<p>Just have the height, weight, & innate skill required to compete at that level? That's like telling someone to just be smarter and they'd have a shot at an Ivy.</p>
<p>"Not really-- not bad, not great, and certainly not top 5 or even 10%. Sibling with much higher everything (minus the sport) did not get into any of top choices."</p>
<p>lspf72, when I was talking about great scores, great grades, and being in the top 2% of his class, I was referring to the young man in the OP's first post. </p>
<p>When my daughter did not get into her top two choices, my friend just patted me on the back and said, "Well, I guess she didn't play the oboe." Yes, there were probably students admitted with lesser statistics, but they were looking for something unique or had a need for something in a category that my daughter didn't have. As tough as it is, that's the way it goes.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>If you are a star quarterback, but Harvard already has three quarterbacks but no receivers, you may well end up at Dartmouth.<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>And this has always been the "luck" portion of HYP admissions. Do you happen to fill a niche that the college needs filling as they put together their class? If yes, you get the boost.</p>
<p>Don't judge me on this story because it actually happened.</p>
<p>My 15 year old niece met a 18 year old boy at a mall. The boy is also black. They started texting and communicating online. My niece asked him what he was doing after graduation, he said probably the local community college. My niece asked my sister if she could date the young man. My sister said no because of the age difference and it is always sketchy to meeting someone at a mall. One day my niece got a text from the boy very excited about the fact he was accepted to Columbia (first college acceptance). My niece very tactfully replied, "what state?" They lived in NC and there is a local college Columbia. The young man replied, "I think it's in NY. I am going to play basketball there."</p>
<p>having gone through recruiting process with my D at an IVY(and admitted EA), coaches know exactly what they want. Except for football and basketball, IVY teams compete at the highest level in most sports. Ivy teams have won NCAA championships and play national powerhouses in respective sports. Ivy coaches are looking for kids with complete package...academics, EC's as well as competing at top level of sport. kids coming in with my d played at elite club level and have regional and national level experience. Does recruitment help with admissions? absolutely. But dont underestimate IVY athletes academic or skill level. Way beyond being a captain / all league high school player.</p>
<p>Last year an ADCOM for Brown told the group of people at an orientation session that each year their selection criteria may change year to year, based on what the school may need for the following year. Ex, they may need certain athletes for a sport or they may need flute players for the school orchestra. It is whatever need the school has for that particular year that influences their decisions, however, academically they still would have to meet their admission requirements.</p>
<p>On the subject of just much top colleges are willing to skirt recruiting rules and lower their admissions criteria to get athletes who can help them win titles in high-profile sports, here’s an article from last year’s NYTimes about changes in Harvard’s basketball program. It really surprised me when I read it – in the sports section, of all places. </p>
<p>I don't imagine Harvard is alone in its approach.</p>
<p>Sportsmama-- oops! I thought it was a general statement-</p>
<p>Lacrosse and soccer are huge in this area and I know more kids than I can count who got into schools for those sports who didn't have a snowball's chance otherwise. A few don't make it academically but most do. The parents aren't always willing to admit that the sport made all the difference, but the kids are very upfront about it.</p>
<p>Lacrosse is huge here too, and extremely competitive. When you drive past fields in places like Garden City and Manhasset you'd swear you're looking at 4-year-olds playing...! I think it's a great sport, and played in HS, but am just as happy that none of ours chose that route. We would probably not be committed enough.</p>
<p>I don't know about other sports but the Ivy's current rate of recruitment for football is 30 players over the course of four years. So if they brought in a large class one year, they might not have a lot of room for a few years. (it averages out to 7.5 players a year. Some years they take 9 and some years they take 6. And as a player, you're never quite sure where they are at first.) And while they all need to be pretty good students (they don't keep statistics on athlete graduation rates for nothing), there is probably a very real inverse relationship between how good you are and how good your grades etc are. If you are the super star.. you absolutely get a little slack. But a LITTLE slack at the ivy level is still the hardest curriculum but having gotten a B or two. And if a number of running backs are graduating, it's great to be a running back. </p>
<p>But much like music auditions and art portfolios, to get noticed an athletes has to attend summer/off season camps (kinda like auditions) and make tapes and packages to send to coaches. We spend a lot of time talking about packaging an application, but athletes have to do it twice. Plus, they are never quite sure if coaches are hedging their bets in the short term but with goals that make you clearly a second or 3rd choice. OR maybe knowing the coach doesn't need.want you and applying anyway fully aware that you have no hook whatsoever.</p>
<p>Modadunn- this 2007-08 Yale football roster names approx 115 players, Yale</a> University Bulldogs, Official Athletic Site</p>
<p>Unless it has 85 walk-ons (which I doubt), then the number of recruits for any 4-year period is more than 30, right?</p>
