Interesting NY Times article on athletic recruiting by selective LACs

Parents Forum
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<p>CALIFORNIAN - I can understand your concerns - having been there - done that - BUT - I do have to add that it is possible to manage - even with the missing of classes - if only for that time for a championship - but I don't agree with the idea of missing classes for practices - especially D3 where academics are ''supposed'' to take presidence. But with planning on the students part - and working with profs - it can be managed - and actually can be an experience that cannot be achieved in any other way. Good Luck to you.</p>

<p>It is most likely a top championship/NCAA'S - or LOL they got snowed in while visiting another school to compete - that happened a couple of times this year - in the northeast.</p>

<p>I have seen kids attending very good schools - tho with not so good sports teams - thus that trip to NCAA's us not usually an issues.</p>

<p>My own DD competes at a club level in her sport - schools does not have NCAA participation - but it is a very competitive situation with nationals at the end of the ride every year - she has to miss a week of school - does not coincide with any of the breaks at all - but we have actually encouraged and supported her in this as it is that opportunity should would not have otherwise - and she has to work it all out with profs and such - even has had to turn in reports/assignments and such via computer during competition's as well - it can be done.</p>

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<p>Mini, Point taken. The only thing I would add is that the problem is not just at Williams, but at least another 5 or 6 schools. (Try googling "missed classes" and sports and you'll find articles about Bates and others . . .) The disapointing thing for my D is that this problem is so pervasive at the top LACs where she would otherwise like to go. But such is that life . . .</p>

<p>By the way, the ephblog.com achives number 000799 has some more interesting info regarding the impact on academics of sports at Williams.</p>

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<p>Cal-</p>

<p>My son is talking with a very competative D3 school about swimming. The team has over 80 kids-no cut. The top five kids are really good, the rest just like to swim and be on a team. There are often three practices offered in a day so everyone can get one in because academics come first. The captains' practices sound very loose. Many kids don't bother, but they know they are going to have a tough time when regular practice starts. At this school, the capt. practices are almost more of a courtesy so the swimmers can gear up slowly. I don't want to talk about which school it is but my son has a 1500+ SAT, 34 ACT, Individual All-American, varsity captain of his team and NAT Merit semi-finalist and the coach hopes he will apply but cannot and will not guarantee anything. That is what being an athlete gets my son at D3.</p>

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<p>"Mini, Point taken. The only thing I would add is that the problem is not just at Williams, but at least another 5 or 6 schools. (Try googling "missed classes" and sports and you'll find articles about Bates and others . . .) The disapointing thing for my D is that this problem is so pervasive at the top LACs where she would otherwise like to go. But such is that life . . ."</p>

<p>I'm a Williams alum, and, frankly, very critical of the course the college has taken. It is much different than it was when I was there, and not all the changes have been to the good. I have written at length about how shocked my d. (who was recruited and accepted, but for music) was at what she thought was the all-consuming athleticism (and alcohol use.)</p>

<p>Nonetheless, I also think it is a good thing when there is a large range of choices. Williams is a great, great school for student-athletes, especially those who are very serious about their atheletics as well as their academics. As long as one know what one is getting into, I don't see that as a problem. And there are some, around 40% of the student body, who don't participate in varsity, junior varsity, club, or intramural sports at all. (Interesting that you referenced Bates, which is very much a Williams clone. Putting aside the women's colleges, what about Bard? or even Vassar? or Macalester? or Whitman? I'll admit I don't follow sports at these colleges closely, but they sure felt awfully different in that regard when we visited.)</p>

<p>Schools aren't top LACs for your D if they don't meet her needs. No school, of course, is perfect. But I'm betting you are going to find some that get close to fitting the bill.</p>

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<p>Bulldog:</p>

<p>The reason coaches won't give your son anything but encouragment ties directly to the number of "slots" coaches are given. They use these slots to:</p>

<p>a) stock teams where it is impossible to find athletes with your son's academic qualifications.</p>

