<p>uh, what can I say? You are very sophiscated fifi, not at all easy to comprehend. ;)</p>
<p>@leanid - yeah, it was a joke. I didn’t mean anything at all condescending! It stems from when my husband used to run and he tried to get me to go with him. I told him I would play tennis, or do something else but the only way he could get me to run for the sake of running was if he wore a scary mask and chased me.</p>
<p>I guess the humor doesn’t exactly transfer well in print!</p>
<p>So sorry if I got your dander up. Please be assured that while I certainly appreciate runners and totally trust that they get a lot out of it and it’s worth doing, I just don’t “get it.” It’s my deficiency alone.</p>
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<p>fifi agrees with Benley on the PG issue: “it’s been 80 years so nothing will change.” Laughing out loud! The defeatism and lack of a sense of historical change is more than a little funny.</p>
<p>I think it’s safe to say that fifi was not an athlete in his day – i.e., did not deeply learn the lessons that can be learned only on the field.</p>
<p>A lot major change has already taken place after ‘80 years’ of doing it one particular way: It was several decades before America’s best boarding schools invited students from diverse cultural backgrounds; several decades before many became co-ed; several decades before they provided funds to assist a substantial contingent of lower and middle income students; several decades before some provided full rides to families with income under $80K; and so on.</p>
<p>So, yes, positive change against long standing tradition is not only possible, but also sometimes inevitable.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Now, some comments on the role of sports in school:</p>
<p>Mind, body, and character are best developed concurrently and to the fullest. A weakness in one can weaken the whole.</p>
<p>Powerful life lessons are learned on the athletic field that cannot fully be learned in the classroom or from reading great books.</p>
<p>In practical terms, I learned even more about business and leadership on the athletic field than I did in the classroom. I say this as a former scholar who graduated at the top of his class and from a rigorous academic program at an Ivy and as a managing director at a large multinational.</p>
<p>Emphasis on and integration of sport in academic institutions is neither a recent nor a singularly American phenomenon. The important role of athletics in ancient Greece comes to mind. Also, the long standing importance of sport in British boarding schools; the development of such sports as Rugby. "The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton” and all that.</p>
<p>It is interesting to read the specific criteria for the world’s most famous “academic” scholarship, the Rhodes Scholarship. Started by an Englishman in the 1900s, it requires, among four primary criteria, a candidate with “energy to use one’s talents to the full, as exemplified by fondness for and success in sports.”</p>
<p>If HYPSMWA wanted to fill an entire incoming class with 2400SAT + 4.0UWGPA earners, they could do it, but they don’t. They don’t because they rightfully want a healthy portion of scholar-athletes, scholar-artists, scholar-athlete-artists. Of course, they also admit a portion of truly national- and world-class scholars, even if the scholar has not yet developed himself/herself along athletic or artistic dimensions, which is understandable and desirable.</p>
<p>By the way, neoto, as a former (and I emphasize former) 400 meter sprinter, your running comment made me laugh out loud.</p>
<p>Even twinkle-toes, with his Bridgton Academy comment, and especially Padre’s follow-on, made me laugh.</p>
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call for a little sense of humor here please. It is what I said but it is not what I meant. I don’t know what part fif was agreeing with me on as I said he was very sophiscated.</p>
<p>For the rest of your comments, I was commenting on the unproportionally huge role the athletic abilities play in the admission process and how in some cases a recrutied athelete with MUCH lesser academic qualifications than the overall admission criteria can get in. Sure the majority of them (except those relying on private tutors) can handle the academics but that’s not the point. Academically admissible and outstanding in the applicant pool are totally different, and it’s unfair to give a huge advantage to student atheletes in admitting them to the Math, Chemsitry or Political Science majors. If they are competing for a spot in the “Sports Department”, then that would be perfectly fine.</p>
<p>I would go to Episcopal</p>
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<p>golfkid, that’s a bit of a non-sequiter at this point in the dialog my good man, but if Episcopal is your aim, then we’ll pray for a little higher SSAT score for you on Dec 12!</p>
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<p>ok, Benley, fair enough. on that note, let’s not confuse ‘sophistication’ with what ze french call ‘foool of sheeet.’ Afterall, chromed poo is still poo.</p>
<p>Tristan,</p>
<p>Two things. One, There were no “playing fields” at Eton when Wellington was a student there. Two, a 400 meter “sprinter” – who are you fooling?! I ran the 400 in high school – and it was FAR from a sprint!</p>
<p>leanid,</p>
