"Race" in College Applications FAQ & Discussion 12

Applying to College
3361

Data, you acknowledged that you did not have the numbers to separate Athletes from URM+Althletes. Using URM vs URM+Legacy is not a valid substitution.
In the rest of your post - tennis and golf do not use AI bands, just being a 4-star recruit with 100+ rank during the recruitment year does not qualify you for the Harvard tennis team, current Harvard women tennis team roster has 4 URMs, looks like only 2 of them had an athletic pedigree of a legitimate recruit (one of them is actually the team’s best player).

OHMom, I do not want to drag this thread into the athletic direction but your repeating attempts to equate athletic hook with the URM hook and present athletic recruitment as some sort of affirmative action for the white students are really getting annoying. College sports were invented by the Ivy League colleges and are part of their mystique and traditions and this athletic piece works well for them. Athletic recruitment predates Affirmative Action and it is not a conspiracy of the ruling class to keep minorities out. Coaches are trying hard to recruit URMs.
Whether a tiny college like Amherst should have (relatively average) athletes representing 27-33% of their student body is a whole another discussion.

3362

@ChangeTheGame where I live I found out that college access folks have an actual moniker for the students from somewhat wealthier, connected, mostly African American families (because it’s a majority African American city) who are given 90% of the “boosting” opportunities meant to assist low-income URM students. It’s definitely recognized as a problematic dynamic. I don’t know if that is likely to broaden out to be more inclusive any time soon.

3363

The AI band system is not just used for football. It’s used by the Ivy League athletic conference to establish a common set of rules for interschool competition in Ivy League sports in general, including tennis and golf. A good summary is at https://www.mka.org/uploaded/college_counseling/Publications/AI_Guidelines_Worksheet.pdf . Quoting the summary,

“Every team has an annual ‘quota’ and every athlete within that group is assigned to one of four bands based on his or her Individual AI.”

While Harvard does reduce its usual academic standards for many athletic recruits, many top high school tennis players still do not meet Harvard’s academic qualifications and are not eligible for recruiting due to academic qualifications. Furthermore the coach needs to consider what the team needs, which is not always as simple as ranking. For example, maybe the team needs more good doubles players, rather than singles. Maybe the coach is concerned about getting players who he’s sure will continue through all 4 years. Maybe he wants to establish a personal rapport and be sure that the potential recruit will work well with his coaching style and get along with the team. It’s not a simple as just going down a ranking list.

That said, Harvard and nearly any other college would be happy to get most academically qualified players who are ranked ~100th nationally. It is silly to assume they were admitted because of race, rather than being a recruited athlete who is nationally ranked in their sport.

You can view the number of URMs in the Ivy League athletic conference at http://web1.ncaa.org/rgdSearch/exec/saSearch . In the 2017-18 year, the sum of URMs across all 8 Ivy League colleges are below:

Ivy League URM totals By Sport
Men’s Golf – 1 URMs (black)
Women’s Golf – 0 URMs
Men’s Tennis- 2 URMs (1 black, 1 hispanic)
Women’s Tennis-- 4 URMs (3 black, 1 hispanic)

With only 4 URMs across the entire 8 Ivy League colleges, it’s extremely unlikely that all 4 are on Harvard’s team. Looking at the team roster, is only a rough estimate of race. That said, the players I’m guessing you are referring to are below, along with their recruiting status. All are really stellar recruits that are 4 star or higher. Are you really saying that all who are below 5 star do not have the “athletic pedigree of a legitimate recruit” and must have got in because they are URMs? Harvard averages ~two 5 star recruits or 5 star blue chip recruits per year . It never gets more than three. If Harvard wants to have enough players for a standard team, not everyone on the team can be a 5 star. These 4 possible URM recruits have a better average recruiting ranking the the non-URM recruits, so if anything, it would suggest the non-URMs are more likely to be the weaker recruits.

Erica Oosterhout – 5 star, blue chip recruit ranked 21st nationally, best Harvard recruit of her year
Chelsea Williams – 5 star recruit
Annika Bassey – 4 star recruit
Natasha Gonzalez (only possible URM due to last name, doesn’t look especially Hispanic) – 4 star recruit

3364

@CCtoAlaska Yeah, I have seen that same dynamic in my limited view of elite college admissions. What I see is URMs with the academic results to get into elite schools are pretty much coming from the same good high schools and much higher income brackets than average URM families. Those students are not coming from a bad high school/low SES family combo. I guess Wu-Tang Clan has had the answer all along. “Cash Rules Everything Around Me, C.R.E.A.M get the money, dollar dollar bill, y’all”, because a racial preference boost is helping URMs with money much more than those without.

3365

The fact that NCAA report shows less URMs that the rosters confirms that some of them were not official athletic recruits.
The is no need to post names. I would appreciate if moderators wipe out a few posts and we can continue by pm.

