<p>Why did that poster even bring up recruited athletes?
It has nothing to do with the original post.</p>
<p>It was hardest for me to turn down Columbia, Brown, and a generous scholarship at Brandeis.</p>
<p>What does DS mean?</p>
<p>My anecdote is just an example of a greater issue. But I’ll defend it. In my state, you can choose to go to any high school. He chose to go to a horrible vo-tech school (despite many other better options within a mile or two of his vo-tech school) where I don’t even think they offer AP courses. Basically, no one from the entire senior class even goes to four year colleges. He did graduate high in his class but he took vocational classes, basically car repair, construction, drafting, electronics, etc. He didn’t take rigorous math, science, and english courses. </p>
<p>Furthermore, and I hate to break this to everyone, the SAT exam is a good indicator of college success. From my personal experience, the really smart kids in my class scored above 1500, the smarter kids scored from 1300-1500, and so forth. Is it exclusively an intelligence exam? No, it can be “cracked”. Yet, it does provide a good, if vague, assessment of one’s intellectual capabilities. That’s why good schools have better scores than bad ones.</p>
<p>Also, I admit the kid described above is an extreme example of a grossly underqualified recruited athlete. Nonetheless, Princeton and other schools accept loads of similarly (if not as bad) underqualified recruits. I saw Cornell last year accepted someone with an SAT math score of below 400! They also accepted 47 people with Verbal scores below 500! Despite the shortcomings of the SAT, that’s just outrageous. I scored better when I was in 7th grade without studying at all.</p>
<p>Also, I don’t think the issue is whether someone can hack the curriculum or not. The issue is that he was admitted in the first place thus stealing admission and the subsequent oppurtunity away from a mroe qualified applicant.</p>
<p>Finally, I mentioned this because two of the first posters mentioned they were recruited athletes. They also mentioned they were accepted by multiple schools out of HYPS. How many “regular” applicants can boast of such an achievement and be given free reign to choose whatever amazing university they want to attend?</p>
<p>I will repeat, SAT scores are NOT (N-O-T) a measure of your intelligence or of how qualified a student you are. The fact that smart kids do well does not mean that it measures intelligence and the mere fact that it can be “cracked” shows that it is not a measure of intelligence. It measures how well you can take a 4 hour test with very stupid questions…</p>
<p>I’m sorry… lol, I’m digressing from the point of the thread. Umm… I’m a junior so I’m not making this choice. 
Just saw the discussion at hand and decided to chime in. My bad…</p>
<p>
[QUOTE=dontno]
I hold that academic merit should be the primary basis of acceptance because, umm I dunno, a college is a ****ing academic institution.</p>
<p>Maybe you weren’t aware of this, but colleges are schools. Classes are taught by teachers. There are students who take notes, study, then take exams and leave with a certificate noting that they’ve successfully completed the ACADEMIC program. Yes, there are of course social aspects to every college. But primarily, it is a place of learning. Thus, admission, especially at the upper tier (HYPSM), should be based primarily on academic credentionals.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Sorry, but that argument is illegitimate. Colleges are places of learning and development. A lot of that learning and development comes through academics. But a lot of it does not. And if colleges decide that a student who may not be academically qualified alone has the potential to both become educated and benefit the school (as recruited athletes do), why should they not accept them?</p>
<p>Your last sentence further underscores the obvious assumption and normative mindset behind your pseudo-a priori arguments. They “should” base their admissions on academic credentials. Says who? You’re creating a huge house of cards in this argument, all centered on a never-substantiated assumption that the primary education that goes on at college is academic in nature and it should have sole and total primacy over all others.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE=dontno]
These universities are the holy grail and realization of lifelong work for so many people. It’s unconscionable that someone with incredibly low scores can be accepted over academically qualified individuals.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And this, really, is the crux of your argument. You think that certain types of students deserve to go to college more than others. Furthermore, you think that if those students are not successful, it is “unfair”. Well, reality check: colleges owe nobody anything in admissions, and if you or John the perfect student don’t get into a certain college, there is no “that’s unfair” or “they let him over me even though I was more deserving”. That’s just not how it works. Colleges let in who they want to create the environment they want, and that is the fair.</p>
