And she didn’t get an automatic admit to Oxford, she still had to get the grades to meet her conditional offer:
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I go to a pretty boring high school in a small city (so not at all a Gunn or Bronx Science where everyone and their cat won the international coding championships or something) and I know someone who self-published a book which was even on the Barnes & Noble website with several reviews because a few people ordered it off of there. She didn’t even do it as a “college admissions” activity – she just wanted all of her friends and relatives to be able to read her book – but regardless, it was apparently very easy to do. I think a lot of students must be able to do something similar and say “available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, etc.” An actual publishing contract is different but it isn’t really an award…
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D1 athlete means you commit to one school (and for that one school, your acceptance is pretty close to being guaranteed: which is why it’s a 10). If that D1 athlete decide to break the commitment to the school and apply to other schools, he/she will be with other non athletic applicants and will not be part of recruitment applicant pool : no special consideration will be given.
(…. unless in an extremely rare situation: someone else on the same sport team backed out and the coach is looking for an another player)
How is this commitment different than at D2 or D3 schools? Or NAIA for that matter?
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Which brings us back to my question. I don’t think committed D1 athlete should be on the list at all, otherwise we might as well add “child of a president” or “child of a major donor” to the list.
The list is not of things that guarantee admissions, but a perceived ranking of certain accomplishments’ values when included in an application.
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My experience is with academically selective D1 schools (Ivy, etc.) and some equally selective D3 schools. My sense was that D1 in general had a more ‘secure’ recruitment process and if you commit, you will be very unlikely to be not accepted (unless you do something that may get you rescinded). Academically selective D3 schools varied: some had more secure pathway (some NESCAC schools for example), some didn’t (MIT for example). It was more school dependent.
I know very little about D2 schools except the ones I know were more like D3s. I know nothing about NAIA schools.
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Just like the other categories, a D1 athlete has to compete to get recruited. In contrast, a legacy, URM, or offspring of a famous person is conferred that status at birth.
The probability of playing D1 college sports is very low. Only 1.8% of high school varsity athletes will play a varsity sport at a D1 college. There are 363 NCAA D1 colleges.
In comparison
0.02% of science fair entrants will eventually receive the Regeneron ISEF finalist medal
1% of PSAT test takers will achieve the distinction of National Merit Semifinalist
5% RSI acceptance rate
3-5% TASP acceptance rate
6% entrants will receive USAMO gold prizes
These are apples to oranges comparisons. But IMO, they are roughly in the same ballpark because they are all really difficult to achieve. I believe that getting committed as a D1 athlete is an incredible accomplishment. They are typically the best of the best in their sport.
If your point is that many schools prioritize athletics over other types of extracurricular accomplishment, that is a valid point.
I think my point is more of the opposite. The impression is that schools don’t give it much value outside of a coach requesting a particular athlete, in which case the school could care less about what other accomplishments that athlete has.
Also, to the point of @Mwfan1921 comment, the focus on D1 is narrow minded. There is quite a significant list of other division schools that require one to be significantly more accomplished an athlete, and often times accomplished a student on top, than MANY D1 programs.
Maybe the list here should say “recruited athlete” not D1 athlete - but I still argue it doesn’t belong.
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I agree it doesn’t belong. But if it must stay, i agree it should say ‘recruited athlete’
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Recruited athlete is a such a big spike that in almost all cases it supersedes any other potential spike an applicant possesses.
Who is better than the college coach to decide whether the prospective athlete is a good fit for the team?
Especially in team sports, there is a lot of subjectivity in player evaluations. The player has to fit the coach’s preferences. Some coaches prefer raw athleticism from players who they intend to mold. Some coaches prefer players who already have highly developed skills. Coaches are also looking to fill positions of need. Nick Saban may not recruit the #1 HS player in the country if he is a QB when Alabama already has a Heisman-winning QB on the roster. The player also has to fit the team’s culture.
If the college coach doesn’t want the player on his/her team, no matter how good of an athlete the player is, that spike is severely degraded to no spike at all because the expectation is that he/she will not be contributing to the school’s success on the field.
Most HS athletes who are actively participating in the college recruiting process spend so much time on their sport that they have very little time for pursuing any other meaningful accomplishments.
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I see your point what about patents?
I’m not in STEM so I don’t think I’m qualified to give you advice on that – I’m just a high school student and my most impressive award was being chosen as a Girls State delegate, which isn’t even on the list, so I really don’t know how a patent would look to elite schools (and given that my awards are decidedly un-prestigious I probably won’t be accepted to one either lol).
Recruited athlete can fall into any of several levels, depending on the college, sport, and athlete.
High level athlete but not recruited as such at the college can also fall into any of several levels depending on the college as a good extracurricular (the range of possible levels in this case would be lower than the range of possible levels for recruited athletes). It would not be surprising if some small colleges with lots of competitive sports teams had a preference for athletic extracurriculars in regular admissions in order to have a larger pool of potential walk-on athletes.
You are so real, we don’t have patent either. My cousin won 2nd place in Brain bee and hold a patent. So I threw it in for other high schoolers. Really like your honesty, we are in the same boat
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How would you rate a perfect score on an AP exam? Our friend’s daughter was one of 360 of 70,000 AP CSA student test takers in the world last Spring who got a perfect score on the AP computer science A exam. She is stressed about the competitiveness of the CS admissions. Great grades and near perfect test scores.
I don’t think a perfect score would make the list or be very high if it did.
High grades and near perfect scores are the expectation, not a differentiator, for CS students applying to highly selective schools. They will help at less selective schools, but even for those programs may not be a golden ticket in CS.
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I am not sure this is true. It is a rare accomplishment and I think that is why the CB makes a point of highlighting these students. This is not a 1600 SAT or 36 ACT.
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Impressive, but I don’t think it moves the needle for selective CS programs that attract talented students who have achievements well beyond high school comp sci. A perfect score on an exam pales in comparison to award-winning computational research (yes, that is the level of competition these days).
But, with great grades/scores and hopefully ECs to match, there are many CS programs that would be thrilled to enroll your student. If you need suggestions, start a new thread and I’m sure others will chime in.
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Assuming you mean every question answered correctly (versus getting a 5), how is this necessarily visible to college admissions readers?
In any case, probably not that big a deal, if at all, compared to an “ordinary” 5 score (and one AP 5 score by itself is not that big a deal compared to the entire rest of a college application).
Mention it in “additional information” or in the awards section, or ask a letter writer to mention it.
A local student received a perfect score (a good friend of my son.) College Board notified the high school and it was all over the local paper and social media. They were the first student to receive a perfect score on this test in the school’s history. I think it’s a big deal, or CB wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of notifying them.
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