<p>b) recruit athletes with below average academic qualifications.</p>

<p>Using a "slot" or "tip" on a student as academically qualified as your son would be viewed by the coaches as wasting a slot. Rather than do that, they will just hope that your son applies and is accepted based on his strong academic qualifications.</p>

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<p>interesteddad:</p>

<p>That book on Ivy and NESCAC recruiting - can't recall the name, the one with the Jay Fiedler forward - suggested that coaches who didn't tip a good athlete who also had good academics, to save the spot for a lesser academic, risked falling out of favor with the admin dept and losing tips. I questioned that when I read it and your post suggests the contrary. Can you elaborate on your comment or experience? Does it vary by school or sport? Thanks.</p>

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<p>Idad - I guess that explains a stat that was a little puzzling to me. In the article, 40% (seems like a huge number to me!) of the Haverford student body participates in a varsity sport, yet athletics played a part in the admissions decision with only 15%. I would also guess that some sports (like cross country) with no-cut policies might have a lot of walk-ons while other teams might be comprised mostly of recruited athletes.</p>

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<p>Bulldog,
My daughter had a very similar resume to your son's--and had the same response from coaches, both at Ivies and top LACs. The reaction was: We'd love to have you play, but you don't need my help to get in. I do think that Williams admissions people used the coach to gauge my daughter's degree of interest in Williams--something I heard from other parents as well--and that it was ultimately very much a net plus. So, the sports contact can have a different kind of admissions impact than the one you may initially expect.</p>

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<p>NJres:</p>

<p>There is so much obfuscation of terms like "tips" and "slots" that it is difficult to sort it all out.</p>

<p>The Williams athletic review report did all of us a great favor by detailing the various admissions categories. Although the specific numbers vary a bit, the Williams system is conceptually identical to the systems used at all elite colleges (Ivy League, AWS, etc.)</p>

<p>To use specific numbers, this year's incoming freshman class has approximately 130 students whose admissions folders were tagged by the athletic department as being "likely 4-year varsity athletes".</p>

<p>Those 130 students fall into three categories:</p>

<p>a) 66 slots (limited by conference rules) reserved for athletic recruits with below average academic stats. Each school sets an allowable distribution (x percent way below average, x percent slightly below average, x percent in the middle). As long as the overall group meets this distribution and the individual apps have been vetted by the admissions office, the athletic department has essentially sole discretion to allocate these slots among the various teams and chose the 66 applicants. This is the group that would be the "15%".</p>

<p>b) 30 slots for students with "average" stats. These applicants fall into the broad middle range, good enough to get accepted, but at super-elite schools, only if they have something that sets them apart. At Williams the athletic department is allowed to specify about 30 mid-pack applicants they really want. The admissions office isn't required to honor those 30 requests, but they do as a matter of practice.</p>

<p>c) The remainder of the 130 recruited athletes have above average academic qualification (like Bulldog's S) and would, in most cases, be accepted on their academic merits alone. In practice, the athletic department tags them as recruited athletes but does NOT include their names on either of the two lists described above.</p>

<p>Here's why this is an issue at Div III schools in a way that it much more problematic than at, for example, USC or UMiami. 130 (or even 200 or 300) recruited athletes at USC or Miami is such a small percentage of the student body that it really doesn't materially impact the classroom or the campus culture. Even if all 130 were "knuckledraggers" as Driver calls them, so what? But Swarthmore's incoming freshman class is only 360 students. Haverford's is even smaller at 330. Amherst's is slightly larger at 428. All the sudden, that cohort of 130 recruited athletics is a HUGE percentage of the student body. </p>

<p>This is the dilemma faced by Swarthmore that led to the end of the football program. They could not allocate a third of their freshman class to varsity athletes AND still meet all their other admissions priorities. Yet, the realities of Div III recruiting today mean that, if you don't stock your teams with recruited athletes, you will lose relentlessly. </p>

<p>This percentage is also why athletes are at the (sometimes unspoken) center of so many college presidents' agendas on issues like social life, fragmentation of the community, academic engagement, drinking, etc. If a third of each freshmen class were focused in ANY single direction (dancers, gay/lesbian activists, robotics nerds, or whatever), then you would see a profound impact on the campus culture.</p>

