I wonder, given the huge increase in applications most of these schools have experience, if this isn’t a way of making sure the admissions offices actually get some real down time. That’s a totally uninformed guess, btw. And others may follow suit if these schools do it.
Maybe, but many schools have hired external app readers at $15-20/hour, so I wonder if a typical admissions staffer has experienced a higher load? (I assume the VPs are crazy busy though). I know there’s been huge turnover in admissions though at all levels, but I have always attributed that to the relatively low pay these peeps make (entry level high 30K’s/low 40K’s).
I’m not sure any other D3 conferences have a conference determined pre-read date (maybe SCIAC?), which is why many of those schools that would compete for recruits with NESCACs have also been able to verbally commit a student prior to the NESCAC coaches can.
ETA: AO “downtime” is typically April/May/June. Unfortunately I have never had a professional job that has “downtime”.
Nor I. But I have a number of family and friends who work in the school and college world, and their lives are SO tied to their institution’s calendar. (Ask me about scheduling family holidays!) Admissions typically is very busy in April and May with management of enrollment of the incoming class, then with “set up” for the next year. Lots of work is done by committee so requires a very coordinated calendar. The only "scheduled " thing for them in July is pre-reads. Again, just guessing
Yes, have received this from multiple NESCAC coaches. Pre-read start is now July 1st. with discussions/results beginning August 1st.
We were told that it is because an expected June release of the decision in the Harvard vs SFFA case before the Supreme Court. So it might be just for this year.
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Why are recruiting steps dependent on the SCOTUS decision?
just an educated guess: assuming SCOTUS wants a complete race/delineation blind process, yet schools want to maintain a high degree of diversity, all remaining factors being equal, sports coaches maybe asked to recruit more minority focused teams, because non-athletic admission will bring in many Asians
May also be the opposite. Prior pre-reads may have taken account of the URM status of athletes in terms of academic hurdles to be met.
That would not be race blind, would it? If SCOTUS forbids race in admissions, colleges would not be able to directly tell coaches to recruit URMs (which many colleges communicate to coaches now).
Stepping back, I think many colleges will continue to identify URMs whether thru increasing partnerships with college access orgs (like Questbridge, Posse, etc), using high school profiles, using CollegeBoard’s Landscape database, etc.
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Coaches and schools will still want the best athletes - that’s not going to change. I can’t imagine a decision where the question is allowed on a recruiting questionnaire.
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I agree. The question might disappear, but there are plenty of URM awards out there, kids heavily involved with affinity groups, etc. The “tells” are not going away.
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The SCOTUS case really has no relevance to NESCAC athletic recruiting because all the NESCAC schools are private. They’re allowed to use whatever factors they want to admit students as long as they comply with Title VI. We’ve heard all year long that the NESCAC schools anticipate recruiting being impacted this summer by the UNC/Harvard case and all I keep wanting to ask is, has your outside counsel told you to worry? Because, just as the Grutter case did not involve non-public schools, neither does this. Very confused response by the NESCACs.
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Huh? Harvard is a private school.
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exactly @Mwfan1921. the case involves Harvard and UNC (public) and the Harvard part relates only to whether Harvard violated Title VI by supposedly holding Asians students to a higher academic standard in admissions. The main part of the case re: race derives from UNC and whatever the result is (or isn’t) it applies only to public colleges/universities. So, again, I find the NESCACs being all worked up about how this will impact recruiting to be very odd.
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The H case also asks scotus to overrule Grutter….
“whether the supreme court should overrule Grutter vs. Bollinger and hold that institutions of higher education cannot use race as a factor in admissions”.
No mention of delineation between private and public institutions. Separately it is a fact that many private institutions are making plans to address how to continue identifying URMs post-decision (preparing for a Harvard loss).
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IMO, race doesn’t matter to the coaches. My daughter is a minority and was recruited. When she’d arrive for the recruiting trip, some of the coaches were visibly shocked when this small Chinese kid introduced herself. There was nothing on her resume that indicated she was Chinese and they just weren’t expecting it.
I am noticing more (still not a ton) minorities playing NCAA women’s lacrosse now but it not because the schools are recruiting more but because the youth organizations are producing more to be recruited. There just weren’t many minorities available to be recruited.
Coaches are NOT going to take a minority over a skilled non-minority. Would a school admissions officer say to the coach “Look, you’ve submitted two students for pre-reads, take the minority?” I really doubt it. I think admissions is just thumbs up or down and they leave the athletics to the coach. I think the minority tennis players and golfers on Harvard’s teams are there because they were the best athletes, not to get more minorities into the school.
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Some coaches can earn bonuses by bringing in underrepresented recruits.
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I’d like to know more about this.
I would have warned my daughter off if I thought she was being used to get a bonus for the coach.
Amherst is very well known for tasking the coaches with bringing in non-white athletic recruits. Theres a NY Times article featuring the men’s soccer coach explaining this. And that coach was very focused on my son’s ethnicity. My son is of middle eastern descent, and the asst coach asked my son “do you consider yourself Asian?” or “could that be considered Asian?” Admittedly that was the only school to ask my son these sorts of questions.
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Yes, and Grutter only applies to public colleges.