<p>Another factor that adds value to a successful athlete is the rigidity of the schedule. A top grade violinist who practices 4 hours daily has some degree of flexibility. She can fit in a few clubs or other activities. Athletes are generally on a field, a court, or a bus traveling to a competition immediately after school every day and weekends as well. They have less control over their schedules than many other students do. It takes maturity to handle, and conflicts arise with other desirable activities.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>A top grade violinist who practices 4 hours daily has some degree of flexibility.<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>This assumes that the musician is some sort of lone wolf soloist. Most musicians that I know belong to marching bands or orchestras or other ensembles, in which case it means they spend a lot of time in rehearsal, practicing field shows, or on a bus traveling to a competition. I'll match the inflexible time commitment of a serious marching band performer to that of the a football player any day.</p>
<p>Most musicians would consider "serious marching band performer" an oxymoron. :)
(I was a marching band kid and agree it is a big time commitment).</p>
<p>Athletics owns you, though. It's a good thing in many respects, but it is a job.</p>
<p>You're right, coureur. I'm thinking of classical, jazzbands, and such. I've no knowledge of marching bands at all, but I've heard there are hours of daily practice, travel, and summer rehersal. Sounds like athletic type time commitment, but without the injury risk.</p>
<p>Shoshi, where are the kids being recruited for athletics? In the schools we have frequented, it is the opposite, but many kids in our school go for the top colleges. Even the athletes use their talents to get into more selective schools rather than going for scholarship money or a top sports program (possibility of going pro type). THey tend to go for the D-3 schools with very few going D-1, and then it would be Patriot or Ivy league level. Those are very rare with only a couple per graduating class even looking at all of the sports. When we lived in the midwest, there were far fewer ivy type prospects and more sports recruits, but they were not going for the ivy league schools but for scholarships from mainly local schools. Again very few top D-1 school, but this scenario also had even fewer kids using sports to get into a more selective school. It was all about money there. Many D-2 schools. And lower level D-1s. Not that many D-3s because the money wasn't there.</p>
<p>cpt, all Ivies and a few top LACS--even one that says it's not a sports oriented school. This is a competitive northeast prep school.</p>
<p>I still wonder how much of this is a "coastal" thing, having to do with feeder schools. I live in a state capital, with a population much more highly educated than the average, and the ONLY kids who ever get recruited for the Ivies, and virtually the only kids who get into HYP, are athletes. Doesn't matter what their GPAS, SATs, or other "extracurriculars" are. The difference, I think, is family income. The vast majority of these applicants from the middle/upper middle quintiles ($40k-$92k), and there are statistically very few students in these groupings, outside of athletes, attending HYP (and to a lesser extent, the rest of the Ivies.) </p>
<p>Put it another way: unless they are recruited athletes, they represent a "poor admissions value".</p>
<p>Mini, I live in a rural area where kids attend public schools that are surely not feeder schools to the Ivies. Also, most kids in this area come from either low income, middle income or upper middle income families, not wealthy families. While very few go on to Ivies, some do get in. And these kids are not necessarily athletes at all. I know a girl from our high school that just got into Brown who is not an athlete. I learned of another who got into Harvard who had been an athlete but due to injuries will never play again. I can think of some kids in the past who went on to Dartmouth, Brown, or Stanford who were not athletes. I can think of someone from this region who went to Yale and she is a theater kid (that was her main area and I believe she studied it at Yale too), though was a ski racer as well, but Yale only has a club team, not a varsity team in that sport. I can think of someone who even posts here from our state capital whose kid got into Brown and is not an athlete. True, we are on the east coast and you are in the west, but trust me that none of these high schools are remotely feeders to the Ivies! And many of these kids who have gotten in, while in sum are small in numbers, are not athletes.</p>
<p>Well, it just isn't true here. But, and this has to be included in the equation, on the whole, Ivies and prestige east coast LACs are not thought to be all that desirable out here. Yes, folks know about their cache. But the reality is that their alumni networks are small and circumscribed (Harvard Law will get you somewhere, but Harvard/Yale undergrad will likely breed mistrust), and since very few ever return home, they have virtually no track record in employment, etc. You do better with a degree from UW or WSU (or Brigham Young, or Gonzaga - that's where the Gov went - and, to a much lesser extent, Whitman), and this is exacerbated around game days. </p>
