Is it a necessity to be involved in sports to be accepted into an Ivy League School?

Parent Cafe
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<p>It's nice to see a truly informed opinion on this forum at least once-in-a-while.</p>

<p>Afan is correct, the Ivies do recruit athletes and the admissions process for athletes can be different from that of the general freshman applicant pool. For all you parents who talk about your child's athletic potential, it doesn't work that way at Harvard or Columbia, for example. An athlete is recruited for the accomplishments he/she has already achieved. Also, it is a little known fact that during the 1980s when Columbia football was so horrid (44 straight losses), Ivy League officials agreed to permit Columbia to have additional spots (recruits) for its football team.</p>

<p>Hey folks, football is serious at Princeton, Columbia, Harvard and Yale. The games are quite important to the old timers (i.e. donors).</p>

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<p>A recruited athlete is different than an athlete in general -- by definition, being "recruited" is going to increase one's chances of admission greatly. The recruit has the advocacy of an athletic coach who is promised a certain number of slots; plus the benefit of extended contact with the coach. </p>

<p>Being involved in sports is not going to give the same advantage as being recruited. </p>

<p>Thumper, I don't think its a matter of how much "fun" the EC is - I think it's a matter of what it will contribute to the college. Colleges don't usually have much in the way of academic-type competitions, so the college isn't getting much value added when they accept a mock-trial winner. They do have sports - and theater - and orchestras -- so the kid who comes in with athletic or artistic accomplishments and talent is offering something extra of value to the college. </p>

<p>And you really can't draw conclusions based on anecdotal information from one school, in any case. There could be a dozen different reasons why the class sal was chosen over the val at your school -- it could have been essays, recs, etc. It could have been the proposed major. If you haven't seen both application packages, you simply can't know.</p>

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<p>I disagree about Mr.Wang being too intense. From the name, I assume he is an Asian parent. He has read about Asian parents focusing only on academics and music; he wants to help his child to develop different interests. There's no point, in junior year, telling him that his child is like 10,000 other Asian students applying to selective colleges and he should have tried some sports.</p>

<p>But the overall point that students should be helped in developing their OWN interests is valid. These interests can be in sports, in community service, in the arts or in some academic area. My son was/is a math science nerd who was admitted to the two highly selective schools to which he applied. He had only one EC, which was science. No sports whatsoever.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Stats don't tell the whole story either: there are many fewer blacks in the applicant pool than whites, so a number like 46% admission often reflects the lengths that the college has to go to in order to maintain only the 8% representation they have in the overall student body.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Exactly, Well said Calmom!!</p>

<p>It is easy to throw out stats and say that blacks are admitted at a higher rate (and it is probably true, but take a moment to look at the real numbers behind the stats)</p>

<p><a href="http://www.jbhe.com/pdf/2005freshmensurvey.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.jbhe.com/pdf/2005freshmensurvey.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Princeton- 16,510 applicants, 116 blacks enrolled (9.4%) of the freshman class</p>

<p>Harvard 22,796 applicants 221 blacks accepted 153 blacks enrolled (9.3%)</p>

<p>Yale 19,451 applicants 1134 black applicants (5.83%) 122 enrolled (9.2%)</p>

<p>Columbia 18,125 applicants 1390 black applicants 114 blacks enrolled 8.5% </p>

<p>Dartmouth 12,756 applicants, 82 blacks (7.6%) enrolled (7.6%) of the class.</p>

<p>Penn 18,824 applicants 1229 black applicants (6.5%) 367 blacks admitted (~30%) 193 enrolled (7.6%) of the class</p>

<p>Brown 16,911 applicants 1089- black applicants (6.4%) 253 blacks admitted (23.23) 97 enrolled (6.6%) of the class.</p>

<p>Cornell 24,452 applicants 1126 (4.6%) black applicants 410 (36.4%) blacks admitted 175 (5.2%) enrolled</p>

<p>Even looking at recruited athletes in it is an overwhelmingly large # of white athletes that are being admitted especially outside of Football/basketball, track for sports where you will need some $$ to participate- (ex. Crew, water polo, Lax, skiing, hockey). Even for football and basketball, the Ivies are really not major powerhouses in those sports (you would be hard pressed to find a black athlete recruited for basketball at Duke or UConn turning them down for a chance to play at Dartmouth/Harvard). This combined with the fact that the Ivies offer no athletic scholarships, you will not have a large # of minority athletes running to play for these schools.</p>

