This may get the applicant into a better pile or may help him get to the top of a pile. But he is still in piles, because it is not a guarantee. And does not involve a specific set of lower qualifications to meet, in a very direct and simple process, as in the case with a certain number of recruited athletes for each coach, every year. The coach is risking at D III schools that the recruited ED athlete he picks will not make the lower qualification and be denied admittance OR , if it is an EA type of program, the athlete will not actually come to the school, Or that the accepted athlete will not actually show up at practice and do the sport!
The rest of the team is filled more like the artists in the section process- as potential “walk-ons” on who try out at the start of the season- the AdComm hopes very much the candidates will engage in that activity.</p>
<p>Well put, Pizzagirl! That’s exactly the point (rem acu tetigisti, as Jeeves would say).</p>
<p>And performersmom, you’re right as well: it’s the privilege given athletics, that is not given other desirable activities, in the admissions pool, that is at issue, not the desirability of sports per se.</p>