<p>On a more empirical note, though, have you ever been to a college that didn’t take athletics and other talents into account? I have. I was admitted to Caltech and thought very seriously about attending, so I know what I’m talking about when I say that the environment at a school so defined by academics is far, far less rich and interesting than that at a school with diversity of interests, abilities, talents and opinions. I chose Princeton over Caltech for precisely that reason, and now that I have almost finished freshman year, my decision is ever more affirmed - the multidimensional campus and social life here is infinitely more varied and interesting than I would have found at Caltech.</p>
<p>Just an anecdote, but hey.</p>
<p>Our S chose Princeton over Harvard, Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth, Penn, Cornell, Stanford, U of Chicago, Duke, Williams, and Berkeley.</p>
<p>My D had been accepted (becides Princeton) to Brown, Pomona, UChicago, UMich, Brandeis, UCB, UCLA, UCSD, UCD, UCSC; but she choose Princeton, mainly, over UCB as all the others were much less feasible either financially or academically … or “logistically”. ;)</p>
<p>um just wondering, but what did you score on the SATs? because it looks like you’re very bitter about how “stupid” the questions are because you didn’t do too well. I agree that SATs shouldn’t be the sole basis on intelligence, but it shouldn’t be as underrated as you put it to be.</p>
<p>I was talking to drbigboyjoe</p>
<p>Based upon your reasoning I would imagine that you are also opposed to any type of affirmative action and the admittance of URMs into Princeton unless they meet your high standards of “smartness,” or is your liberal bias only focused on discriminating against recruited athletes, of which almost all of them are as deserving from an academic standpoiont to be admiitted as any other student?</p>
<p>Daughter chose Princeton over Harvard, Dartmouth and Cornell. She is a recruited athlete.</p>
<p>My S chose Princeton over Yale, MIT, Caltech, Duke (with an AB Duke Scholarship), Williams and Amherst.</p>
<p>kartrider360 – I haven’t taken the SATs yet. I’ll let you know, if you wish, when I do.</p>
<p>I gotta say, psychometrics in general are just such a lame indicator of real aptitude. Yeah, smart kids tend to do pretty well but it’s so far from the direct correlation they make it out to be. I know morons who’ve been studying for the SAT’s since they were 8 and lo and behold, 1500+…but it doesn’t actually translate to anything concrete. Conversely I know geniuses who test low. It has more to do with your bank account: if you can afford classes, add 100 points. A private tutor? Add 200.</p>
<p>Uhh, sorry to keep this thread off topic :-)</p>
<p>@ Dontno
Your assumption that recruited athletes are less academically qualified than other applicants is way off base.
The NCAA Academic Progress Rate is a measure of the eligibility and retention of student-athletes participating in NCAA sports at any Division I institution. Each NCAA varsity team is given a score on a scale from 1-1000 (1000 meaning that every individual on that team was academically eligible for the following team and either returned to school or graduated).
Every year teams with APR scores in the top 10% nationally for their sport recieve public recognition.</p>
<p>The following is a list of schools ranked by the number of teams honored for the second year in a row.
- Yale (28 teams)
- Dartmouth (24)
- Brown (21)
- Penn (20)
- Princeton (19)</p>
<h2>6) Harvard (18)</h2>
<h2>T-16) Cornell (11)</h2>
<p>20) Columbia (9)</p>
<p>So, no the Ivy league schools are not accepting underqualified athletes, in fact their athletes routinely recieve recognition for their academic achievements. (Keep in mind that these athletes are maintaining elligibility/graduating in some of the most rigorous academic environments in the nation) The Ivies can’t accept underqualified athletes because if they fail out and lose eligibilty they can’t play for the team anyway. Not to mention a strong athletic program with devoted fans brings in a lot of money for schools, money that benefits athletes and non-athletes alike.
Has it occured to you that many athletes are learning/ being educated in their sport, in the hopes of becoming a professional athlete, just like math majors learn math in the hopes of becoming a mathematician, psychology majors learn psychology in the hopes of becoming a psychologist, etc.
