<p>I think it’s important to make a distinction between intelligence and academic preparation or preparedness. First, the Ivy feeder schools of yore were private, preparatory high schools. Isn’t it likely that to in order to find talented athletes in some sports like track or football they had to expand their net to public school students from schools on a different academic level than Exeter? Heck, in the Ivy town near me, none of the private schools even have a track or field track teams. Cross country maybe, but not track. Even four years ago when D attended an HYPS accepted student luncheon in our region, the only public school kids present were athletes. The rest of the accepted students all hailed from private and parochial schools and were obviously wealthier. Secondly, when a college student is spending long hours each day in sports practice, missing class to travel for games, and is physically tired from the activity and needs more sleep than the non-athlete, that student just may have less time to study and thus may be more prone to ask “stupid” questions.<br>
Don’t infer from that he’s stupid. Just tired and over-worked and trying to hold on at a tough school. </p>