<p>And Swarthmore still has a higher percentage of students involved in sports than Dartmouth.</p>
<p>I think all of this is about size. All of these schools are very small. I think you could combine all the first-year students at the 20 best-known LACs and they wouldn't equal the number of first-years at the University of Michigan. The thing is, however, that each of those 20 best-known LACs has a lacrosse or field hockey team, and University of Michigan only has one. So there's a lot of sorting that takes place - which is what makes the whole process difficult to get one's hands around. But the athletic advantage is huge, and it has to be for all 20 schools to put their teams together.</p>
<p>Are we talking "sports" or "varsity sports?" 20% varsity athletes at Dartmouth sounds about right (comparing them to their smaller LAC bretheren), although they don't have that info currently available on the website. Swarthmore's website says that 21% of students are either varsity or club athletes.</p>
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I'm not sure what relevance can be attached to the 2001 student newspaper report stating that "Amhersts freshman class contained 74 athletes out of 425, or 17 percent." It's either hopelessly dated, or just wrong...I strongly suspect the latter. 74 would obviously refer to "tipped" athletes, back in 2000-2001...
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<p>Parker's comments were, IMO, intentionally disingenuous. It's a common sleight of hand that these colleges use with their definitions. Parker's number (74) indeed referred to the number of specifically "slotted" athletic tips, not the total number of recruited varsity athletes identified by the athletic department in the admissions process.</p>
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As for 30% of Swarthmore students "playing a sport," you need to be a little more specific. According to Swarthmore's own website, only 21% of students participate in varsity and club sports....combined.
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<p>Parker misstated Swarthmore's numbers. Swarthmore never had 30% varsity athletes in a freshman class. The 30% number was the number the athletic department told the Board of Manager's committee they would need in order to have competitive teams including football. It was this number from the athletic department that forced the Board of Managers to make a tough decision. That number was unacceptable in terms of its impact on admissions. Note that Williams and Amherst are both close to this 30% number in terms of the total freshman enrollees on the athletic department's likely 4-year varsity athletes lists.</p>
<p>As part of the decision to drop football, the college agreed to a target number of roughly 15% of the freshman class admitted with athletics as their primary EC. That is about where Swarthmore is today. They enrolled 60 varsity athletes out of 389 freshmen in this year's new class -- 15.4%. This 60 covers the same range of below-average, average, and above-average academic qualifications as the group of 126 at Amherst or 151 at Williams. </p>
<p>The 21% figure is pretty accurate for overall varsity sports participation. It includes walk-on athletes for whom sports played no role in the admissions process. Amherst's figure would be approximately the same if they got rid of the men's football and ice hockey teams.</p>
<p>Here are the latest percentages from USNEWS: </p>
<p>Dartmouth: male 20%, female 18%
Swarthmore: male 21%, female 20%
Amherst: male 29%, female 21%
Williams: male 39%, female 29%</p>
<p>These numbers, reported on the common data sets, do not include club sports like rugby for Junior Varsity teams which some schools have. These are strictly NCAA varsity sports teams.</p>
<p>The only thing that I find particularly interesting in the comparative numbers is that Williams, with its 40+% athletic participation, also manages to enroll enough students to field both first-class music programs and first-class theater/dance programs, something Swarthmore hasn't managed to do even after dropping the football team. Nothing wrong in that: a small school can choose to do what it thinks it can do best. But the point is that, contrary to what the Board of Swarthmore seems to have determined, the impact of athletic admissions does not have to have markedly negative impacts on other parts of campus life. (What it can do, however, is impact who wants to attend, as my own d. can attest.)</p>
<p>At a large U the % of athletes would be in the 2-5% range. Interesting. Since you don't need to be a superstar to play D-III maybe the number of qualified athletes with good stats is fairly high as a portion of the overall population with good stats.</p>
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with its 40+% athletic participation, also manages to enroll enough students to field both first-class music programs and first-class theater/dance programs, something Swarthmore hasn't managed to do even after dropping the football team.
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<p>Mini:</p>
<p>You keep saying that, but it's not true. Swarthmore enrolled more freshmen with music ECs this year than Wiliams enrolled in music, theater, studio art, and writing combined (131 combined at Williams if I recall the number correctly).</p>
<p>The only area of the arts where Williams has unusually high numbers is art history majors.</p>
<p>BTW, the number of athletic admits did not drop at Swarthmore after the demise of the football program. There was never any intention to reduce the number of athletic recruits. The intention, and the reality in the five years since, has been to redistribute the slots previously allocated to the football team to other mens and womens sports.</p>
<p>I think it's probably more a reflection of the traditional prep school feeder system for elite colleges. The Ivy League schools and the top LACs recruit heavily at the private prep schools in the northeast -- many of which have their own "athletic track" admits including red-shirt freshmen and post-graduate recruited athletes..</p>
<p>The LACs and the Ivy League schools are mining the talent in the powerhouse Florida, Georgia, Texas high school ranks.</p>