<p>The last two hires in my office were from Evergreen and Western Washington. Both had Ivy grads competing for the slots.</p>
<p>"I can think of some kids in the past who went on to Dartmouth, Brown, or Stanford who were not athletes."</p>
<p>Actually, in the case of these schools, I know a small few as well, but not HYP. We DID have a Yale non-athlete admit this past year, but I think he went to Chicago.</p>
<p>Mini,
I know that Harvard has a hard time attracting students from the Pacific NW. I wonder if what you observe is due to the fact that other than SAT/PSAT-related mailings that go out to tens of thousands of potential applicants and calls to some URMs (I know Harvard was making these to black students in 2005 because my S got that kind of call), athletes are the only students who get recruited to Ivies. Indeed, they get more personal attention than do any other category of students.</p>
<p>Where I live, most of the students who get into Ivies are not recruitable athletes. They may happen to be on a swim or soccer team, but they do that mainly for fun and stress relief. They aren't extraordinary athletes.</p>
<p>The one exception whom I know who was a recruitable athlete played football, was Native American with very high scores, but grades low for Ivies, and got into Dartmouth, but was rejected at Harvard.</p>
<p>Athletes are the only ones being "recruited" to Ivies out here, which doesn't mean others don't apply! While we have substantial numbers of Hispanic and Korean and Japanese-American students, there are very few Black or Native American students.</p>
<p>The other thing is that, for the few who do get admitted, it seems that quite a few (other than the athletes) turn down the offers. About five years ago, we had two non-athlete Harvard admits, and both went to BYU. As I said, the one Yale admit went (I think) to Chicago. No doubt these schools are thought generally speaking to be desirable, but if you want a career out here, they aren't necessarily the best move. There will be fewer internships, fewer alumni connections, and, coupled with high costs, folks tend to stay out here. (My two d.s are clearly exceptions, and at least one of them is quite clear that, if she can help it, she won't come back.)</p>
<p>But that has nothing to do with recruitment. Frankly, I have never heard of a non-athlete out here being recruited by an Ivy, ever. They might get in (rarely), but clearly they aren't recruited. "Poor admissions value", especially given that they (from what I can tell) are more likely to turn down the offers than from elsewhere.</p>
<p>"The other thing is that, for the few who do get admitted, it seems that quite a few (other than the athletes) turn down the offers. "</p>
<p>I have heard from corporate recruiters that it's very difficult to get Pacific Northwesteners to leave their lovely region. I wouldn't be surprised to find out the same thing is true when it comes to trying to pry Pacific Northwesterners away from their region to go elsewhere to college.</p>
<p>To my knowledge, none of the Ivy bound kids from my town are athletes. (Not many go Ivy anyway, so we're talking small numbers.) The two recent elite-caliber students who were also elite athletes attend MIT and Tufts, respectively.</p>
<p>At d's Catholic school, which is not a sports powerhouse, the two most celebrated athletes from the current senior class accepted Div1 scholarships. I know both are often mentioned in the school newsletter for academic achievements & happen to come from extremely wealthy families. I don't know if either applied to any Ivy, but their stats & leadership qualities would certainly fit the Ivy level as well as others I know who attend. Serious athletes often seek more competitive conferences than the Ivy provides. In the value/opportunity equation that considers either academics, athletics, or both, the Ivy doesn't always win.</p>
<p>D's h.s. had many Ivy admissions last year, but not many attended. It's a wealthy school, so perhaps paying $200,000 out of pocket was seen as a bad value to many of those families.</p>
<p>When I lived in the midwest many top students who would be ivy material here set their hats to schools like Michigan, NotreDame, Case Western, Carnegie Mellon U, Penn State. Those who did apply to ivy league schools did go to them if accepted, but many did not even apply. Also when you are in Cleveland, there is a tight Case Western business clique, that may be more influential there than the singular souls who graduated HPY. Not saying that HPY does not get homage and respect there, but the local schools have a strong group, and I could not tell which is more useful in doing business. Here on the east coast, where these top school are located, where most of the students originate and where the bulk of the appliant pool lives, HPY represents a Holy Grail of sorts, and Case Western and the rest of the mid west bunch are too often treated as safeties by the high flying crowd. </p>
