<p>Is it fair that football players get special treatment when it comes to college admissions? A football player can make it into Harvard with as low as a 27 ACT and below average ECs. I'm not complaining as I am a football player being recruited by the ivies with a 29 ACT top of my class and 4.0 unweighted GPA but just wanted to hear some thoughts on this topic</p>
<p>No, it isn’t unfair because he put a huge amount of time and dedication into his sport to become good enough to get recruited, time that could have been spent studying for the ACT.</p>
<p>Hmm, I’ve always looked at ‘hook’ candidates as more of a business transaction for both parties. You the candidate have a special and desirable attribute - you are a minority which helps with diversity, you’re an athlete who’s skills could help raise or keep prominent the profile of the school, you’re the child of a wealthy, donation-making parent who needs to be appeased in order to keep the cash flow coming. In each case you bring something that benefits the school beyond what the “traditionally” talented applicant offers. For your commitment to provide these peripheral talents the university offers to relax its typical standards. </p>
<p>Fair? Both sides use the other and theoretically both sides benefit. How is that unfair? I suppose someone will complain that a ‘more qualified’ candidate missed an opportunity, but the school gets to decide its priorities. If they want to allocate a certain percentage of spots (usually a lot smaller number than people think) to special cases, that’s their prerogative. Just make sure you understand the implications of the deal you’re making - “we’ll let you in but you’re going to play on the team”.</p>
<p>“fairness” has nothing to do with it. </p>
<p>If a college wants to build up male applicants to its nursing program because it’s decided to shift the gender balance of its nursing grads, it may do extra recruiting, advertising for these applicants. They may devote manhours to target potential applicants. Special scholarships, preferred housing, extra tutoring, etc. may be allotted/</p>
<p>In the end, the effort goes to meet an institutional need. </p>
<p>Colleges also set aside slots for certain athletes, artists, musicians, etc . The slot you may be vying for is not being “taken away” from the slot for the Shakespearean actor recruit. The slots (or quotas) were allocated much earlier. You’re competing for a slot against other FB players. If you get an offer, you will have beaten out a less desirable footballer.</p>
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<p>On the other hand, one can argue that the pre-allocation of admissions slots for recruited athletes, Shakespearean actors, family of big donors, etc. is where admissions slots are “taken away” from those in other categories, even if individual applicants are not under consideration at that time.</p>
<p>However, colleges tend to favor your situation (high GPA, not quite as high test scores) more than the other way around (lower GPA, high test scores), since the latter situation tends to imply academic laziness in school (but cramming for the test). A 4.0 unweighted GPA tends to impress no matter what. Of course, if it really matters to you, you can do test-specific studying for the ACT or SAT to try again.</p>
<p>Agreed to all. Over the past 3 years I’ve spent probably over 1500 hours on football. That is my EC. I’m a one sport athlete and 100% of my workouts and time after school is geared towards football. I’m using it as a vehicle to take me beyond. Really hope it works out</p>
<p>Fair is what I take my kids to in the summer.</p>
<p>Colleges are looking for candidates to fulfill certain institutional needs, simple as that. You can like it or not, it’s their prerogative.</p>
<p>Glad I’m not the only one!</p>
<p>If a school wants a football team that doesn’t lose by 35 points every game, then yes it’s fair.</p>
<p>College isn’t all about academics. If it were, there wouldn’t be half the classes they have available and 75% of the clubs wouldn’t exist.</p>
<p>What good is it for a school to even look at ECs in high school if they are purely academic machines?</p>
<p>School is social, it’s supposed to be a formative time, fun and memorable. No sports is no fun for a lot of people.</p>
<p>Entomom, lol! </p>
<p>I don’t think of “fair” and college admissions as belonging in the same sentence. Or maybe that’s not the way to put it. In the U.S., colleges, even elite ones, aren’t seeking out the smartest students; there are many other institutional goals and priorities that trump academic ability.</p>
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<p>Actually, it is likely that a lot of schools do not look at high school ECs, and have less focus on it being a social environment beyond providing academic instruction. Consider the moderately and less selective schools that have a high proportion of commuter and non-traditional students, and the community colleges. While they may not be within the small subset of schools that get most of the attention on these forums, they are what college is for what is probably the majority of college students.</p>
<p>Of course, the 4.0 student who plays high level football likely has a lot more choices and fewer constraints in selecting a college, including being able to select a college that offers both the desired academic instruction and the desired social environment and athletic opportunities.</p>
<p>One thing a football player may want to consider in different colleges is the academic calendar. In the typical semester system, football season overlaps with half of the academic year (one out of two semesters). In the quarter system used by a small number of schools, football season overlaps with a third of the academic year (one out of three quarters). The quarter system may allow for more time to concentrate on academics during the off-season.</p>
<p>However, none of the Ivy League is on the quarter system, though some other NCAA Division I schools with high academic reputation are (e.g. Stanford, Northwestern, UCLA, Washington).</p>
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<p>Dartmouth is on the quarter system.</p>
<p>Was just told today by a coach at MIT that they want their guys to have a 32 in math and science on the ACT. Not sure how they even field a team! Lol</p>
<p>MIT has a football team? Wow!</p>
<p>S3 has a close friend from his high school and also his club soccer team days who plays soccer for Harvard. The boy received “only” a 33 on his ACT during his sophomore year. He also took a very rigorous curriculum, in which he did very well, at a top public high school.</p>
<p>Our high school (senior classes of about 170-175) generally gets about a dozen students into ivy/ivy caliber school every year.</p>
<p>People laughed pretty hard when another student and his mom were vocally upset that he got in over another student who “beat” him on the ACT with a 34, not realizing how little a difference it makes at that level.</p>
<p>MIT does have a team. Their players majors include astrophysics, nuclear engineering, and computer science and every kind of engineering there is</p>
<p>Caltech does not give any admissions preference to athletes. Their basketball team recently lost more than 150 straight games over five seasons.</p>