<p>You COULD explain it in many different ways. I don't know what reality is, however. However, what I do know is that the recruiting at MIT is nowhere as agressive as the ivies.</p>
<p>One obvious way to arrive at that percentage would be to only support potential athletes who have an SATI of 1550+/1600 and SATII's of 750+. This might get you to a higher admission percentage. </p>
<p>The only way to know for sure is for an MIT adcom to come out and be a little bit more precise about how big a boost it is to be good at a sport.</p>
<p>Well that shatters my facade =). I just figured past the point that admissions are a crapshoot, persons such as myself would have been selected. Perhaps it is slightly different at MIT.</p>
<p>Athletics at MIT certainly has some differences than the recruiting at Amherst and Williams, and other D3 schools. </p>
<p>The NESCAC schools have ED, MIT does not. Recruited athletes at NESCAC schools will be pressured into committing to the school, esp via ED by November 1, or else their "slot" will be offered to the next recruit on their list. NESCAC coaches get "pre-admission" information from the admissions office on their prospects and their approved recruits are not ultimately reviewed by the admission committee with everyone else. </p>
<p>As far as I've ever heard, no one bypasses the admission committee at MIT. Every single admitted candidate's folder gets reviewed between 12 and 15 times before a decision is made. An MIT coach can never "guarantee" a prospect admission and the coach does not know the decision results himself until after the student does. But an MIT coach will tell you that MIT only accepts people who they are sure will be able to handle the academics. Also, MIT coaches operate their programs with the understanding that academics come first.</p>
<p>NESCAC coaches can and do continue their commitment process all through the winter until their rosters are set (ie, all slots are committed). Some team rosters (slots) are finished in November.</p>
<p>What MIT offfers is EA, so you may get a decision in December, but you are not committed to the school and can weigh other options until May 1.</p>
<p>So while an Amherst coach may guarantee you a spot if you commit, an MIT coach can only say you'll have to wait and see what the admissions office decides along with everyone else who applied to MIT. It is the equivalent to an athletic "walk on" at a NESCAC school.</p>
<p>The coach stressed that the school had to be right one for the student. School is four years, which would be a long time if the student was injured early, unable to row, and didn't like the school. So I agree that academics come first at MIT.</p>
<p>I liked the sports culture at MIT - it's very inclusive. You don't have to already be great at a sport to be an MIT athlete, and you don't even have to be a particularly good athlete. One of my friends in jiu-jitsu (a club sport) had never played a sport, ever, before joining. She saw her friends doing it and thought it looked like fun.</p>
<p>I myself was on lightweight crew, a varsity sport, for a year, and I had never touched an oar or a crew shell before arriving on campus.</p>
<p>A strong high school sports record does tend to show a lot of things that MIT looks for in applicants, like discipline and resilience. So I would expect those, if demonstrated, to give you an admissions boost, rather than the sport itself. I was a varsity athlete in high school - four years of cross country. I ran 45 miles a week. I wasn't good enough to be recruited anywhere, even in Division III, but maybe they could tell something important about me from the fact that I had done it.</p>
<p>I rowed four years at MIT (or actually rowed 2 years and coxed 2 years). I think that the point is that even people with awesome credentials are rejected by MIT - it is just that competitive. So having a current coaches' endorsement on your application will help you get in. I spoke to a recruited rower at University of Michigan who said that she forgot to sign her application so they sent it back to her and it had a big red ATHLETE stamp on it. My guess is that MIT has a similar system that allows the admissions committee the opportunity to help out the coaches by admitting otherwise qualified students who are also "recruited." Without scholarships and knowing that if they can't keep up with academics they won't be rowing anyway, this is probably the only help the coaches have in the recruiting game. As for comparing it to the Ivy League - when we rowed agains Harvard my freshman year we had one guy in our boat who had rowed in high school. They not only had 8 guys that rowed before, 7 of them rowed together at Andover-Exeter. 'Nuff said.</p>
<p>MIT is not like Michigan/Stanford etc and not even silmilar to IVIES. As I have come to understand it, "recruiting" is informal and typically initated by the applicant. MIT coaches can and do submit written "requests for admission" in support of certain athletes they support. I suspect that they may also rank them. But they have no control over the decision and no other input. Admissions considers these requests for admission, together with test scores, grades, other recommendations as part of their process and is free to do whatever admissions does. I understand that they continue to subject these applicants to whatever benchmarks they may be applying to the rest of the applicant pool, like 700+ ? on the important tests, or whatever those may be. Unlike Ivies, no likely letters are given and the athletes dont know whether they have been admitted until everyone else does. Academic credentials are not streched past the breaking point, like Harvard is now doing with its basketball and other teams and Michigan/Stanford do with all sports. At MIT, it's just a plus factor to be considered in the overall context of an application. IMO.</p>
<p>Post #1 (from July 2007) cited 36 varsity intercollegiate sports at MIT; an update is in order!</p>
<p>The official number is: 41 varsity sports offered at MIT.</p>
<p>This new number tops all other schools in the country, huge and small - and allows a claim of full parity with that over-muscled and under-brained Division I jock school in the tired old red brick buildings on the other end of Mass Avenue, which also offers 41 varsity sports. Welcome to parity (parody?), Hahvahd!</p>
<p>Now, do athletes get any special help in the admissions office, or the coaches any special consideration? Hmmm. Will having a new Director of Admissions who spent a long time as coach of the rowing team make any difference? Time will tell - let the debates begin!</p>
<p>In a recent admissions information center, Matt McGann '00 was asked sports at MIT, and said something like: "We do very well in sports that involve weapons and water". Bring on the Naval Academy - it's time to sort it out!</p>
<p>How does MIT do it? With an amazing applicant pool and student body. Some of the sports teams include a biography of the team members. Here is [url=<a href="http://mitathletics.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/mtt/bagley_alex00.html%5Done%5B/url">http://mitathletics.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/mtt/bagley_alex00.html]one[/url</a>] for basketball... High School Valedictorian... research includes molecular mechanism of FDA-approved immunosuppressant Rapamycin, nutrient-mediated chemotaxis of cancer cells using microfluidics, high-throughput screening for factors affecting embryonic stem cell behavior... accepted to medical school for 2008... played in 7 games as a freshman, took 2 years off from the sport, played in every game as a senior...</p>
<p>Another player on the basketball team was named to the ESPN National Academic All America Team this year.</p>
<p>MIT has more Academic All Americans than any other school in NCAA Division III.</p>
<p>Just because it isn't NCAA doesn't mean it is "club" - the men's ice hockey team played against U. Conn and Boston College in addition to "lighter" teams like WPI and Endicott.</p>
<p>Bottom line is it is intercollegiate as opposed to intramural. They also have one of the strongest intramural programs in the country for all of the folks who don't have time to play varsity but still want to play. I learned how to play ice hockey at MIT on the fraternity team and had a blast. Some of my teammates had played 4 years in high school, others of us were tripods on ice.</p>