3366

“Athletic recruitment predates Affirmative Action and it is not a conspiracy of the ruling class to keep minorities out.”

It definitely is, lacrosse, soccer, golf, anything that that requires wealth is a way to keep minorities out.

3367

@ChangeTheGame I feel like I’ve seen it all but none of it is good. One thing that has irked me a lot especially back when I was working in college access was seeing high-achieving but not wealthy URM’s being turned down for selective or elite schools or not given merit aid even when the grades, test scores and outside achievements were right there. It is all about the money, money and who can pay. The idea that it is some kind of “hook” for merit to be poor and high-achieving is really a lot of nonsense. I live in a city where most students graduating are poor and URMs. The most academically talented come out with completely crazy high grades and test scores from top high schools but often they simply can’t afford to go to the colleges that accept them. Or they just don’t get in. I hope it’s getting better. But I’m not sure it is - I think it’s more of the same. I know a young lady URM who earned a merit scholarship at a state HBCU - a HUGE one - that is really intentionally designed for low-income, high-achieving applicants. I am so glad she got it but, at the same time, her mother who was wealthy was planning on buying her a house as an investment to live in in college. They could afford tuition. The system is not working for the students who really need it.

3368

The NCAA report is for the roster of players, not the roster of recruits; so they’d have to not be official players, rather than not being official recruits. And Harvard would need to be intentionally misleading when it lists the players on the Harvard team website’s roster and doesn’t report them to the NCAA.

Ignoring all that, all of the listed players are among those mentioned on tennis recruiting websites, such as https://www.tennisrecruiting.net . In this year’s class, the two possibly URM recruits are listed as being ranked among the top 100 women’s tennis recruits in the United States on this site and multiple external sources. Both are also well discussed on Harvard’s Tennis team website and related news articles, such as the one at https://www.gocrimson.com/sports/wten/2018-19/releases/20180522exfkjj . All of the listed players have gone on to play and frequently win in Harvard’s matches, even as freshmen. They are not just benchwarmers. You think top 100 nationally ranked recruits who are well discussed on tennis recruiting websites and Harvard’s own website are not official recruits? I think a more likely possibility is that estimating someones race based on their skin tone or last name doesn’t always match with race as listed in the NCAA database, using federal racial definitions.

One of the key reasons why athletic recruits get such a big boost is because they are of public interest. Athletes are representatives/champions on display to the public. Names are published prominently on Harvard’s website, with pictures and stats. Athletes names regularly appear in news stories and are discussed in households, as well as on forums, including past discussion on this forum. It is by no means taboo to list an athlete’s name when discussing public information about their athletic history, such as college sports recruiting.

3369

@CCtoAlaska You are seeing things that most do not. I have a family member in college access and have heard many similar stories about the most talented among those low SES URM students. Those students without fail at the worst high schools are not going to top 50 schools, but are going to state directionals and HBCUs. The low SES URMs I do see attending elite universities have found a way to go to magnet schools, charter schools, private schools, or find ways to go to good public schools (seen my share of those “borrowing an address” in order to get access to better schools). My oldest has a full ride scholarship at a HBCU that drops in value once a certain income threshold is hit (which we are below due to some creative financial maneuvering). It would be great to see how many of those students are above and below the threshold ($150,000) but just looking at my child’s own scholarship cohort, the level of privilege among those mostly African American students is much higher than my community in general. Some see racial preferences in elite college admissions as a way to right past wrongs, but those still hurting the most from those past wrongs are not getting helped at all. The system is really about wealth. But if we are lucky, that poor URM from a bad inner-city high school who finds a way to make it out through a state directional or HBCU will have children, and their kids are the ones who will get an admissions bump at elite institutions because of their race. It is that hypocrisy that bothers me most.

3370

College ranking hierarchy also corresponds to money ranking. I have not seen top 5 colleges in endowments money ever be ranked outside top 10 in any non-laughable ranking. Look at where HYPSM falls in the endowment money ranking. They pretty much comprise top 5. You can rank colleges according to their endowment ranking, and that will be more “accurate” than any other rankings.

Just checked the endowment ranking. HYPSM fills out top 5 spots as individual colleges. There is no doubt in my mind that the money is the biggest factor in building the brand name. The day another college supplants Harvard as number one in endowment money will be the day Harvard’s brand name will fall to second place.

3371

@websensation EXACTLY. Elite institutions are not doing things like racial preferences in admissions for altruistic reasons (I can not be sold on the dream that they want to help African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans) they are doing those things to promote the brand (diversity looks better) and to raise money from donors. Elite institutions care about the endowment, those who have money to increase the endowment, those who have the potential to increase the endowment in the future, those who can being positive press/Brand recognition which leads to more donations for the endowment, and that those attached to the brand (current students and alumni) don’t embarrass the brand.

