Snarkly comments about athletic recruitment

Athletic Recruits
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<p>I don't know about the rest of you, but I need the equivalent of the "Say it here..." thread for our sub-forum. </p>

<p>Most people don't even know about about D's acceptance yet, just the schools she's considering, and the snide comments have already started:</p>

<p>"So, did your D manage to get A's this marking period?" Yeah, cause she's a dumb jock who never gets A's and is only getting into HYPS because she has two legs.</p>

<p>"I would NEVER go to HYPS for undergrad!" Good thing, because you'd never get in and neither would your lazy kid.</p>

<p>"You're so lucky your D has her sports to fall back on. My D really has to work to get in college." Right, because being in the top 15 nationally for her recruiting class while taking all honors and AP classes was SO easy to do.</p>

<p>"Well, if my kids were as naturally athletic as yours, they could have done just as well!" You're right; my D emerged from the womb being able to run a sub-5 minute mile. And how would you know how athletic your children are anyway? They quit sports when they were 10!</p>

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<p>Snarkly is a good word! Yes, I always like the “lucky” comment. I used to get it myself in high school for good grades. Annoyed the heck out of me. People don’t seem to realize that times have changed - “dumb” jocks don’t make it into Ivy League schools!</p>

3

<p>The worst I experienced was when another mom strongly implied that my S had taken her S’s spot at his first choice school (the Ivy my S attends), saying that they gave spots to kids with significantly lower GPA’s. My S’s GPA may have been slightly lower (how would I or she know???), but her S’s SAT couldn’t have been much higher than my S’s 1580/1600. There, now I’ve been snarky back - feel much better!</p>

<p>By the way, S says once in a while he still gets those kinds of comments as a student - e.g. other students will suggest that he only got in because he was a recruited athlete and can’t be very smart. The fact that he’s now a tutor helps to overcome that misconception.</p>

4

<p>I have noticed alot of misconceptions about student athletes, ivies etc…
even here at CC…
The dumb jock myth seems to still exist…
Many don’t realize how an athlete who takes all Honors, APs etc AND also does a sport 6 days a week yr round…is a very hard working kiddo!!</p>

<p>I was reading how some athletes at the ivies keep their student-athlete status kinda quiet from profs and others students beause of a bias against them…</p>

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<p>The bottom line—your son’s sports are REAL ec’s—not padded ECs that many kids have no intention of being involved with during or after college. </p>

<p>There was a girl on my son’s cc team. She was MISERABLE (both in attitude and performance.) She actively stated that ECs were the only reason she was there. This same girl was also involved in the local Genessaret (food for needy). She had the same sour attitude and again was only there for the EC on the college resume.</p>

6

<p>That is a good point. There are several kids on our students team–they hate it–and are only staying because they think it will open doors for them…
they have terrible times…so I doubt it will really help as a recruit–it will be an “EC” but they won’t be really recruitable…</p>

<p>I posted a thread about physical fitness and IQ–from an article…
and you should see some responses—ready to criticize “team sports”…puuulllease…</p>

<p>here is the link to the other thread</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/821703-physcial-education-sports-linked-academic-success.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/821703-physcial-education-sports-linked-academic-success.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

7

<p>Oh, how this OT made me laugh!! Both the “lucky” aspect, and my particular favorite: “I myself would never go to HYPS for undergraduate” - and I loved TheGFG’s snarky response - so funny, and SO true!!</p>

8

<p>Too bad I couldn’t really say those things; I need to be gracious and kind no matter how insulting they are. But wouldn’t it be fun to do that, watch their reaction, and then click RW on the remote like in the Adam Sandler movie, lol.</p>

9

<p>snide comments suck…after all the hard work young athletes go through, athletically and academically, it’s just wrong that anyone makes a snide comment, regardless of what school they are matriculating to.</p>

<p>in our community no one believes that athletes are less “smart” than non-athletes and often our athletes are the nms kids as well. And no one thinks the HYPS athletes are any less of a student than the non-athlete HYPS students. </p>

<p>But the “you took my spot” comment is common. This perception, which I imagine is partly true, that HYPS is only going to take so many kids from one school really bugs people.</p>