Also, why are athletic achievements any less important than musical/theatrical/artistic achievements. There are many different types of knowledge that can be persued at college, sorry that they don’t all fit into your classical view of “education”. Athletics teaches many important lifeskills (teamwork, leadership, hard work, responsibilty, commitment, communication, the abilty to deal with others) that mindless problem sets will never teach.
I find your view of college life and “education” to be very narrow-minded. You are what I call an intellectual snob.</p>
<p>@ middleburydad:</p>
<p>I don’t understand your inane assumption that my disdain for athletic recruiting (AT IVY LEAGUE COLLEGES) somehow correlates with a “liberal bias”. In fact, I’d classify as a moderate conservative and your contention that I’m against affirmative action of URM’s is certainly accurate. Their admission is even more dissonant with egalitarianism than the admission of athletic recruits. At my alma mater, admitted black students scored, on average, 170 points below admitted whites. But that’s another story, back to athletes.</p>
<p>@kmatimber:</p>
<p>you said: “Your assumption that recruited athletes are less academically qualified than other applicants is way off base.”</p>
<p>Umm now despite the contentious nature of the SAT’s, I think we’d most agree that it is surely an part of the academic package of an applicant and furthermore probably correlates very well with high school GPA. Well here’s an interesting stat for you:</p>
<p>In 1999 (the most recent year for which I could find data), if you were a recruited athlete (i.e. included on a “coach’s list”) in the Ivy League with SAT scores in the 1100 to 1199 range, your chances of getting in were 42 percent as a man and 53 percent as a woman. Compare this to the acceptance rate for other applicants with equivalent SAT scores: 2 percent and 3 percent respectively. (From Yale Daily Herald)</p>
<p>So I don’t feel like looking up more proof that standards are drastically lowered for athletes. I’ll continue to your next point: that athletics is akin to more highbrow extracurriculars like music, science fair, math league, theater, etc. I agree it is. But the students who are exemplary in say music are usually supremely qualified academically. Their musical achievement is usually a “hook” that puts them over the top in this the age of 10% acceptance rates. (BTW: I also contend that someone should not be accepted solely on the basis of musical achievement if they do not have the requisite, meaning extremely high, academic scores.)</p>
<p>I do however agree that athletics do teach great skills. But academically qualified students should not be rejected because a mediocre student who can run the mile fast wants to go to Princeton or Yale.</p>
<p>And as a disclaimer: I love watching and playing sports.</p>
<p>@ kmatimber:</p>
<p>Also, your statistic is certainly not cogent but also irrelevant. I’m discussing admissions policies. But I’ll quickly discuss it. Basically your statistic is supporting the notion that merely staying in school is an achievement. Whoa, these athletes take gut courses and manage a 2.0, with much hand holding from the university at large and the individual professors. I’m sorry I’m not impressed. </p>
<p>I do however make it sound like all athletes are not qualified. At my undergrad, I met a number of athletes who were worthy of placement at an Ivy. However, for so many, they simply do not match the academic criteria for admission.</p>
<p>Furthermore, I can’t believe that I have to convince people that colleges grossly deflate their admissions standards for athletes, especially at Ivy Leagues where the standards are so stringent. This is common knowledge.</p>
<p>hmm, I seem to agree with dontno on this one. Although I realize that there are indeed academically qualified recruited athletes, on average, they should not have gotten in compared to other normal applicants had they not been recruited. I went to a huge high school, one of the best public high schools in the country of having over 1000 kids in hs. Each year, about 70 people apply to HYP, and about 7 kids get in to each. Since I was an athlete(not recruited, but just high school varsity) I had many friends who were exceptional atheletes. I played football, bball, and track. I know a kid from my track team, who was ranked top 15 in the state for 1 mile run, got recruited from HYPS with top 25% class rank, mediocre course selection, and 26ACT. He ended up at Harvard. One of my closest childhood friends got recruited from Yale as a swimmer, and his stats were plain mediocre as well. In addition, I know 2 football, 1 golfer, and 3 more track and field athletes who got into HYPS. These recruited athletes, after talking to coaches, were almost guaranteed admission regardless of their mediocre academic records while others with almost perfect scores were getting rejected.</p>
