<p>
[quote]
I was just trying to figure out how all of the numbers fit together
[/quote]
</p>
<p>My fault. I had both the "acceptance letter" and "deposit letter" articles open at the same time. A lot of times schools will give you one tidbit in one and another in the second article that lets you figure out a number the college doesn't typically release. For example, looking at both articles let me figure out that Williams acceptance rate for internationals was 6.9%.</p>
<p>"An athlete from my town with SAT well below 1300 was accepted by Williams just this year"</p>
<p>Do people with well below 1300 scores go around telling people that fact and if so I wonder why? I didn't say it can not happen just that it is very uncommon and no more prevelent at Williams than any other NESCAC school. You can also assume that schools like Stanford go even lower to gain national status teams in division I. Balance in all things.</p>
<p>you're telling us that nescac schools like Trinity or Conn Coll
etc won't go below 1300 for a recruit? The average SAT score
at Trinity can't be much more than 1350 and a Conn they
mostly use Subject Test scores. Where is your info coming
from?</p>
<p>I am saying that so called "low band admits" are a source of great focus at Williams Amherst and the like as they strive to balance their academic standing with athletics. There are some Williams critics and alums that feel there is too much athletic focus. Nine straight Directors Cups seems to reinforce the notion that athletics are very important there. All I am saying is there is very little in the way of lowering admission standards to gain competitive advantage, and in fact the rules prohibit it.</p>
<p>Its not surprising that an athlete with sub-1300 scores was accepted. After all, 25 percent of all Williams students have 1340 (V+M) scores or below. I always find it interesting that these discussions single out athletes, while mysteriously ignoring the advantages given to legacies in the admissions process.</p>
<p>
[quote]
you're telling us that nescac schools like Trinity or Conn Coll etc won't go below 1300 for a recruit?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Speedo:</p>
<p>The way the Ivy Leagues and elite Div III LACs deal with low-band admits is to set their parameters based on "standard deviations" below the school's average academic qualifications. Each school will take "x" number one band below average, "y" number two deviation bands below average, and "z" number three deviation bands below average. That's why the schools refer to "low-band" admits.</p>
<p>Conn's "low-band" is lower than Williams' low-band, at least in theory. But, it's not as simple as just SAT scores. You could have kids with lousy SATs and a high GPA, an underperformaing GPA and high test scores, and middling performance on both -- and all might fall in the same "band".</p>
<p>These types of colleges recruit athletes heavily from the prep schools and affluent suburban high schools. So it's pretty common for low-band admits to have very high SAT scores (rich parents) and poor, underperforming academic transcripts. Without an athletic hook, that kind of applicant would be dead in the water in elite college admissions -- the worst combo.</p>
<p>A legacy (at least one without a family name on buildings) would never get accepted to Williams with 1340 SATs. There are no low-band "tip" admits for legacies. They've got to be at least in "protect" territory...probably above protect territory.</p>
<p>Your statements are purely speculative... As you've never spent any time in the Williams admissions office, your claim is totally without merit.. and probably false.</p>
<p>I'm done with this discourse.</p>
<p>Well where we live (long island, NY) I don't know anyone who has gotten into Williams without being an athletic ED admit. (I;m sure there are some smart kids from long island who got in, but we don't know any) This year I know of 3 kids who were admitted swimming, tennis and lacrosse from different schools, none of which their parents said would have gotten in on their own merit. Only 1 kid has gotten into Williams from our school in the last 8years that our GC could find and he was a lacrosse recruit (but bright kid). This yr in my D's class both the Val and Sal got rejected, both with SAT's >2200, one an athlete but didn't go for the athletic tip (he was hoping for another IVY). Just for reference, the top 5 kids usually get into Harvard, MIT, Columbia, UPenn, etc, not Brown, Princeton, Williams or Amherst, or Tufts for some reason, so no surprise. My husband and I have given up on Williams for any of our kids. Upset us that when visiting the Williams, the Adcoms tell you how important it is to visit, have EC's, blah, blah, blah yet what we see is that the only kids around here that get in were athletic tips. Same around here for Brown, they also haven't taken anyone in years, only kid this yr who got in from our school is playing lacrosse, was told last summer, not even in top 10% of the class, avg sat's, nice kid though. I guess nothing changed, same way 30 yrs ago when I graduated from H.S. My daughter was prepared and is happy, but we made sure she loved at least one of her safeties.</p>