<p>What happened at many of these LACs is that they had a traditional number of sports teams carried over from the days when they were all-male schools. Then, suddenly, they were supporting almost double the number of teams with the addition of womens teams AND supporting the traditional mens teams with a reduced male enrollment. I think that many of them just never took the hard look at the math involved in that transition. </p>

<p>My guess is that, over the next two or three decades, you are going to see a LOT of elite small colleges wrestling with the decision to drop football. It is really the one program that single-handedly makes the math untenable. For example, at Swarthmore (which was anything but a powerhouse with the longest losing streak in NCAA history), a full 10% of all incoming incoming male freshmen had to be selected based on their ability (or at least willingness) to play football. Given the academic mission of the school and a priority placed on diversity, and the growth in women's sports, that just didn't make any sense. The opportunity cost (measured by lost admissions slots) of supporting a single sports team was very high.</p>

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<p>Interesteddad, the problem looks like 66 kids to me. The others are average or above.</p>

<p>Anyway, if 66 are below average and 130 are above average that's better than the student body as a whole. Shouldn't it be 98 below average and 98 above average?</p>

<p>Only 66 athletes below average...Looks like the athletes don't hurt Williams at all. Or am I missing something?</p>

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<p>This is an interesting article from the perspective of a very serious female scholar-athlete. And ID--I never called them "knuckle-draggers." I called that a canard. My point was that there are some out here--who evidently have no personal experience--either their own or through their children--in the college athletic process. They just read lots of studies that apparently make them feel superior. It's those folks who consistently post denigrating comments about athletes.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.williams.edu/athletics/scholath_williams.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.williams.edu/athletics/scholath_williams.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Dstark:</p>

<p>Maybe we should define "average". Again, using Williams' scale, applicants are rated on a 9 point academic scale with a 1 being the best. The average accepted student at Williams is an academic "3". The 66 hard "slots" allowed by league rules for recruited athletes range from 4 down to 7. Williams won't take an academic 8 or 9. The breakdown is 66 below average, roughly 30 average, roughly 30 above average.</p>

<p>The question has never been whether the "below-average" athletic recruits can get a degree. Obviously they virtually all do at Williams (although the GPA requirements vary from school to school and Williams' faculty members indicate there is accomodation for some teams behind some of those degrees.). </p>

<p>The question is one of opportunity cost. What institutional priorities to you want to want to address with your limited number of 4, 5, 6, and 7 slots? Unless you increase your enrollment, it is a zero sum game. How admissions "slots" are allocated to achieve institutional priorities goes a long way towards determining the institutional cultures that make one college different from another. </p>

<p>For example, a Williams' admissions priority is to compete for national championships. Amherst's priority is to stock the same number of teams, but at level far below national championship caliber. Swarthmore's priority is to use the slots used elsewhere for football and ice hockey teams to accept "low-stat" students to achieve other things. Without football and ice hockey, Swarthmore has 20-25% of its student body on varsity sports teams (with more female athletes than male). This compares to 30-40% at some similar schools (not including JV or "B" teams).</p>

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<p>Amherst's athletic priority is to beat Williams, as you know. And they use their 66 athletic tips toward that effort every bit as enthusiastically as Williams, with no noticeable loss of academic or cultural excellence. And don't forget who won the football game last fall (Amherst).</p>

<p>FWIW, I thought the choice of Haverford as the focus of an article on sports was a little odd, because while Haverford and Swarthmore are both certainly highly selective LACs, neither has ever been an athletic powerhouse, and their #1 rivalry has always been with each other. Neither has ever placed anything close to the emphasis on intercollegiate competitive sports that even the stragglers in NESCAC have.</p>

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<p>Interesteddad, you said,</p>

<p>"The question is one of opportunity cost. What institutional priorities to you want to want to address with your limited number of 4, 5, 6, and 7 slots? Unless you increase your enrollment, it is a zero sum game. How admissions "slots" are allocated to achieve institutional priorities goes a long way towards determining the institutional cultures that make one college different from another."</p>

<p>So why does it bother you so much if Williams chooses sports and other schools choose something else? This makes places for many different students. Not everybody wants to go to a school like Swarthmore, no matter how good it is. For some people, sports are very important and that doesn't make that person a dummy. So, you have a great school with a sports culture, so what? So a few of the 66 kids aren't the strongest students. They add something else to the campus and that is important too.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
The reference to the "division of the day" is Williams' policy to limit the hours in a day that classes can be taught in order to accommodate ECs.

