Legacy Admissions Strike Again

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<p>DS was recruited to fence at a top D3 Research U. His stats were about at top 25% for the admitted class, attended a very average public HS in a sparsely populated state and was largely self taught in his sport as there is not a single coach in the entire state. He chose the sport and pushed us to get him involved in it. It was only in the fall of his senior year of HS that we realized he was recruitable.</p>

<p>He just finished Honors Real Analysis as a still 18 year old sophomore (did fine, thank you very much) and did astrophysics research last summer for a professor who just won a Nobel Prize and will be writing a paper on his work. </p>

<p>I realize this is not a typical story but felt the need to note that athletic recruits, are not one size fits all.</p>

<p>BTW, every fencer I know who was recruited to the Ivies was eminently qualified academically, so go pick on another sport :D</p>

<p>The very nature of holistic review–allowing adcoms to favor non-scholastic factors–comes from a frankly repellant history in ivy admissions–a way to impose quotas on Jewish students. For those who are not familiar with this history of the 1920s, you can find information here: [The</a> Right Coast: Jewish Quotas at Harvard in the 1920sGail Heriot](<a href=“The Right Coast”>The Right Coast)</p>

<p>It’s well and good for us to argue over which examples of desired “character” or skills are most rewarded by ivy admissions, and another to recognize that such holistic review gives these institutions quite a lot of freedom to pursue their own agendas. In most cases, one would admit these most highly sought after colleges are putting together stellar classes, no matter what the exact mix of fencers to brainiacs to leaders (or all three in one!). But let’s not think fairness has been a big part of the process at private universities.</p>

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<p>Funny, when this same logic is mentioned for keeping Asians away at top schools, it’s always been rejected by most of the posters in this forum.</p>

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That seems different somehow.</p>

<p>Harvard, Yale and Princeton NEED all those athletes to be competitive in the Ivy League, an athletic league. If they only admitted nerds, they would have to leave the Ivy League. Also, there may be one or two members of the admissions committee who believe the skills acquired on the athletic fields directly corrolate to success on the battlefields, boardrooms, courtrooms, hospitals, political chambers and other various arenas that keep the world functioning.</p>

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<p>Don’t misunderstand. I have nothing against fencing or any other sport. I object to back door admissions for athletes. It sounds like your son had the academic credentials to be admitted anyway, without being recruited. Sports, especially those that do not generate significant revenue, should be treated as extracurriculars. Many “elite” sports - fencing, squash, crew, water polo, have been the dirty little secret of the prep school crowd - a way into Ivy League schools. These kids’ applications are not mixed with the great unwashed masses - they are in a “special” pile, and they get “preferred” treatment. Quite frankly, most of these athletes would not be recruitable in basketball or baseball - sports played by so many more that it is difficult to be good. It’s easier to be a highly rated fencer than a highly rated basketball player. I digress. These sports are primarily a way for prep schools to take a shortcut to ensure a way in for students. </p>

<p>And for the kids who are brilliant and play squash - evaluate them on the merits of their application along with everyone else. Why does squash get a hook but, art or another equally worthwhile activity doesn’t?</p>

<p>Brown is dealing with this issue right now - budget cuts are the primary concern, but the requisite admission slots for athletes is another:</p>

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Good for them!!!</p>

<p>[Athletics</a> committee recommends axing four varsity teams - The Brown Daily Herald - Serving the community daily since 1891](<a href=“http://www.browndailyherald.com/athletics-committee-recommends-axing-four-varsity-teams-1.2549814#.TvB1_5jjoso]Athletics”>http://www.browndailyherald.com/athletics-committee-recommends-axing-four-varsity-teams-1.2549814#.TvB1_5jjoso)</p>

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<p>You want to tell me that the guy at my school who was recruited into Yale for Basketball was done so because his skill in the sport had practical uses? Maybe it does, but I’m not sure how it negates that he is completely academically unprepared for work there compared to just about every other non-player applicant. He took about two AP classes in the previous years in a well-to-do school that offered several. Well, good for him and good for Yale, but on the other hand, I think it is a bit disgraceful for Yale to drop their academic mission for the sake of having a better basketball team that almost no one in the general populace cares about. (Correct me if I’m wrong about that)</p>

<p>I think one thing that always bears noting in these discussions is that even accepting the idea that Harvard gives some seats to academically unworthy athletes (or other hooked applicants), the supposedly more worthy applicants aren’t relegated to attending South Nowhere Technical College. They may (horror of horrors) have to attend Cornell, and those pushed out of Cornell might (shudder) have to attend Vanderbilt, and so on. This says to me that the cost of this element to any one student is pretty minimal.</p>

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<p>Not to asians, I bet.</p>