<p>Our high school just achieved its first Harvard acceptance in years--a state champion swimmer, also a sibling legacy, whose grades and scores are not remotely near what's otherwise required for Ivies or other top tier schools. And it's not like the swim team brings in the alumni bucks or sells a lot of tickets at meets. Lots of eyerolling and grumbling among the academic superstars at the school who know how unlikely they are to get into an Ivy. Then there's the middle-aged Harvard grad in our town who got in based on athletics, now works at a gym, and is generally considered to be dumb as a rock. (Different standards back then, but still.) It's all pretty sad, and has certainly devalued the Harbard brand in this town.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Our high school just achieved its first Harvard acceptance in years--a state champion swimmer, also a sibling legacy, whose grades and scores are not remotely near what's otherwise required for Ivies or other top tier schools. And it's not like the swim team brings in the alumni bucks or sells a lot of tickets at meets. Lots of eyerolling and grumbling among the academic superstars at the school who know how unlikely they are to get into an Ivy
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Our high school has had 10 Harvard acceptances in the last 3 years, 2 of whom were URMs, 8 of whom were non-revenue sport athletes; all of them were at the top of their classes academically.</p>
<p>It would be interesting to know if the eyerollers and grumblers at your school would still be academic superstars if they had spent 3 hours per day, most weekends and summers devoted to elite (Div I)-level athletics in addition to their studies.</p>
<p>I agree Bay. My son is all state in his sport, has had some interest from a couple of D1 programs but decided did not really want to play in college(and did not really want to get into all the recruiting stuff .) Has spent many hours on his sport. His SAT's are okay(only 1360, probably could have been better but wouldn't take any SAT prep,etc) but grades below Ivy standards-probably too much time spent on sport and other stuff . My "middle- aged" Yale basketball playing brother-in-law is an internationally known scholar in his field, not exactly dumb as a rock.</p>
<p>Bay, that is the point I was trying to make in post #31. The football player the OP was talking about had all of the academic credentials, but the fact that he was an outstanding football player on a good team is what tipped the scale in his favor. </p>
<p>The title of this thread is: Here's how you get into Harvard and Princeton.</p>
<p>Would the thread even have been created if it was another EC or honor that made him stand out among all the other equally qualified candidates?</p>
<p>wjb, That was an interesting article from the NYTimes, but to me it sounded like a smear campaign against Tommy Amaker. And the example cited in the article that " embodies the change in Harvard’s basketball recruiting" and is "Amaker's biggest coup" didn't go to Harvard at all! This young man is a freshman at Davidson. He has had limited playing time due to injury and now he is still playing behind several other players. </p>
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[quote]
The 6-foot-10 center Frank Ben-Eze from Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, Va., embodies the change in Harvard’s basketball recruiting. He orally committed to Harvard over traditional powers like Marquette, West Virginia, Virginia and Penn. Although he and the rest of the recruited athletes have yet to be admitted to Harvard, Ben-Eze is considered Amaker’s biggest coup, one Amaker proudly mentions to other potential players.</p>
<p>Ben-Eze, a native of Nigeria, has yet to receive what is called a likely letter from the admissions office, a written assurance that a player will be accepted, because he has not attained the 171 index minimum.
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<p>I will say that the young man from our local high school who was recruited by Amaker and will be attending Harvard is reported to have earned one B (the rest A's) in his high school career.</p>
<p>Yes, njres, the article was highly critical of Amaker, with a focus on alleged NCAA recruiting rule violations. I confess I'm not a big college sports fan, so for me the real eye-popper was the 171 minimum AI score for Ivy League athletes (translating to a 3.1 grade-point average and just over 1,560/2400). I didn't realize it was that low. </p>
<p>Interesting that Frank Ben-Eze didn't wind up at Harvard. Do you know whether he was admitted?</p>
<p>I don't get your point, Bay. The student I'm referring to was not anywhere near the top of his class academically. He didn't even make NHS, and that's why jaws were dropping all over the school. If all things were otherwise equal I'd certainly understand giving a spot to the star athlete. That wasn't the case here. And those students who resent his acceptance are hardly one dimensional--they all have sterling resumes with all the extracurricular accomplishments one would expect of Ivy applicants in addition to outstanding academics. My D is not in that league at all, so it's not a matter of jealousy on her part, just astonished disbelief that a classmate she describes a "just okay, not great, kind of like me, he flunked Chem. quizzes all the time" would be the person Harvard finally deems worthy from her school after quite a few years of zero acceptances.</p>
<p>wjb,
If you are seriously interested in the academic credential's of Harvard's basketball team, you can read their bios here:M</a> Basketball - Roster - GoCrimson.com - Official Web Site of Harvard University Athletics The majority of them have NHS, Honor roll, academic awards, NMF, some from competitive private schools. It won't give you their actual grades and test scores, but it gives you an idea that the majority of them are scholars as well as athletes.</p>
<p>MommaJ,
My point is that all things are not necessarily expected to be equal when it comes to elite(Div.I)-level athletes. There are few (or no) other high school extracurriculars that demand the time, pressure and commitment that state or nationally competitive sports do. A scholar athlete who is at the top both academically and competitive at the Div. I level is rare. Also, I give short shrift to sour-grapes campus rumor-mongering about a student's academic performance and abilities. It is unlikely that this swimmer is academically unqualified to do the work at Harvard, otherwise, why would they accept him? They have no reason to take a potential drop-out. To the contrary.</p>