3372

I’d never equate them. The athletic hook is MUCH stronger than the URM hook. Not even close.

3373

Isn’t it only legal for them to do it to have “diversity” now, not to right past wrongs? I feel like that was the outcome of the last major case before Fisher but I can’t check at the moment.

I’d also suggest that there is value in diversity, for all students.

3374

@OHMomof2 I agree that there is value in diversity and have said so on this thread in the past that it has benefited my family personally. But I am also saying that elite universities don’t care about diversity for altruistic reasons. The way that this diversity is being created divides us. They care because it helps the bottom line. The second that this fight affects that bottom line negatively, we will all see the true motives.

3375

@ChangeTheGame I see it in graduates from the top magnets and charters, too, unless - as you are seeing yourself - there is money. Like I said, though, I hope it’s been changing since I was in that world and looking closely at the numbers (and also seeing myself where individual students landed). Totally agree about why colleges promote diversity in their student body. It’s all about the brand. Although I do think the Ivies taking first gens is also because the elite is just sick of itself.

3376

I believe colleges are seeking a more diverse student body in order to have a more diverse body of ideas and perspectives and to get away from the ‘group think’ that a homogeneous population promotes. Still I believe they are going to limit this to ensure continued financial and brand success.

Also remember that for some people (and not just URMs) attending a directional public is a greater achievement than most of our children attending an Ivy. When my D and her friends were all reflecting on their college admission achievements I told them to remember that quite a number of their classmates acceptances to Temple or West Chester were much larger achievements than what they did. My D and her best friends all started on second base - some of her classmates they came out of Southwest Philly or North Philly faced long odds to get where they are today.

3377

"I believe colleges are seeking a more diverse student body in order to have a more diverse body of ideas and perspectives and to get away from the ‘group think’ that a homogeneous population promotes. "

I don’t believe that for one second in regards to the selective private colleges (but I’m admittedly a cynic, especially about the motivation of colleges.) I believe the selective private colleges admit students to:

  • Further the college's financial goals
  • Further the college's networking goals
  • Signal virtue to the groups that the college values and is courting

If colleges were truly seeking a diverse body of ideas and perspectives that would be reflected in not just admissions but the selection of professors. As a couple of quick examples, there would be roughly an equal representation of professors from both of the country’s prominent political backgrounds as an example, rather than 80% - 90% of professors affiliated with one party; the majority of URMs admitted wouldn’t be from the top 10% of income strata.

There is a huge difference between a college truly seeking diversity (which would show in admissions and hiring) or simply seeking to signal virtue. If you look at the admissions and hiring results the results point towards tokenism and signaling rather than a real desire for diversity.

3378

In terms of marketing the brand to prospective students, it may not be diversity per se that looks better to many of them, but the presence of a sufficient percentage of students of the prospective student’s group that makes the prospective student comfortable seeing himself/herself there. “Sufficient” may vary from one prospective student to another, and the average level of “sufficient” may vary from one group to another (for example, white students may be more likely to want to be in the majority).

Many of the elite colleges are largely homogeneous with respect to SES, with under 20% students from the lower half of the SES range, and probably intentionally so, in order to maintain desirability with employers that prefer to hire new graduates with high SES socialization (either from home or after four years of college in a high SES environment).

3379

Self-selection of people going into PhD programs and seeking faculty jobs is probably a big factor in partisan affiliation. For example, members of the underrepresented party tend to have negative views on college in general. In addition, they are more likely to have political views like creation “science” in biology or that slavery was not a major cause of the US civil war that are not generally considered credible in the face of overwhelming academic research. Also, those who prefer that the US be a “white” country may not want to be in an environment like college full of young Americans who are increasingly non-white.

3380

@milee30 Your point is all that I have been trying to say on this thread. I have been in my hometown for the last couple of days and passed my old neighborhood high school (I ended up going to a magnet school) and they had the names of about 5 students and their ACT scores on the schools display with the highest score being a 26. Those kids were being celebrated by my old neighborhood (and rightly so), but they will never get a sniff from an elite institution of higher learning. We talk about diversity, but my African American children have had more in common with their White and Asian classmates (besides the color of there skin) than the kids from my old neighborhood. We can talk about diversity in terms of being the color of someone’s skin, but it is so much more than that. True diversity includes diversity of ideas, along with diversity of different vantage points. The students in my old neighborhood would definitely bring about a different vantage point, but I have never ever heard of a single student attending a top 50 school for undergrad (although a few people have been accepted to some). I am not a pessimist, but a realist and I trust what my eyes have shown me my whole life. But I hope that I am wrong, and that things are better than what I see.