<p>Does anybody really think that the purpose of athletic recruiting is to benefit white and/or rich kids at the expense of others? I agree that it may have that effect to some extent, but I find it highly unlikely that this is the purpose. The real purpose–which you don’t have to agree with, of course–is to have winning sports teams.</p>

<p>I couldn’t agree more with GorillaGlue, in post #86. </p>

<p>Also I really have to admire a fencer who became competitive the hard way! As I mentioned earlier on, I think that fencers tend to be the most academic of the sportsmen and sportswomen (at least in my experience).</p>

<p>I don’t think the intent is discriminatory, actually. In my opinion, the “elite” sports that are played at the Ivies are played there because it is possible for them to be nationally competitive in those sports (as opposed to, say, football), and presumably that is good for the students and for alumni relations.</p>

<p>On the other hand, the impact of recruiting for these sports is almost certainly discriminatory by socio-economic class, aside from the few largely self-taught competitors. When there is discriminatory impact of a policy–here, recruiting athletes for the “elite” sports–even without discriminatory intent, I think that the benefits of the policy need to be weighed closely. If I ran Harvard admissions (no chance of that), I would not recruit students to fence, sail, play squash . . . I think there could be plenty competitive teams without that, particularly if all of the Ivies–weighing the socioeconomic impact–agreed.</p>

<p>On the other hand, for balance, Bay seems to be arguing implicitly that the fencers count against the “rich kids” quota, and so have no impact on the overall socio-economic composition of the entering class. I have no way of knowing.</p>

<p>Hunt:

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<p>GorillaGlue

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<p>Not enough people. I’ve met plenty who are both. </p>

<p>If detractors do not like the way the Elite Universities run their businesses, your choices are two:</p>

<p>(1) Try to join the administrations/policy boards of those institutions
(2) Do not attend/ encourage your children to attend</p>

<p>If any of you had children who attended K-12 privates, did you 100% approve of every school when searching for schools? Or did some policies turn you off, shock you, etc? All those privates also get to set their own policies, within the law. When I disapproved of some of the assumptions of some of those schools, our children were not applicants there. I didn’t like their “ethos,” didn’t like the “way they ran their business,” didn’t like the way they ran admissions. And at least two of those were among the highest ranked privates in the region. But not going there made our family happier and had zero negative effect on either daughters’ rather fine college admissions results.</p>

<p>Life is not “over” if you don’t get into HYP, or if you choose not even to apply because you don’t like their policies, priorities, and are just “sure” that their student body quality is compromised.</p>

<p>So their admissions policies don’t “have to stop.” People have to stop assuming that studying there is mandatory.</p>

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<p>But…Harvard is giving out tons of financial aid, including to middle-class people. It’s also actively searching for URMs to recruit, including many with lower stats than the average admit. Who, exactly, is being squeezed out by the athletic recruiting? Remember, there are no athletic scholarships at the Ivies, only need-based. Maybe recruiting fencers and sailors is a way to get more full-pay students, and so is a way to partially skirt being need-blind–but a lot of prep schools have plenty of kids on financial aid these days, too. I’m just not sure what the problem is, unless you just don’t value athletics–which, of course, is one’s right.</p>

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<p>Families who have been attending these schools for generations understand how this works. Other “connected” families understand this, too. Sports that require expensive equipment or horses or boats are elitist. </p>

<p>But trying to argue academic excellence isn’t also a sort of elitism doesn’t follow for me. I am not sure time and money spent providing your child the very best education possible is less elitist than providing fencing lessons. Academics isn’t exactly a level playing field. </p>

<p>I have incredible sympathy for legacy families whose children aren’t admitted even though within the range, or at the top of the range of admitted students. But I can see there isn’t enough room for all the legacies, no matter how impressive, once the university decides to include more of the general population. </p>

<p>The problem to me isn’t the legacies. It is all of us who decided these were the most desirable schools for our own children. And then try and figure out exactly what kind of students these schools want and do our best to create that applicant. We make these schools even more elitist by our actions. How disadvantaged would our children be if we decided to support our state universities instead of the ivy league?</p>

<p>oh yeah- I used to be a fencing mom :)</p>

<p>Hunt, I think it all depends on how the athletes in elite sports are counted in determining the overall balance of the class.</p>

<p>Planning to encourage my grandchildren to become nationally recognized for metal-working. In iridium or rhodium.</p>

<p>LOL</p>

<p>well if I continue with my line of reasoning my grandchildren won’t even go to college but fortunately my children pay me no mind</p>

<p>Interesting that this thread started out about legacies and 80% of the discussion seems to be about athletics. In my limited experience with highly selective LACs, legacy seems to be at most a tip factor similar to being from Idaho. Being a star swimmer or lacrosse player has more of an impact, although I’ve not seen academically unqualified athletes admitted to my alma mater. Just because an applicant is in the top 25% of scores and GPA does not mean they are a shoe-in.</p>