<p>One thing to keep in mind when you hear about someone with a low SAT score who gets into a school like Williams is that he may have taken the ACT and gotten a more competitive score. I know it is the case with athletes from my kids' school that if they can't get the SAT score they need for a certain school (in many cases a D1 school with a strict lower cutoff), they take the ACT. Word may still get around about how they got in with a certain really low SAT score (makes for more outrage when telling the story), when in fact, it was a somewhat higher ACT score that allowed them to get in.</p>
<p>I have finally decided to join this discussion. My son has just about perfect SAT scores, was ranked number 1 in his class of over 600, has played 2 varsity sports, spent last summer doing scientific research at Columbia University, has glowing recommendations and was waitlisted. This has always been his first choice of schools and he regrets not applying early decision. He didn't apply early decision because he was also trying for merit scholarships at less competitive schools. Now he has one of those scholarships but is still hoping to get called off the waitlist.</p>
<p>rrrsmom - I hope your son has conveyed his continued strong interest to the admissions office. He may be one of those kids that admissions assumed would have lots of choices and choose to go elsewhere, so it could help him to let admissions know that Williams is his first choice. Best of luck to him.</p>
<p>My S is from affluent suburban LI HS, admittedly Suffolk, not Nassau, and was admitted to Williams without any athletics whatsoever. He never met a ball he liked, nor does he like anything that involves scores. He is incredibly fit, though, though his application certainly couldn't reveal that.</p>
<p>He did not quite break 2200, though he did get 34 on the ACT. Two other kids from his school have gone to Williams and a kid from the neighboring school was accepted without any athletic EC's at all. She was rejected from Amherst but accepted at Swat and Haverford.</p>
<p>Data point: S was accepted at UofC and off the wait list at Brown but rejected at Dartmouth. Also accepted at Wesleyan and Vassar, wait listed at Amherst but did not accept spot so we don't know if acceptance would have been forthcoming.</p>
<p>He loves it at Williams; was his first choice school. He does not feel overwhelmed by the athletic atmosphere at all, and his friends are not athletes and there are many guys who aren't.</p>
<p>He has found a group of like minded kids.</p>
<p>He did get into the Williams-Amherst football game but that was the extent of his sports consciousness except for the broom ball league he was in. (They go to the ice rink at night in their sneakers and take a stick with a rubber end and shove a puck around. They fall and slide and it's a yak.)</p>
<p>So I don't think it is true at all that Williams just selected for athletes. They look for kids who are going to add to the community. The kids are very smart, but more importantly, they are very participatory, which S definitely is, just not in sports.</p>
<p>mythmom I was not trying to imply that my son's atheletic ability should have opened the doors for him. He was hoping to be able to play club sports, not varsity, but also to finally have the opportunity to get involved in many other things like writing for example, for the newspaper, clubs that he did not have the time to join because of hs sports.</p>
<p>I am familar with the way the system works at another top
five LAC but I don't know about nescac. At School X, the
team receives a printout after the initial app review that
indicates at what level the candidate is. Sure admits, probables
possibles and denies. The coach has half a dozen or so "tips"
for the probables only a couple for the "possibles" and of course
doesn't waste any on the others. The "tips" on the possibles
are almost always used ED, and the goal is to bring in as many
recruits as possible ED. But at school X, the coach has no input
into the "banding", there is no SAT score limit as has been
suggested on this thread for nescac. Sometimes a kid who
looks like a sure bet gets straight rejected - there may already
be too many admits from his/her particular school, or a kid
with 1200's in the SAT and not particularly good grades is marked
as a sure admit - often a urm. So the coach has to take every
kid seriously at least till the printout comes back.</p>
