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I have also witnessed first hand the incredible amount of effort if takes to excel in both academics and athletics at superb schools like Williams and Swarthmore
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Me too. It's impressive. </p>
<p>So is the joy these kids take in their sports - the same kind you see on the faces of the kids on stage with the orchestra, or for a dance performance, or to do drama, or improv - and so on. In fact, a lot of them are the same kids. It's one of the things that makes all of these schools so rich and so inspiring: The all-conference volleyball player in charge of the poetry magazine; the record-breaking runner who's a top international debater; the top-scoring lax player who sings in an acapella group, and so on. </p>
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just checking to see if it is an institutional bias
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It's not.</p>
<p>Hm. Glasses?</p>
<p>That was for interesteddad, not Harriet. Just being a bit of a wag.</p>
<p>Gee, a 3.8 at Williams? Not telling DS. He'd go into a funk. Yup, he would. He's not even an athlete, but he is joining a league of competitive movie watchers. His record so far was all six Star Wars in a row, watched with buds. Took over thirteen hours on the most beautiful September day last year of high school.</p>
<p>So, of course, a 3.8 is kind of out of the question with that kind of competition looming on the horizon.</p>
<p>(parents of athletes, admire your kids a lot -- just dissing mine. Haha.)</p>
<p>YES, mythmom! The rugby team ALSO plays the tuned water-glasses. Or beer glasses. Wait, is that beer goggles? Anyway - it is so, so inspiring. :D</p>
<p>Wow. Now that's something DS could probably be good at. And popular. I'll suggest it to him.</p>
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Div III college athletics are horrible and should be eliminated, or that they about to explode.
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</p>
<p>Div III faces serious problems for top liberal arts colleges. I gave you the quote from one LAC president saying that the current format is no longer tenable. That is a widespread belief.</p>
<p>Having read the reports and articles over a period of time, I see four fundamental issues:</p>
<p>a) Liberal arts colleges never appropriately considered the impact of doubling the number of sports teams when they went co-ed and/or encountered the Title IX rise in women's sports. For example: Williams had 1249 male students in 1967. Today, they support essentially the same number of men's varsity teams with only 994 male students. On top of that, you have almost an equal number of female varsity teams added to the mix. The overall impact of varsity sports has gone through the roof relative to 1967, but I've yet to see any evidence that any college has explicitly examined the impact of these changes.</p>
<p>b) Liberal arts colleges have never appropriately considered the impact of increased diversity on college athletics. For example: Swarthmore College was 82% white US students in 1976. Today, it is only 56%. Despite growth in the size of the college, the white US enrollment has declined from 1,071 students to 833 students. Since elite LAC varsity athletes are overwhelmingly white, what happens if Swarthmore tries to support the same number of athletic teams with a much smaller pool of recruitable students?</p>
<p>c) Recruiting has qualitatively changed in DIV III. It is no longer enough to simply enroll football players. The specialization means that you now have to recruit a high school starter at left tackle and all of the other specialized positions to be competitive. The pool of left tackles with 1500 SATs in infinitesimally small. What was orginally conceived as a mostly walk-on division has turned into a recruiting division.</p>
<p>d) Liberal arts colleges started allowing competition in NCAA national championships. This changed the character of the athletic recruiting from trying to beat Wesleyan or Gettysburg to trying to beat UC-Santa Cruz for a national championship. His also completely undermined the premise that academics and class attendance are the top priority at elite LACs. This change in policy was a big mistake.</p>
<p>Interesting observations all, however, in spite of the doom and gloom forcasts. Williams #1 ranked LAC (and lets agree for the sake of argument the #1-#5 are essentially the same) today about to win it's 10th in a row Directors Cup. So to qoute Johnny "Shellshocked" Jones from The Englishman Who Went up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain..."In France, we dug trenches ten miles long. We took earth from here and made hills there. We moved entire fields. You wouldn't believe what we did. It's possible. It's just hard work."</p>
<p>By that logic, the schools should have sat on their ranking laurel in the 1950s and not admitted black students. Or women in the 1970s. And, so forth and so on.</p>
<p>That's just silly. Women equal men in all areas of academics and athletics and might have a slight edge in total enrollment. Williams minority admission practices and financial aid packages are cutting edge. And still they are #1 in academics and athletics. Maybe not what you would like but hey send in an app next time they are looking for a president.</p>
<p>2007-08 Standings Directors Cup
June 11
1. Williams (Mass.), 1120.25
2. Washington (Mo.), 899.00
3. New Jersey, 825.25
4. Amherst (Mass.), 815.00
5. Middlebury (Vt.), 813.50</p>
<p>Just thought you would be interested dad. Thats 10 in a row. I guess you think that Williams Amherst and Middlebury as top 5 lacs and Washington as the 12th national university all have their priorities wrong.</p>
<p>Yes. When it comes to athletics, I believe all three schools do have their priorities wrong and all three schools pay a price for it with some campus culture issues. But, I'm sure others find the sports oriented and drinking cultures at all three schools to their liking. There's no question that Williams, Amherst, and Middlebury are three of the biggest jock schools in the liberal arts college realm. I don't think that's any big secret.</p>
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The argument was offered that Reed College was the correct model for a lac
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Like idad, I didn't see this argument being made. At schools as small as Reed (around 1400 total) varsity is just not practical (and it additionally doesn't fit Reed's culture). Athletics are nonetheless prominent at Reed, with each student required to take six quarters of a wide variety of sports (traditional as well as, e.g., snowshoeing, yoga, juggling, etc.).</p>
<p>The Reed model could fit small LACs well.</p>
<p>Would it not be better to stop spending so much money on varsity sports, endeavors that serve little purpose, and simply have intramurals for those that seem somehow compelled to engage in athletic activities? Isn't athletic competition anti-intellectual and thereby anathema to a quality education? </p>
<p>Yesterday, 03:15 PM #2<br>
interesteddad
Senior Member</p>
<p>Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: USA
Threads: 130
Posts: 6,330 Works for Reed College. You might want to ask over there:</p>
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<p>I saw this as an answer to the op and if it was simply a reference to a school where it works and not an endorsement I stand corrected.</p>
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