<p>but the award winning math student that gets in inspite of a weak cr score doesnt get victimized?</p>
<p>It has been said that everyone at Yale sings well/plays some sort of musical instrument. So do musicians have an advantage in the admission process?</p>
<p>"ivy league sports are really not that impressive, except for Hockey."</p>
<p>I disagree. For instance, at Yale both the men's and women's soccer teams made it into the D-1 NCAA tournament and the women made it to the round of 16.</p>
<p>Cityknight--First of all, being a math prodigy who is a bit weak on CR SAT falls well within a college's role as an academic institution. Being an athlete does not.</p>
<p>That being said, you seem to misunderstand the bone that I and many others have to pick with athletic recruitment. I certainly think that a great athlete, who is passionate about sports and has worked very hard at them, should have that play significantly in his/her favor in college admissions, just like someone who is very talented at something else non-academic like music, drama, dancing, etc. (science and math don't count there--they are very much so academic! Music can fall under that umbrella as well, actually, as evidenced by the fact that Yale and most other good schools have music majors...). But an athlete is certainly NOT treated the same way as, say, an actor is. Read this article from the Crimson on Ivy athletic recruitment:</p>
<p>You definitely do NOT have to be particularly intelligent to get into a school like Yale if you can throw a ball well enough. The idea--as I've heard in this thread a bit--that any recruited athlete who gets in is academically deserving as well is utter bull. In a lot of cases it is true but that certainly isn't always the case. For what else besides athletics will an Ivy League school accept someone with an 1100 SAT who barely made top 30% in the class? I'm all for rewarding hard work in a given subject but the level of standards dropped for athletes is simply ridiculous.</p>
<p>By the way, please don't generalize that anyone here arguing against athletic recruitment is a pasty nerd who can't get girls and is angry because they get beaten up by the jocks...</p>
<p>And Iverson was recruited out of prison - no joke. Georgetown should be ashamed that they did that.</p>
<p>I recently heard a Yale history professor say that a full one-sixth of Yale students is made up of recruited athletes. That's a pretty hefty % of the student body. And the Nescacs (Williams, Amherst, Middlebury, etc.) are even higher on a percentage basis because of their small class size. Personally, I think that the number of recruits given the sports in the Ivy League are too high. Football at Yale gets about 30 official recruits per year (reduced from 35 a few years ago). I'd like to see a smaller number, say 10 or 15 per year, with an effort to encourage walk-on players for the remaining slots on the team. Then the admissions office could make more slots open to reasonably good players who are stronger students/desirable to have in the class for other reasons. The Nescac schools, because of their class size, do something like that. Middlebury, for example, typically has 25 freshmen on their football team of whom 10-12 are on the recruit list given by the coaches to the admissions office. The other half of the freshmen on the team got in on their own.</p>
<p>the fact that columbia's football team gets owned in the ivy league all the time is a def downside...</p>
<p>the amount of time you all waste bickering about this shows that you don't deserve to go to yale anyways.</p>
<p>the stuff about nerds and people with no atheletic ability and being jealous is ridiculous. i cant believe so many people actually posted here.</p>
<p>ibnzrokr0055. I'm no nerd who doesn't deserve to go to Yale. I'm a Yale graduate who played football there. We didn't get a preference to anything like the degree that the recruited players do today, we had 120 freshman try out for the freshman team, and we had maybe 20 guys who played for the full 4 years. And - at least one season I was there - we were nationally ranked. I think going in the direction of having recruited players playing/lifting/training virtually year around (with a very few walkons) to maintain the illusion that they can play with the big boys these days is a mistake - and self-defeating. They would be far better off offering a league of more qualified student-players who played because they enjoyed the game.</p>
<p>jimbob1225 Wrote: "Also, isn't a college campus supposed to be a little diverse in terms of talents? Like, MIT is after all a technology-oriented/science-oriented place, but they have been making efforts to accept humanities/liberal arts majors."</p>
<p>Is this true? Where did you hear this?</p>
<p>It would be much better if the Ivies and little Ivies had athletic scholarships, like Duke. Then recruited students would have to play or lose their athletic scholarships (we are not talking need based scholarships). As it is, Yale and other Ivies recruit many more athletes than they need since most of them never play or only play for a year - once they are accepted they do not have to play and there is no scholarship enticing them to play. So, the school has to accept many, many athletes, more than they need. A book was written about this. A student I know had 1300 SATs and had two top Ivies fighting over him, and he played a sport that no one even goes to watch. I don't get it - I undertsand football, basketball and the sports that give a rah-rah campus feeling that creates campus spirit, but why give so much weight to students who do sports that no one even watches? I think the animosity toward athletic recruits is that there are so many of them and not very many are good enough to actually go pro or be in the Olympics or anything major, whereas talented artists, musicians, etc may well go on to make a name for themselves and have a future in their respective discipline. Obviously there are exceptions and athletes who do go pro.</p>
