<p>Hey, I was wondering how much influence being recruited has in admissions. Im being recruited to row by MIT, so i was curious.</p>
<p>since MIT is division III NCAA, they're not allowed to accept unreasonably unqualified students solely based on their athletic abilities or give athletic scholarships.
that said, being recruited won't guarantee your admission, but you're much more likely to get accepted than a student who is not being recruited. being recruited means someone in the school (coach) is actually putting in a word to the admission committee that he wants you there.</p>
<p>actually, crew is MITs only Division 1 sport, if that makes a difference</p>
<p>I don't have any inside knowledge of MIT's admissions policies, but a fairly influential book "Reclaiming the Game," by William Bowen looked at this question. One of the findings was that recruited athletes at the Ivies and NESCAC schools gained a huge admissions advantage. MIT's policies (along with Chicago, Emory, Carnegie Mellon, WashU and a few others) were much more balanced. </p>
<p>At MIT, I think that an underqualified candidate who's recruited probably doesn't have a very good chance for admission. But being recruited can help set you apart from other well-qualified applicants, and in a pool like MITs, that can be a huge advantage, even if it's nowhere near the boost you'd get at an Ivy. In fairness, both Ivies and NESCAC schools have taken some preliminary steps to address some of the excesses, largely in response to Bowen's data.</p>
<p>It is my understanding that depending on the school and size of the team, coaches will have 1 or 2 "pulls" in admissions. The athlete's grades, scores, and ECs need to be in the range for the school.</p>
<p>if mit crew's divison 1, then being recruited could give you more brownie points than the team being in division 3.
but yeah you should keep in mind that it gives you an extra boost only if you have comparable stats to other well qualified applicants. if you're not qualified academically, being a super athlete doesn't really mean much in admissions. plus, the coach won't like you anymore since he has to worry about you being eligible and what not.
just to give an example, a friend of mine few years ago was recruited to arizona state university's football program (division 1-A, Pac-10) under the condition that he gets a B or better in his math class. although he was a great athlete, he still had to be reasonably qualified.</p>
<p>Almostdone,</p>
<p>I pulled out a quote from Bowen, "Reclaiming the Game," so that you can get a sense of where MIT stands in the recruiting spectrum. It's definitely at one extreme, and you may find that the relationship between academics and athletics there is a real postive for you, even if it doesn't give you as much help as you'd like during the admissions phase of the process. Anyway, here's the quote:</p>
<p>
[quote]
at MIT . . . there is very little recruitment of athletes, there is no recruiting budget, and there is only the most tenuous link between admissions and athletics. </p>
<p>The athletic deparment at MIT has a card that goes in the admissions packet to identify athletes, and coaches are able to follow up on students who look promising. Coaches also send lists of candidates to admissions. . . . One MIT coach who was at a NESCAC college prviously said that, whereas at the NESCAC college she would get her top recruits (presuming that they were reasonable candidates academically), at MIT she is not even sure that submitting recommendations is a good use of her time.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>my stats are within range but not enough alone to get me in. thats depressing, but thanks</p>
<p>ad, didn't mean to be discouraging, you still have plenty going for you:</p>
<p>--crew is DI which may make it slightly different
--crew relies on a lot of walk-ons, which makes a recruited athlete rare in that sport
--crew is one of the few sports where the students tend to overperform, rather than underperform academically
--and if you have one of those cards and a note from the coach in your folder, it could be enough to set you apart from similarly qualified applicants, even if you don't get the kind of bump you'd get at some other schools (just for some perspective, we're talking about students getting into the Ivies/NESCAC with average SAT scores, in some cases, hundreds of points below the mean)</p>
<p>What are your stats, exactly? At least academic record and test scores...?</p>
<p>well i got 2120 on the sat with 750 CR, 680 math and 690 writing. i also got 730 on the SAT II math. according to the statistics, like 1 in 4 people there got lower than me. aaand my grades are good with mad IB and AP courses.</p>
<p>Another encouraging word for almostdone:</p>
<p>Remember that the deemphasis on athletic tips at MIT cuts both ways. At some similarly selective schools, there would be a significant number of recruited athletes occupying "slots" in the bottom 25% of the admitted class. That's much less the case at MIT, so one way of thinking about it is that the competition for the seats in that part of the admitted class is more open than it is at other places. </p>
<p>The MIT football schedule says a lot. They play the likes of Framingham State, Plymouth State, and Endicott College. . . . I could almost become a fan of football like that--I bet the run some <em>really</em> complicated plays!</p>