Can someone please tell me what sports at the ivies are filled by non-recruited athletes? Sports that are just filled by enrolled students who try out. Thanks.
All teams take walk-ons if they show enough skill and can help the team. No teams are have rosters that are all recruited athletes.
The eight Ivies have high level of competitiveness. Are there teams that have NO recruits allocated to fill slots? I can’t imagine so. Of course, there are many club level teams and many Ivies have vast intramural teams. Thus, anyone who wants to play generally can stay involved
Is there a hidden item you’re hoping to discover? Like perhaps you can point yourself into a sport for yourself as an applicant?
Harvard, and the rest of the ivy league schools, play in NCAA Division 1 athletics. Athletes are either recruited or walk-ons: http://www.gocrimson.com/landing/index. If you’re considering walking on, here’s a good article to read: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennie-shulkin/ivy-league-quitters-the-c_b_4525656.html
Harvard also has 66 club sport recreational teams, which require much less of a time and travel commitment. Some club sport teams are like JV squads, while others are just done for fun: http://recreation.gocrimson.com/recreation/club_sports/active_clubsports
@T26E4, “Are there teams that have NO recruits allocated to fill slots? I can’t imagine so.”
Actually, that is exactly the case I was searching for. I “think” I read on CC there were a handful of teams where there are no recruits and the entire team is filled from tryouts from enrolled students. Of course, I didn’t bookmark the page and can’t find the info now just by searching.
I’ll search some more and read the links @gibby posted. If I come across the info, I’ll post it. Maybe I’m not remembering correctly what I read… and could be wrong…
Thanks.
As in, what sports are filled solely by unrecruited athletes? For varsity sports, AFAIK, the answer is none. For club sports, the answer is all of them.
Ok. I didn’t remember correctly what I read. Found the article I was thinking about. It was written by @gibby.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/1911169-sports-tryouts.html
Key paragraph: “Keep in mind several things though: Many non income-producing sports (archery, crew, fencing, skiing, water polo, squash, sailing etc) are NOT given enough slots from the Admissions Office to fill their teams, so coaches rely on walk-ons to fill many of their slots.”
So, yes the teams have recruited athletes but not enough and rely on walk-ons.
Thanks everyone. Got the info I was trying to find.
@gibby: the article, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennie-shulkin/ivy-league-quitters-the-c_b_4525656.html, is quite interesting.
@HYPSPlease
While these non-revenue sports do in fact have some slots available for walk-ons, often times the walk-on position will already be filled by an athlete who has been identified by the coach in the previous recruiting cycle. Often these athletes were not “top” recruits but are still very good and also had the academics to get into the school without the bump/support of the coach. So the spots may already be “filled” for a walk on on some of these teams.
Still if a sport interests you I’d contact the coach and let them know you are interested.
@skieurope and @T26E4, yep “none” is the correct answer - for “solely by unrecruited athletes”. Thanks.
archery, crew, fencing, skiing, water polo, squash, sailing - is the group I was searching for because “coaches rely on walk-ons to fill many of their slots”.
^^^^ I’d add that crew does not fill “many” of its slots with walk ons from what I know. Perhaps 1-2 on a squad that may be as large as 40.
@tonymom, thanks for the insight.
@gibby
Not to stoke the H/Y rivalry fires but maybe that’s why Harvard hasn’t been doing well lately 
(No diss to the walk ons there as I’m sure they are lovely fellas)
@tonymom Not to stoke the H/Y rivalry either (I had one at each school, so I wear both hats), Yale’s administration lowered the number of recruited athletes, which has resulted in Yale relying on MORE walk-ons than any other ivy league school – although that has not stopped Yale for doing well! See: http://yaleherald.com/homepage-lead-image/cover-stories/always-outnumbered-never-outplayed/
@gibby
Point taken but I’d argue a good portion of the walk ons are the kind I previously mentioned (already known to the coaches through previous contact)
It probably varies from sport to sport. Some sports have a higher learning curve and may be off putting to the true novice. In any case a sport like crew will require a great deal of previous athleticism on the part of any interested walk on. Even the true “newbie” will have to bring that to the table (they tend to get many cross county, basketball etc types)
Still if OP is interested they should not hesitate contacting a coach. I think most are fairly welcoming.
@gibby, you linked to another great article. Since Yale is increasing its class size with the addition of new residential colleges, maybe the recruited athlete numbers will trend back up. I think another 300 or so will be admitted with the increase (lesser number for enrolled students).
Followed up with kiddo. He reports less than 25% of his team are walk ons. For what it’s worth…
In fencing is is common for coaches to be allotted a bare minimum, or less, to field a full squad with recruits. Yale is a notable example, with the coach given very little sway. Lately Harvard, Princeton and Columbia seem to be gettting enough recruits that walkons see very limited action.
Here’s a Yale Daily News article saying that, as of the time of the article, 2/3 of the co-ed sailing team were walk-ons. There may not be many examples with that high a proportion but it’s one.
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2009/11/04/sailing-relies-on-walk-ons/
Some sports are technically club sports that play at the Division I level. The men’s rugby at Dartmouth comes to mind. They do not “recruit” in the NCAA sense and are open to all comers – although the chances of making the A team are probably better if the coach likes your information form. The women’s team operated the same way for many years, but now has varsity status. I expect that there are examples at each school.