<p>Ok, here’s the thing, 3togo: it has already been established, ad nauseum, that there are many, many more qualified–meaning, high-stat–kids applying than can possibly gain entry. That is part of the complaint regarding legacies, that one kid with the “same” stats but with legacy status is preferred over another. To say that “the vast majority” of recruited athletes are within 1 per cent deviation of the average does not nullify the argument that recruited athletes should not represent a portion of the class without reference to the rest of it, in my opinion. Yes. My opinion. I very much resent being told, btw, Bay, that my opinion is merely the result of ignorance and willful misunderstanding of a truth you hold to be unassailable. The valorization of sports over academics is not a universal value. You may think that division I sports are inseparable from the “true” college experience; you may think that bribing kids with scholarships to risk their brains in concussion during football is an inalienable necessity for the proper education of American kids, and you are entitled to that opinion, but I happen to disagree with you. That does not mean I undervalue sports and their associated benefits–but I don’t happen to think those benefits are as great as you do. And it doesn’t mean that I am ignorant, but that you are intolerant of another viewpoint than your own. Let me guess, did you Play football in college?</p>
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Fair enough … then it sounds like the IVYies (and the NASCAC schools) probably are very poor fits for your kids … the 8 IVYies basically have the most varsity teams of all 300+ DI schools (similarily the NASCAC schools basically have the most varsity teams among all the DIII schools) … and I doubt it is a coincidence that schools in these two leagues have the most varisty teams. And since the IVYies (and NASCAC) lose money on all sports there certainly other reasons driving this approach … personally I believe is it is a belief in the traditional mind/body thing … and of course YMMV. </p>
<p>What I find ironic is so many posters critisize the IVYies and the NESCAC schools for their commitment to student-athletes and promote they change their approach … while in one sense these school are at an extreme with the most student-athletes of any schools (including lots of minor sports that will gain the school zero publicity or notoriaty) … so they seem to value the student-athlete more than virtually all the other schools. The posters criticizing the IVYies and NESCAC are not asking for a minor tweak they are asking for a major shift in approach … and I wonder if those posters might find schools more in line with their thinking looking elsewhere?</p>
<p>No I did not play football in college; I am a woman.</p>
<p>The reality is that there are elite athletes in about 43 different sports who are also very, very smart. Does Harvard <em>need</em> to accept these student-athletes in order to create a brilliant class of students? No. Do these scholar-athletes add something to the student body that is not offered by other applicants? Apparently so, as all of the Ivy League colleges and Stanford have decided that they are worth the effort.</p>
<p>While I realize that not an insignificant number of people have an aversion to collegiate athletics for whatever reason (bullying? uncoordination? envy? apathy? ignorance?), I personally think it is wonderful that the majority of top American colleges appreciate the combination of academic and athletic abilities as valuable, and therefore a scholar-athlete does not have to sacrifice either pursuit for the other; s/he can pursue both at the highest levels (Ivy League/Stanford Division 1) simultaneously. And history has shown that these individuals ultimately fare extremely well in the real world.</p>
<p>What is your rationale for wanting to deny these students this opportunity?</p>
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<p>Well, saying “there are 1900 other schools who would” isn’t really the point since obviously the Ivies aren’t the only fine institutions of higher learning. Move the question downstream. What if <em>no</em> elite school actively recruited any athletes? What if athletic ability was just viewed as another extracurricular and not any more or less important than musical ability, artistic ability, science talent, etc.? What would be wrong with that?</p>
<p>What the hell are these behind the scene looks you are referring that are not in evidence?</p>
<p>The numbers dont change because the schools have determined that that is the mix they are willing to have in the so called holistic approach. Just by calling something nonsense proves your argument in anyway?</p>
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<p>Envy?? ROFL. It’s not <em>academic</em>, which is why I don’t think it needs or should be weighed as any more valuable than any other extracurricular activity that a student might participate in. </p>
<p>Tell me, if it is so academic in nature … Which of the elite schools offer degrees in physical education, again? Yeah. Didn’t think so. </p>
<p>That’s what distinguishes athletics from fields such as biology, chemistry, English, political science, art, music, theater, etc.</p>
<p>Some high schools (my kids’ not among them, but that’s neither here nor there) “discount” / don’t count physical education in GPA’s, preferring instead to only count academic subjects. Why do you suppose that is? </p>
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<p>I don’t. I think athletics is inherently less important than academics. I think a healthy mind in a healthy body is important, of course, but that has nothing to do with competing in high-level athletics, as a healthy body can be achieved via individual efforts that aren’t related to competition. Which is why I think it’s great that there are so many intramural offerings these days and much better recreational gym facilities. </p>
<p>And I think the American focus on athletics is precisely why the average Joe pays more attention to the Super Bowl (etc) than to issues of any import - why he can tell you who won the last X football games but not be able to name the vice president or discuss any issue substantively. It’s part of the dumbing down of America.</p>
<p>Huh? Things like the Price of Admissions. Things like the behind-the-scenes interviews and radio programs looking at Tufts’ and Amherst’ admissions processes. It’s like these colleges tell people again and again and again about their holistic processes and that they’re not reading for “the 18% Asian quota” and that the 4.0 isn’t appreciably different from the 3.9, but no one on CC ever wants to actually internalize it.</p>
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<p>That was my conclusion as well. By definition, the Ivy League is a sports league. Why are some questioning its reason for existence?</p>
<p>There are plenty of other fine colleges that do not emphasize/recruit athletes. MIT, Chicago, Tufts, WashU, Emory & Caltech come quickly to mind. The Claremont Colleges, and Pomona in particular, offers excellent LAC-experience with little sports recruiting in contrast to the NESCAC schools.</p>
<p>Williams never counts “Asians” (perhaps because they can’t get enough of them?) It’s also a non-category - getting Hmong, Mien, Lao, Khmer, Kazakh, Uiygur, Dalit, Mongolian, and students from Papua-New Guinea to attend is considered a coup. But they do count “socio-eqs” - despite being so-called “need-blind” (doesn’t exist) they count precisely how many low-income students they have as they go through the process (the goal being not to have too few or too many.) Princeton and Amherst do the same, and when their respective Presidents announce they want more low-income students, 50% more magically appear to be admitted and attend.</p>
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<p>I think it is wonderful too. I also think it would be wonderful if these colleges gave the same level of appreciation (in terms of concrete preferences in the admissions process) to musical and artistic ability. If the hockey coach gets an ‘allowance’ of 3 players, then the choir director and orchestra director should get an allowance too.</p>
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<p>I don’t think colleges view athletics as more important than those other talents. You do.