<p>Wanted to share, that I saw a friend this weekend whose son is a football recruit. He has 5 schools that have sent early letters to him, all top schools. They are keeping it quiet because the top students in his school have been deferred from the same schools and they don't want it to become an issue. Now he is huge brute of a kid--6'4, 250lbs, plays a line position which is not a skill position. In his case, his size and strength are the factors that have gotten him accepted, along with his 1450 SAT and 3.8 average with college prep curriculum including a number of APs. It is a bittersweet issue in their home, as his brother was rejected from some of the same schools a few years ago with scores 100 points higher, a similar GPA from a more rigorous highschool, top of the line course difficulty. He was not an athlete. So there is no question that athletic skills and size can influence the decisions greatly. Not many kids have the physical attributes to play a D-1 football line, and even fewer have the mental prowress that the top schools require, even when they may be well under the averages for non athletic students. </p>
<p>Mini, at my kids' private school, the athletes who are accepted for college programs are largely the scholarship kids, particularly for football and basketball. Three of them have gotten early notification, and two are in a minority outreach program with full scholarship to highschool, and the other is also a full scholarship kid whose brother did go ivy as an athletic recruit. They will get financial aid, as all three went D-3. I can also tell you, that the kids here, not just in this private school, but from a number of surrounding public schools, blow away the kids in my old midwestern highschool that was always bragging how great they were and how talented the kids were. The difficulty of the classes alone and the number of kids in that difficulty level makes all but one or two of the top kids back there look anemic academically. Our AP calc class of over 30 kids has had 100% 5's on the the exam for a some years now. The very exclusive AP calc class back west averaged a 3.2 on the exam, and not everyone would take the test. How do you think an adcom would view two candidates, each from the respective school, the one here and the one in the midwest, each taking AP calc? You know that the probabilty of the NY kid getting a 5 and knowing the material well is close to 100% whereas the kid from the midwest....well, who knows where he really is in that subject. It was an eye opening experience for me.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse, I certainly hope he is heading to South Bend. Could you steer him in that direction, please?</p>
<p>"Mini, at my kids' private school, the athletes who are accepted for college programs are largely the scholarship kids, particularly for football and basketball. Three of them have gotten early notification, and two are in a minority outreach program with full scholarship to highschool, and the other is also a full scholarship kid whose brother did go ivy as an athletic recruit."</p>
<p>But the point is that while school may or may not ACCEPT students from anywhere, I still haven't heard significant examples of Ivies RECRUITING students who aren't athletes. And if this forum is any indication, if they occur, they are very, very rare (and, maybe, pretty much confined to URMs.)</p>
<p>The coaches are the ones doing the "recruiting" - not the schools themselves. They are going to want the best athlete they can get into the school for their team. They are recruiting to fill a need they have.</p>
<p>As for Ivies having to recruit students who aren't athletes - they really don't need to. They have more applicants than they need who are brilliant students.</p>
<p>Mini, I think I said in another post that few kids from our school are so skilled athletically that they can play D-1 level, including ivies. They tend to target the more selective D-3 schools or the lower playing level D-1s like the Patriot league. The only significant example of ivies recruiting that I know are among URMs who are very strong academically. We've had some very hot academic prospects who did get into ivies, were wanted by a number of top schools, but they were not recruited. </p>
<p>Stickershock, nope, he's all east coast. He is in his first choice school. Oddly enough, his size is still considered small for the line. His mother says they all mention beefing him up. His frame is big so it can take much more weight, but right now, he is small for a lineman even for D-3 colleges. That is how selective it gets even in a low skill position in sports. The size factor alone eliminates many prospects.</p>
<p>Well, since we have so few URMs, maybe it allows them to go after the athletes. </p>
<p>"As for Ivies having to recruit students who aren't athletes - they really don't need to. They have more applicants than they need who are brilliant students."</p>
<p>Exactly the point. They've got plenty of writers, actors, violinists, science fair winners, and 2400 SAT scores. What they really need are B+ students who weight 265 and can play defensive end, and their efforts in recruiting them prove it.</p>
<p>(Hey, it's their money, and they can do with it what they want.)</p>
<p>"The coaches are the ones doing the "recruiting" - not the schools themselves."</p>
<p>Isn't this a distinction without a difference? Aren't they the ones who are PAID by the school to arrange the "likely letters", invite the kids to campus in advance, and feed the school's institutional mission of having competitive sports be an important component of campus life, and have it contribute to alumni's "sense of belonging"?</p>
<p>If you go to the Parents Cafe section, there are always posts about school football teams, and basketball teams, and occasionally some others - but you never hear about alumni invested in the future quality of the college orchestra or literary magazine.</p>