<p>My point is that all these students ‘qualify’ to be admitted. But, that is FAR from being AS Qualified as other accepted students or many other rejected candidates with far better academic, extracurricular, and intellectual credentials at the ivies. After all, HYPS and rest of ivies are premiere academic, not athletic, institutions, and I fail to observe any benefits that come with these exceptional schools giving up so many spots for these athletes, while having to reject so many exceptional, intelligent, hard-working students due to lack of space available.</p>
<p>dontno: Again, you assume that academics should have total primacy over all other aspects of an applicant, something that isn’t, nor should be, true, and more importantly, something you have not in any way substantiated.</p>
<p>1of 42:</p>
<p>I have substantiated it. It’s very simple:</p>
<p>1) Ivy Leagues are elite ACADEMIC institutions, by virtue of being universities.</p>
<p>2) Admission to a given institution should reflect the main purpose of the institution.</p>
<p>3) The MAIN (not sole, but primary) purpose of an Ivy League institution is academic in nature, whether that’s education of students, preparation for occupation, or professorial research.</p>
<p>4) Given (2) and (3) conjunctively, admission should be based primarily on academic pursuits. </p>
<p>Thus, accepted applicants should meet a certain level of academic achievement. Given the current boom in applicants, this standard is extremely high. Now is it acceptable for universities to use other criteria in deciding admission of a given student (such as extracurriculars including volunteering, personal essay, participation in athletics, etc…)? Yes of course they must or they could never trim the class down. But each applicant, irregardless of their extracurricular achievements, must attain an exemplary academic standard (buttressed by argument above).</p>
<p>
[QUOTE=dontno]
- Ivy Leagues are elite ACADEMIC institutions, by virtue of being universities.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Indeed. And yet, while academics may be an integral part of an institution, the other facets of a campus make up another important, if not equally important, characteristic of a campus. You seem to suggest that in order to get a well- and widely-diverse campus you must simply set high academic standards and you will still get the diversity, both in athletics, culture, socioeconomic status, minorities, etc. That is simply not the case.</p>
<p>From experience in closely researching, applying to, and deciding whether to attend the single university in the US that essentially does not lower its academic standards for anyone (athlete, musician, minority, poor person) - Caltech - I can tell you that when you give academics primacy over all else, you create a monochrome campus. It’s really as simple as that.</p>
<p>Furthermore, your argument is predicated on the assumption that there is some “standard” GPA/SAT combination, and that athletes are having it waived whereas others are not. This is simply not true. GPA and SAT scores, like all other factors on an application, are only important in the context of the entire application (though they are significantly more important). Admissions officers don’t admit the GPA and SAT scores, and only if the scores are too low decide to look beyond them at other factors (such as athletics). They admit the total package. Athletics are a part of that. Elite athletes get the same boost as elite academic students, because both are part of a total applicant package.</p>
<p>What this comes down to is that it is your opinion that Princeton should make academics its sole metric in evaluating students, except insofar as otherwise academically equal candidates must be differentiated. That is your opinion, and you are welcome to it. But it is by no means true a priori; there is no “unfair” in Princeton accepting recruited athletes, and obviously the admissions staff in conjunction with the rest of the University administration have decided that it is in the best interests of the school to continue doing it. Perhaps you know better, and should run Princeton admissions. Perhaps someday you will.</p>
<p>But in the mean time, stop complaining about the way others have chosen to run the institution, and either come to the school (if you were accepted) and try to change it yourself, or go try your hand at some other school. Or you could just go to Caltech, the school that practices your style of admissions. You probably won’t enjoy its monochromatic campus life quite as much as you would the campus life here, but that’s the price of your philosophy.</p>
<p>You’ll have to forgive me if I find your entire argument predicated on a sense of entitlement and jealousy, as I find most anti-[insert minority recruitment, athletic recruitment, whatever] arguments to be.</p>