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<p>I don't understand the attack on the dad for just asking a question while his son is in 8th grade. If the answer was yes, your son has to do a sport, then there would be time for him to find a sport he was interested in. It would be too late in eleventh grade to find out that all his hard work in school won't count for much without a sport on his app. When "smart" isn't enough, we parents are curious what else it's going to take.</p>

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<p>Ahh, no. DD accepted to Dartmouth - definitely no sports. Daughter of a friend accepted to Yale, played a little softball in junior high and 10/11th grade, not recruitable. Val from 04, accepted to Harvard, may have played some sport in high school, but not as a senior, not to my knowledge, and not recruitable.
Of course recruited athletes get a little boost - that's what they mean by "recruited", but I don't think it is necessary.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
When "smart" isn't enough, we parents are curious what else it's going to take.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>But I don't think that one should take up a sport just to "mold' him/herself for the sake of trying to be more attractive to a particular school. </p>

<p>Remember even when a coach recruits athletes, they are looking to fill holes / strengthen areas in their team. </p>

<p>If your son is a tight end, and they need quarterbacks (having recruited many tight ends in the previous year or even having a few that redshirted a year because they are in a 5 year program) your son being a tight end is not doing much for the cause unless he is greatest tight end out there and a team feels the need to snatch him up now.</p>

<p>I think it is best to be your self and let the chips fall where they may</p>

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<p>Afan, it is untrue that banding only applies to football. My son's non-football sport is subject to banding, and we were made well aware that our son's higher academic index placed him on a list at a higher spot than many more qualified athletes. </p>

<p>It was the combination of his athletic ability and his academic qualifications that got him a higher place on the list.</p>

<p>I personally knew a qualified athlete who were dropped from the recruiting process at an Ivy (track and field) because he didn't have high enough academic qualifications.</p>

<p>As usual, opinions outweigh facts on this subject.</p>

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<p>Yep, that's the bottom line. I don't fault the parent who opened the thread for asking: it's an informational question that has a factual answer. The answer is that Ivy League schools and other schools admit some applicants with no sports involvement whatever. They also admit some applicants with huge amounts of sports involvement, and many applicants with an in-between degree of sports involvement (like the OP's child, who has learned tae kwon do). It takes nerve to let a child pursue the child's own passions, but that is the right thing to do, and probably the expedient thing to do as well.</p>

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<p>From Sybbie's statistics, it appears that blacks are admitted at a high rate yet have a far lower than average yield for ivy colleges. Are these institutions fighting over the same relative handful of kids?</p>

<p>If so, more power to those kids, but it means that we parents shouldn't panic over admit rates for URM's when they are in a separate category, statisically.</p>

<p>As for the original question on sports, it seems the most highly recruited kids are in (men's) sports related to size and quickness. Most of the recruited athletes I know have been outstanding in their sport from grade school on, plus have added the height and strength needed to compete at a college level. However, in the smaller sports, there are opportunities in high school for kids to make great advances: diving, men's volleyball, wrestling and certain track and field events come to mind. These types of teams are not widely available before 9th grade, so the opportunity is there for a player to find a late-blooming (!) talent.</p>

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<p>Yes, indeed, midwesterner, the schools ARE competing for the same very small group of URM kids. That's why the fly them for free, send likely letters, and all of the rest.</p>

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<p>Thanks for your opinions everyone, anyone else?</p>

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<p>"From Sybbie's statistics, it appears that blacks are admitted at a high rate yet have a far lower than average yield for ivy colleges. Are these institutions fighting over the same relative handful of kids?"</p>

<p>There is that, but there is also a substantial number of African-American students who choose historic black colleges (Morehouse, Spelman, etc.) over the Ivies. The opportunities offered to them there are often very large, rivaling those at Ivies, there is much, much less drinking (if that is a concern), and there is a very heavy emphasis on undergraduate teaching and mentoring.</p>

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<p>thats what we have seen as well mini
a AA student may welcome the opportunity to attend college with students who "look like them"- a different expereince from their high school, where they may have had to hide having a strong academic aptitude to escape or at least reduce belittlement from their peers
a principal at my daughters school commented on how teachers allowed students to * sneak* papers in, rather than being * seen* turning a paper in on time
I think they hope a HBCU will have a different atmosphere</p>