<p>If I were recruited for two sports at MIT, would that significantly help my application. (I have a 3.9 GPA and a 34 on my ACT)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t expect it to, no. Recruited athletes still need to get in just like normal applicants, and you probably couldn’t compete in both sports if you came here.</p>
<p>Depending on if the two sport’s seasons overlap or not, you can play two sports at MIT. I did briefly but quit one to concentrate on the other. </p>
<p>However, MIT does not recruit athletes in the usual sense. The coaches will encourage you to try for admittance, if they think you have a chance. But the coaches have no say in who gets in. Admittance is by your academic record only.</p>
<p>Let’s say that is true.</p>
<p>Then is it just a random occurrence that the football team has players at every position and never has an incoming class of all linemen or all wide receivers? The same question could be framed for other sports.</p>
<p>Clearly athletics is not a hook at MIT, as it is at the Ivies and many other schools. But isn’t it at least a tip?</p>
<p>The football team (or any other team at MIT) absolutely does not recruit for every single individual position on the team, and of course some people who join the team end up playing a different position than they did in high school – it may actually end up by random chance that a few classes are heavy on previous defensive players. But at a school of ~4000 students, it’s not that hard to find enough people to field a football team.</p>
<p>Athletics is useful at MIT in the way that being good at any EC is useful. But it is not as useful as it is at division I schools, including Ivy League schools.</p>
<p>I agree with your last paragraph. Not sure about the first one.</p>
<p>The basis for my comment is a review of the rosters posted on the MIT website. If you check incoming frosh…before their respective seasons have started…you see a distribution among positions that I would not expect from a completely random process.</p>
<p>What is the basis for your comment that the football coach does not recruit based on positional needs? Something printed or that he told you?</p>
<p>No, based on the admissions office’s comments on admission. I don’t mean that the coaches don’t recruit for specific positions, just that their recommendations don’t carry absolute weight with the admissions office – so MIT doesn’t admit for specific positions, even if the coaches search out talent in that way. The admissions office doesn’t much care if the football coach reeeeeeally needs a linebacker.</p>
<p>I am standing by my original position that athletics is a “tip” in the MIT admissions process</p>
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<p>Then maybe you’ll want to read this:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/1473244-cruel-process.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/1473244-cruel-process.html</a></p>
<p>Wow. That thread was kinda all over the place…and more abstract than specific.</p>
<p>I am not moved off my position by anything I read there. </p>
<p>Is athletics a hook in the admissions process? No. (I guess all the thread participants agree)</p>
<p>Is athletics meaningless in the admissions process? No. (I think most people agree)</p>
<p>Can athletics be a tipping factor in favor of an applicant? Yes (Here is where I am in a minority of one)</p>
<p>I guess I am in the minority in agreeing with you fenway</p>
<p>I can guess that the reason you don’t see an incoming freshman class of all wide receivers is because the football team doesn’t need that many wide receivers. Some players will change positions. Others will not make the team and other players will be recruited to play those positions that need help.</p>
<p>I played varsity sports at MIT (not football) and played a very different position in college than I did in high school. My second varsity sport, that I didn’t stick with at the varsity level, was a sport that I never would have imagined playing in high school but sounded like fun at MIT.</p>
<p>So, it isn’t a random process. But there is a reason.</p>
<p>Like Molly said, “Athletics is useful at MIT in the way that being good at any EC is useful. But it is not as useful as it is at division I schools, including Ivy League schools.”</p>
<p>In order to be good at a sport you need to be passionate, dedicated, and hard working. Those are all things that MIT likes to see in their applicants. But an applicant can show those traits in other types of EC’s. They are all looked at in the same light.</p>
<p>HPuck, I am reading your post to say that players will be recruited to play positions that need help. I agree with you. I think the only way this can even be contemplated is if athletics can tip an application between two otherwise equally qualified candidates. </p>
<p>The Admissions Office does not analyze teams’ depth charts. Coaches do. Coaches flag applications of recruited athletes. In the case of a tie between applicants’ credentials for admissions, athletics can and does provide a tipping factor.</p>
<p>I am always skeptical of coincidences, even though I know they happen. Soccer team always has a goalie, football team always has offensive tackles, baseball team always has pitchers. It would be a coincidence if these things happened without giving value to a coach’s flag. I am not buying into the possibility that if there is no offensive tackle that the coach will try to convert a running back or go scouting for some big guy in Chemistry Lab.</p>
<p>@Fenway</p>
<p>My view is this: They don’t compare apples to oranges. To me the admissions office would not compare an MIT varsity athlete next to a non-athlete or an athlete of another sport. Why? Because a coach may NEED players. He says I need 15 Football players give or take a few. The admissions office is going to try and admit those numbers simply because no matter the position, you still need bodies to field teams.</p>
<p>ATP, I can buy that, completely!</p>
<p>It still is not a hook, but under your scenario it may be even more of an advantage than what I have been calling a “tip”.</p>
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<p>I think the tip is bigger than that these days. It’s clear that athletic recruiting is nowhere the hook it is in the ivy league where admission is automatic with certain stats, but no one knows how much pull it has. We know that the Dean of Admissions, former rowing coxswain Stu Schmill, respects athletes and believes that the qualities which enable athletic success translate to other fields, even science. Also, it’s clear that MIT teams are really head-and-shoulders above where they were 15 years ago. There could be several reasons for this, but one of the obvious ones is that athletics is more of a hook than it used to be. However, even before it was a significant hook, 2/3 of the class had played at least one varsity sport in high school. So that’s a pool of 2500 people to potentially put on your athletic team.</p>
<p>There are several athletes on two sports at MIT, I believe 5 out of the 30 kids on the soccer team also run track so that isn’t an issue. From other forums that I have read, about 30% of recruited athletes are accepted. This shocked me at first, but then I realized a coach will only support students that he believes have a chance of being accepted. Anyway I was just wondering how much two sports helps my application as supposed to one sport</p>
<p>Where did you see that 30% of MIT recruited athletes are accepted. I’d be interested to see that.</p>
<p>MIT recruits. They must…because I find it really hard to believe that a dozen or so really smart boys who just happen to weigh 250+ meandered on to their offensive line by happenstance.</p>