<p>Re: Eton. Let’s not ruin a perfectly good quote with the facts! Kidding aside, and I’m prepared to be wrong here, but Henry VI gave quite a bit of excellent land to found Eton in the 1400s. I don’t know, but one hopes they had the time in the ensuing 300 years to level a few nice cricket pitches by the time Wellington got there. In any case, Wellington’s comment is attributed decades after his boarding days, while observing a cricket match at Eton. The potential issue with the quote is less about the fields and more that it may be apocryphal. If you are English and steeped in this stuff I will probably defer to whatever clarifications you care to make. In any case, apocryphal or not, the spirit of the quote stands on its own and is in keeping with the thesis.</p>
<p>Re: 400m. On my high school teams, the 400 guys were all sprinters (100, 200 guys) running a longer sprint (vs. 800m guys running a shorter run). No matter what we call it, sprint or dash, if we wanted to run under, say, 51 (longer on cinders) and have a chance at placing, we considered it a full speed anaerobic effort, although certainly a different style than the way we sprinted a 100. Here’s how I thought of it: Favorite place to start is lane 2 (lane 1 feels a little too tight on the curve for my mass and the inside of it is often extra worn). At the gun, set sights on catching lanes 3-5 by the end of the first turn. Float the back stretch and maybe catch some in lanes 6-8 before entering the final turn; otherwise the shorter inside curve will do the work for you and pass all remainders then. Perfect form and stay loose the entire time to stave off rigor mortis at the end. Adrenalin and great form take you home. Full speed through the tape with a slight dip just before. Similar for starting the 4x400, but if in the 2-man, 3-man, or anchor position, you get the added rush of some fun stuff such as the chance to close any large gap for your teammates. One time, our 4x400 anchor closed a 70m gap to win the race (and the meet) for us at the tape by a nose. He knew we had to win to win the meet. One of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen, and I’ve never forgotten it. Brings back memories, eh leanid?</p>
<p>Oh, and a related response to neato: With regard to your humorous why run unless chased comment, be aware that the state of mind of a sprinter is cheetah, not gazelle. But this is from a guy who is allergic to distance running, so maybe at 800m and above its more gazelle; hard to say.</p>
<p>say hey high school kealousy is the key to succes</p>
<p>gk: I am going to have to insist on English.</p>
<p>@Tristan - OK. I’d have better luck being a cheetah than a gazelle. But then, to be successful, I’d have to starve myself for a week and have some run in FRONT of me dressed like a big cheeseburger. :)</p>
<p>How come whenever I make a thread it never becomes this long? :(</p>
<p>Don’t generalize and speak about what you don’t know. An extra year can change a boy’s life. Some boys need the extra time and I don’t think there’s much different between our sending our son to Bridgton or another family keeping their boy out of first grade until he’s 7. My son went to Bridgton after a miserable high school record. It saved his life. He needed to get out of our neighborhood, away from drugs and loser friends. At Bridgton he earned one semester of college credit over the two semesters. HE COULD NOT BELIEVE IT. He fell in love with learning, with being seen as a student. An admission officer at a college knew about Bridgton and gave him a chance. He’s now a college junior with a 3.5 gpa and planning on a masters degree. It was a huge sacrifice for us to pay that tuition. And it was the best money we’ve ever spent.</p>
<p>Urbanflop, Its my magical touch :D</p>
<p>middlesex ftw</p>
<p>Exeter.
- It’s close to my grandmother’s house so I could always eat at her house on a Saturday. She’s an amazing cook.
- Harkness is pretty rad.
- They have soooo many resources it’s crazy.
- Even though it is hard, learning itself is more important than getting outstanding grades.</p>
<p>Tristan, You fail to mention that Deerfield, Andover, Exeter, Hotchkiss are far superior schools and far more diverse than the ISL schools you mention. The PG issue is not an issue. ISL schools take repeat Freshman (or any other grade for that matter). There is no difference.</p>
<p>leanid, I run the 400, too. It depends what type of runner you are, I guess, but it is so fast-paced that it could be considered a sprint, especially compared to the 800 or 1600.</p>
<p>crim14, you’ll notice I also failed to mention that black is white and grass is red.</p>
<p>You make a fair point that repeating a grade appears equivalent in some respects to a PG year. I’ll add some nuance to that view. There is a difference in degree between an individual deciding to repeat a year primarily for academic reasons, and an institution openly sanctioning, even encouraging, a 13th year for athletic reasons after the end of a student’s normal high school career. For the record, I am OK with academic PGs because that is not unsporting. I also understand that ‘some’ repeats are done substantially for athletic reasons.</p>
<p>Academicaly, the top ISL schools, for example St Pauls and Groton, are in the same elite league as Andover, Deerfield and Exeter. Splitting hairs, (I won’t but) one could argue that academically St Pauls is second to none.</p>
<p>To my way of looking at things, the ISL is perhaps the ideal athletic league in the country due to the caliber of opponents, on and off the field, and lack of PGs.</p>