<p>My D got a lot of the “you took my spot” back-handed compliments but it really didn’t bother her, after all she’s going and they are not:) or won’t know until March.</p>

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<p>About the “you took my spot” stuff: I’ve seen recruited athletes make their Ivy or highly selective schools choices very clear to their classmates, as early as possible. I’ve never been sure which (if any) colleges have quotas for each high school, but classmates of kids who knew that some spots at these schools had already been claimed by athletes knew to direct their attention and applications to schools that hadn’t been impacted by the athletes. </p>

<p>I thought this was a pretty compassionate way to handle things. The athletes were perceived as “getting it” and rather than being vilified, were praised for sharing the information, and maximizing the school’s acceptance rate at selective schools for all students.</p>

<p>Aside: Prepare for many years defending your child’s attendance at a selective school as an athlete. I’m at peace with my soph Ivy athlete when I see her grades and the effort she puts in to her classes, on top of her practice and travel schedule. It was a good match for everyone involved. These schools value athletics along with intellect. Some of your neighbors aren’t going to understand that. GFG, good for you for venting here.</p>

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<p>Even my brother asked if I thought D2 could handle the workload at her elite LAC. </p>

<p>She’s doing very well there, thank you.</p>

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<p>D told me that a classmate announced she’s definitely going to get into a certain Ivy because her dad works there. The kid never took a single honors or AP class. I was skeptical, but D reminded me that her older brother had gotten in. He ended up partying too much and being asked to leave. No one seems to get as upset about those cases as they do about athletes.</p>

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<p>revised: in my community the state schools are perceived as easy for athletes to get in to; u-mich, uva, cal, ucla, etc…because it’s true (it’s also true that excellent scholar athletes are recruited to state schools). so i must confess i dropped a stat here and there among friends and family last spring in anticipation of D being recruited…i couldn’t stand the thought of her hearing that she got in because of her sport, not after she worked so hard academically and scoring so high on the SAT.</p>

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<p>finally read the thread. </p>

<p>“from the womb running a sub 5 minute mile” </p>

<p>u r too funny! i love reading your posts…they r hilarious! thx!</p>

<p>i hope your D gets an offer from that “other” school…for a scholar-athlete i don’t think there is a more privileged place, not for an athlete!</p>

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<p>“About the “you took my spot” stuff: I’ve seen recruited athletes make their Ivy or highly selective schools choices very clear to their classmates, as early as possible. I’ve never been sure which (if any) colleges have quotas for each high school, but classmates of kids who knew that some spots at these schools had already been claimed by athletes knew to direct their attention and applications to schools that hadn’t been impacted by the athletes.”</p>

<p>There really is no quota system at S’s high school - e.g. multiple kids are fortunate enough to be admitted to each of the Ivy’s and other top 10 schools each year, so there is not a real issue of “taking another’s spot.” Rather, it’s just whether or not you happen to offer what the college is looking for at that point. As you might imagine, it’s a highly competitive high school and it’s pretty well known who got in where, early in the process. </p>

<p>I think the issue is that some parents and applicants try to reduce the admissions process to a simple equation, assuming that 10 extra SAT points or .2 extra points on the GPA will trump an applicant who has slightly lower scores. For these highly selective schools, the differences often aren’t in marginal differences in SAT’s or GPA’s, but in what else you have to offer the school.</p>

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<p>Runners, I wonder about a state with a low population (lets call it “Boondocks”) that doesn’t send many kids to Ivies/selective schools. For example, if Brown is only really looking for one or two kids from Boondocks (because, and maybe rightly so, they think there are only a couple who are truly qualified and want Brown or something similar) and the word on the street is that a recruited athlete from Boondocks is going to Brown, the other Ivy-qualified students might be thinking about ED to Dartmouth instead, rather than risking Brown admissions saying, “wait, didn’t we alread admit a kid from Boondocks?” This is the thinking around here, maybe misguidedly. I agree, if the non-athlete is a nationally recognized cellist, they may be admitted right along with the athlete. Short of that, not sure…</p>