<p>Catherine--The merits of that idea aside, it has it downsides that people would NEVER stop harping on. For example, giving athletes scholarships but not scientists or musicians will NOT make people happy :p</p>
<p>As a student athlete accepted early into another ivy who has just gone through this process, I will give people my take on this. </p>
<ol>
<li>Most student athletes do not get as much preferential treatment as you might think. With the exception of a handful of star football and basketball players, the student athletes at ivys are definitely competitive students. This is not to say they all would have gotten in if they hadn't played a sport, most probably wouldn't, but by and large these are very good students. When I went around to coaches they all were cery concerned about the transcripts of me and my athletic peers, it is not like they can just get anyone in and don't have to worry about it. A big part of a college coach's job is getting students admitted. At a D1 top 25 bball and football school, this means finding kids who aren't felons and who have 2+ GPAs. At an ivy, this means finding kids with SAT scores that fit into the school's range and who have had competitive grades, ECs and other qualities. The coaches really do have to convince schools to admit students and fight for their admits, they do not have a blank check. Sure, if you want to find a couple of star players with sub par grades you can, but those are exceptions. </li>
</ol>
<p>Coaches also look at all their recruits to find kids who fit into the team and the campus community. The majority of coaches I met were very concerned with the team bond, and not just to help them win games. They want students who can contribute off the field, most coaches I met were proud members of their school (a good amount of coaches were alums) and wanted their team to be well thought of and maintain good sportsmanship, etc. If you think coaches just care about how a player will perform on the field, that is incorrect by a mile. </p>
<p>If I hadn't had 1400+ SATs (old one, lol), competitive grades from a good private school, and hadn't been generally a good person who fit in with the team and didn't have anything to contribute off the field, I defiintely would not have gotten in. </p>
<ol>
<li>Ivy league schools do not want to have one dimensional student bodies. Just as they look for students who are involved in ECs and who have shown talent and motivation in academic pursuits outside the classroom, they want a student body with multiple fortes. There are strengths that athletes have which some 2300+ 3.9 students don't have. Being a competitive athlete requires determination, discipline and many athletes develop leadership skills which many one dimensional academic students dont have. There are lots of redeeming qualities to the athletes the schools admit. As I covered in point 1, the kids getting recruited are more than just pure athletes. </li>
</ol>
<p>If you think that the kids getting recruited are just like the other students but not as smart, this is also plain wrong. And if you don't recognize why a school like Yale might want to admit kids with the qualities common in athletes, again, figure it out. </p>
<ol>
<li>School spirit matters a lot. First, athletes are usually popular people while on campus and do help the community. This does make a difference. Second, alumni are extremely, extremely important to schools. Yale could not buy all its fancy stuff without successful, wealthy, and proud alums. A good football team makes alums happy. Sure, Yale isn't about to get a TV contract to makes its teams profitable but a lot alums get pretty excited by the yale harvard bowl. That matters a lot. </li>
</ol>
<p>Ex-athletes also make good alums. A lot of athletes from ivys go on to have very successful careers in business, partly because of the connections they make while there but also because of the personal, leadership and discipline skills they learned while being athletes. I don't have any statistics and am making a judgement call, but I would be willing to bet that out of all subgroups ex athletes are the best alums. I have met a good deal of alums, both ex athlete and non, and those who were athletes and who enjoy their school's sports are usually very proud and generous alums. I don't see how I could be wrong here. </p>
<p>To sum it up, good sports programs make for a happier alum group. This is great for schools. </p>
<p>I will write more and respond later, I have to go now.</p>
<p>Good post, newedition.</p>
<p>ibnzrokr0055: The reason why everyone's posting on here is because we're all nervous as all get out about getting in. It's a natural human reaction to lash out at any group with perceived advantages over the rest of us (urms, legacies, athletes, etc..). I'm not saying this is right, I'm just staying everyone's stressed and probably cares a lot more about athletic recruitment now then they ever have before or ever will again after May 1st</p>
<p>Here is how Yale (and probably other elite schools) handles athletic recruitment. Each coach gets a certain number of spots every year for his/her team. Every athlete who applies is assigned a rating based on their academic credentials, and the coach is only allowed to take a specified number from the lower-rated pool. For instance, the soccer coach might be allowed to take one student from the third-rated academic category, three from the second-rated, and four from the top-rated. Or whatever. In other words, the coaches aren't allowed to fill their teams with no regard whatsoever for academic quality.</p>
<p>For what it's worth, my D, a Yale student and non-athlete, is strongly in favor of the athletic presence on campus. The many athletes she has met, she says, are all extremely smart and disciplined. She points out that they manage to keep up with their school work while still having to spend many hours in practice and missing classes to go to games.</p>