[/quote]
this actually sounds like a great idea for academics, athletics, bands, theater, dance, the school newspaper, etc ... if you believe college is more than classes than clearing common time slots for ECs helps the students to do both without a conflict ... to me this is a model to lessen the impact on academics as opposed to a sign of athletics taking over students lives.</p>

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<p>3togo,
It is a great idea, and to the best of my knowledge and experience, it's the norm at W (and it <em>is</em> used to advantage by all the ECs). It's possible that some captains have called an unofficial practice during class hours, but I haven't heard of it happening in my two years of being associated with Williams athletes and their families (doesn't mean it never happened, though.) The conflict between "events" and classes is far more difficult....if you have to take a bus to Maine, or Boston, or Connecticut for a match, game, or tournament, odds are you're going to miss some classes. But that's a problem every single member school of NESCAC faces...not just those that have allegedly over-prioritized sports.</p>

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<p>Actually, in my son's sport, Haverford is quite powerful and has one of the top coaches in DIII. I agree with dstark- if someone doesn't like the higher emphasis on athletics at Williams, don't apply! S would not be comfortable with the Swarthmore culture, so he isn't looking at it. No problem. He is interested in NYU because he has this thing for New York City. I don't think it is enough of an athletic culture for him, even though he is being recruited. He and his boarding school roommate are both high caliber student athletes (different sports) and I think any school would be lucky to get either one of them, even though their academic stats might be more mid-range than top-range for some of the schools.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
So why does it bother you so much if Williams chooses sports and other schools choose something else?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Doesn't bother me in the least, except that it represents such a jarring change to the traditional priorities of the school. Based on alumni surveys, I would surmise that most older alumni of the school have a hard time coming to grips with the athletics emphasis that took hold in the late 1980s and 1990's.</p>

<p>In the 1960's and 70's, Williams and Swarthmore were widely regarded as the two most academically focused small colleges in the country. I don't think that a single member of my freshman class went to Williams for the opportunity to play for a national championship contender. The rivalries were with Amherst and Wesleyan, not UC-Santa Cruz.</p>

<p>It's fine that the college has such a well-defined identity and does such an exceptional job of serving the student-athlete. It's just a different college.</p>

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<p>Using Williams and Swarthmore as examples doesn't make much sense, as they both sit on the extremes. Swarthmore doesn't have football players, but it also (relative to other fine LACs) has generally much less involvement in the arts, in music, in dance as well (and pales next to Williams). It's not like they decided to do away with football in order to beef up the student body in other EC areas. Rather they have made a choice (and making choices is to be applauded!) that what matters most to them is the classroom culture, which they already had (there goes the "opportunity cost" argument.) I would never for myself choose to go to a school like that, (my d. was so appalled by her visit to Reed that Swarthmore was crossed off the list partially in reaction), but there are all kinds of happy, healthy, smart, funny, motivated gifted students there, as there are at Williams, and at all of the top 50 schools. You just have to know what you are getting yourself into.</p>

<p>And, yes, it IS a different college than when ID or I were there (I joke that it is "Williams on Steroids" - and by that, I mean the institition, and not the students), and it took me three visits to get around to accepting that fact. (But I'm not going to college again, at least in this lifetime, so for me, it doesn't matter awful much.)</p>

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<p>Starting with last year, the Common Data Set filings include the percentage of grads majoring in each general area. So, it is now easy to see which schools have unusually high or low percentages of English majors, Philosophy/Religion majors, Visual and Peforming arts majors, Engineering majors, Math majors, etc.</p>