Again, the reason it seems like they do, is because the NCAA sets the recruiting timelines for all member colleges, in order to level the competitive playing field. If there were organizations that did the same for music, art and science, you would see the same result.</p>
<p>I think it is a good thing that an objective goal (ie, top college recruitment) is set for any human pursuit. It sets the bar for pushing our limits. You would probably see even more accomplished musicians, artists and scientists if they were handled the same way as athletes. They need an NCAA equivalent.</p>
<p>If no elite colleges recruited any athletes, then brilliant elite athletes would either choose lesser-ranked colleges with good coaches to pursue their athletic potential, or give up their sport for a more challenging academic environment, and that is a shame. The top colleges can afford to offer both.</p>
<p>I have no clue what happens at Tufts or Amherst and frankly I dont care either. We are discussing Ivies and lets stick to that.</p>
<p>What colleges are telling you is that you have an equal chance as anybody and there is no reason not to believe them. When they say they have received probably 80% candidates out of a pool of 35,000 that are qualified to do the work there is no reason to doubt that either. What you cant deny is that when they have received 28,000 qualified applicants, they can end up with exactly the same ratios as when they received 15,000 qualified applicants or 22,000 qualified applicants.</p>
<p>The holistic approach is based on ensuring they have a good mix of different groups of people whether they are athletes, URMs, legacies, or people from planet Mars. When they come up with the end numbers, they are trying to find the 45% of caucasians, 18% Asians, 12% African Americans, and 13% Hispanics. So underlying the holistic approach is a need to allocate certain number of seats to different groups to ensure the right mix. You can go to an India thread or Pakistan thread or some other group thread and you realize all of these people know exactly how many seats are being given by each of these schools for their country. If you can predict exactly how many seats will be allocated in 2013 for a particular group in Harvard, Yale or Cornell, then you know there is a predetermined allocation to meet this so called holistic approach.</p>
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<p>Which one of those facts is more important to Average Joe’s life? :)</p>
<p>I thought this thread was going to be about legacy admissions.</p>
<p>As for as athletic recruits, I think some schools go too far when they lower their standards for admissions. Many colleges have experienced a decline in some sports (mainly football) because they refuse to lower their standards, while other schools are more than happy to.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I think physical activity needs to be retained as a means for having a healthy body (think Ancient Greek ideals of athleticism and intellectualism together). Some colleges even require their students to take athletic classes to promote health and physical well being (I will be doing so in the fall). Further, I think athletic scholarships are a great opportunity to help students who otherwise would not have received such an education, provided they are ready to make the most of it and put it ahead of athletics in importance.</p>
<p>Billy - Do you attribute ND’s declining fortunes in football to not bending the standards?</p>
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Someone on HBO Sports claimed that that was the case. I do not know enough to say whether or not that is true; however, from what I saw of what some schools were doing to move athletes along (from the athletes’ own words) it is clear that bending/breaking the standards is an issue in many places.</p>
<p>On the bright side, they seem to be doing just fine in other sports (fencing, I’m told).</p>
<p>“When they come up with the end numbers, they are trying to find the 45% of caucasians, 18% Asians, 12% African Americans, and 13% Hispanics.”</p>
<p>There’s only one problem with this analysis - it doesn’t work. None of the schools consistently comes up with this spread, or even close. (Whereas, in numbers of folks who receive Pell Grants, or, in some cases, require any financial aid, they’ve got it pretty well down to a science.)</p>
<p>Here is some evidence of the ratios for Harvard for 2009, 2010, 2011 for admissions.</p>
<p>2015</p>
<p>Minority representation remained strong. The admitted class is 17.8 percent Asian-American, 11.8 percent African-American, 12.1 percent Latino, 1.9 percent Native American, and 0.2 percent Native Hawaiian.</p>
<p>[An</a> unprecedented admissions year | Harvard Gazette](<a href=“http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/03/an-unprecedented-admissions-year/]An”>An unprecedented admissions year – Harvard Gazette)</p>
<p>2014 (2013 numbers in parantheses)</p>
<p>A total of 18.2 percent of the admitted students indicated they were Asian-American (17.5 percent last year), 11.3 percent African-American (10.4 percent last year), 10.3 percent Latino (10.6 percent last year), 2.7 percent Native American (1.1 percent last year) and 0.4 percent Native Hawaiian (0.2 percent last year).</p>
<p>[A</a> historic year for Harvard admissions | Harvard Gazette](<a href=“http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/04/a-historic-year-for-harvard-admissions/]A”>A historic year for Harvard admissions – Harvard Gazette)</p>
<p>forget harvard–it’d be great if the university of california could come anywhere close to those numbers!</p>
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<p>Why is that?</p>