<p>I was interested in the process at nescac, although I suspect it
may be different at all the schools.</p>
<p>rrrsmom: I was not answering you, but a poster on a previous page who said that no one from LI gets into Williams unless they're an athlete.</p>
<p>Your situation is frustrating and you have my full support and crossed fingers. Your S sounds amazing. How you contacted your regional rep? I think that's the only way to make any impact getting off wait lists.</p>
<p>I know that kids get in that are not athletic tips but what I said was that I have yet to meet someone from our area that got into Williams for another reason and this is not unique as I said for Williams in our area. Sports on the north shore of Long Island are well known by these schools. Kids like my D who is val., great SATS, music EC galore, science research at a prestigious institute doesn't offer anything above like diversity or sports. These top LAC's and IVIES have too many applicants like my D from this area, so competition is tough. It is heartbreaking as a parent to see a great kid, who has done everything right still get rejected from a school she liked. Luckily, the kids do better than the parents in taking the rejections. As I said, we have witnessed this so much in our area, that my D was well prepared and only applied to the top schools she could see herself at, and whatever happens, happens. She is happily going to a great school, with lots of merit money! To the kids, keep up the great work, don't take college admission results personally.</p>
<p>Chech here for admission guidelines for athletes and others.</p>
<p>Academic</a> Ranks EphBlog</p>
<p>Purplegirl you eloquently describe the inherent difficulties of getting one of the precious few spots at an elite LAC, or Ivy. For my first child we knew that Ivy or Little Ivy was a long shot. Like any parent I think that child 1 would have fit in and flourished at any school except maybe Cal Tech or MIT. A good athlete, but not good enough, a good student, but not good enough. No legacy at any rarified institution and yet not first generation (we have advanced degrees but from state schools). No buildings at any schools with our name on them. Child 1 applied early decision (to increase the odds) to a top ranked flagship state and is very happy. Child two, a recruited athlete, 2240, 4.4 weighted, and happy as a clam at Williams. I would like to think that child two would have been accepted without athletics but who knows. In our public high school in an affluent town near NYC the stats are more or less what you describe. Mostly athletes, but not exclusively, who are also great students get in the "best" schools. And it is only going to get tougher. When they take a limited number of students from a particular geographic, there are legacies that are well qualified at the private schools, maybe also athletes, or artists, or oboe players, maybe development candidates, or big donors. As the schools increase their reach to first generation students, URM candidates (programs like Questbridge), foreign students, economically disadvantaged, the spots get harder to acquire, and it seems that change is permanent. Our high school admits behind closed doors that they have no real clout in the admission process. What clout they have they guard jealously. They limit access to AP classes, to sports teams, performing arts (it is a school of 3000 but only has the same number of spots in these types of endeavors that a typical school of 1500 would have, they operate it as a number of divisions with 5 times the number of administrators and support staff but no increase in the number of opportunities for the students). I guess what I wanted to say was I do not think that schools like Williams are being disingenuous. The demand is overwhelming and increasingly so in a global society.</p>
<p>Folks, the reason it "feels" like only athletes are accepted to Williams from affluent white neighborhoods is simple: demographics.</p>
<p>First, only 60 of each 100 freshmen at Williams are white, US citizens.</p>
<p>Second, about 30 of each 100 freshmen at Williams are recruited athletes ("likely 4-year varsity athletes at Williams).</p>
<p>Third, recruited athletes at elite DIV III colleges are almost exclusively white and mostly from affluent prep and high schools</p>
<p>Combine these three bits of demographics together (60 whites, 30 athletes almost all white) and you can see that close to 1 out of ever 2 white freshmen at Williams is a recruited athlete. Factor in the gender imbalance from ice hockey and football and it's even more striking for men. More than 1 out of every 2 white male freshmen at Williams is a recruited athlete.</p>
<p>So, if you are a white, non-athlete, from the northeast that is already so over-represented, you can see how it feels like slim pickins.</p>