<p>yours truly,
riverrunner from Boondocks</p>

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<p>My family has managed to avoid most of the snarky comments, and most of my son’s schoolmates and parents of schoolmates have been truly happy for him and felt it was well deserved.</p>

<p>On the other hand, the snarky comments mainly come from those parents who are more invested in the college application process and are more competitive with respect to their high achieving child.</p>

<p>Several months ago, one acquaintance who has a child who is also a senior asked about how my S’s application process was going. Her child was a stellar student, NMF etc. and applying to schools like HYP etc. She wasn’t very aware of the process for athletes and didn’t really know that my S was trying to be recruited etc.</p>

<p>When I told her that we were ‘one and done’ essentially, that he was already into his top choice etc, all I heard was how ‘lucky’ we were we didn’t have to go through this whole process.</p>

<p>I then explained to her how during his junior year, on top of keeping good grades, going to practice, traveling for games and showcases etc., he had to go about making many ‘cold’ emails to coaches trying to get their attention so they would watch him play.</p>

<p>It truly was another EC merely to keep up with all of this and keeping the coaches updated on his progress.</p>

<p>And then to watch the ‘ups and downs’ of the process last over the entire spring of his junior year. Windows would open, only to close again. It wasn’t just a week of notification; it was literally the entire junior year, and especially spring semester.</p>

<p>And I think for many of us who have kids who are great students and great athletes, there is a tension between ‘top academic school’ and ‘playing your sport’. So if the ‘top academic’ schools don’t want you on the team, do you go to a lesser academic school to play? Or do you think about giving up your sport or playing at a high level so you can go to that top academic school?</p>

<p>Since this was the first experience for me, at some point, given that there were so many disappointments coming over the course of several months, there were times in which I thought it would have been so much easier to just be that top student, try not to get recruited, and just fill out the applications in the fall and wait until notification day in the spring (or in December if we did early action).</p>

<p>So although it worked out fantastically at the end, it really wasn’t that much easier for him to be admitted to a top school. More work, in fact.</p>

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<p>Hi River,</p>

<p>Your speculation about how the tippy-top schools look at kids from the “boondocks” may be absolutely right on, in terms of having room for one or possibly two students from a less populated area, but perhaps not more. If the h.s. hasn’t “proven itself” to admissions through previously recruited students, maybe the college is less likely to take a risk on admitting multiple students? I don’t know.</p>

<p>I was just pointing out that our S’s experience was very different and the mother who thought he might have taken her S’s “spot” (as though it was reserved?) was misguided in my opinion. The high school these 2 boys went to is at the other end of the spectrum - it’s well known to the admissions reps and sends many kids each year to each of the top schools (maybe 15 to Princeton, 15 to MIT, 4 to Harvard, 20 to Duke, etc. throughout the list). So in this case, there are multiple potential spots if the college wants to offer them - my athlete S only might have taken a spot from another recruit for his specific sport. Otherwise, I think they’d be looking at different kids for different reasons.</p>

<p>That’s what makes it all so interesting, I think - heaven forbid they were all carbon copies of each other and offering only the exact same things. If they could only be differentiated by .02 points on a GPA or 10 points on an SAT, it wouldnt make for a very interesting campus!</p>

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<p>Speaking of being recruited from the boondocks:</p>

<p>[Montana</a> power forward prospect Josh Huestis is likely heading to Stanford or Harvard - ESPN](<a href=“J.P. Crawford hits sacrifice fly in 10th inning to lift Mariners past Astros, 2-1 - ESPN”>Montana power forward prospect Josh Huestis is likely heading to Stanford or Harvard - ESPN)</p>

<p>Oh, he chose Stanford BTW.</p>

<p><a href=“http://mslacat.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2009/10/22/espn-huestis-top-4-harvard-stanford-montana-and-montana-state/[/url]”>http://mslacat.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2009/10/22/espn-huestis-top-4-harvard-stanford-montana-and-montana-state/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Just realized he’s a URM also. Wow. That’s like getting hit by lightning in Montana.</p>

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<p>^^ kids like Josh are holding 4 aces.</p>