Student athletes at ivy leagues

Is anyone else tired of seeing athletes recruited by the ivies with extremely low scores and grades?

“with extremely low scores and grades?”

What’s “extremely low”? and how were you privy to such info?

I have no issue with it (and neither of my kids was an athlete). You can just as easily complain about legacy or student with any other type of hook.

Colleges want to create class that fills the needs of the university. Ivy League schools want to have competitive football, basketball etc. teams as they help raise school spirit, donations etc. Recruited athletes have a talent that the college wants and the athletes have worked very hard to hone their skills to a high level. In addition, although they are typically below the standards for the school,recruited Ivy League athletes (at least the ones I know) don’t have “extremely low scores.” Ivy League colleges do want student-athletes that can graduate from the university.

Extremely low? like a 3.8 and 32 ACT score?

A 3.7 W GPA and 28 ACT

And how often are those happening?^^^

Based on AI, I think it’s happening a lot; highly selective D3’s could ever compete with their bands.

"A 3.7 W GPA and 28 ACT "

I have seen this happen, with a full scholarship. I know that Ivy League schools don’t give athletic scholarships, but apparently some do give really great financial incentives (however it is described) to great athletes who wouldn’t have gotten in without their superb athletic ability.

It doesn’t bother me probably because admissions to top US schools seems broken enough that this is no worse than the rest of it. I thank my luck that we have other great choices (both because our in-state flagship is very good, and because there are many other good universities, and because my kids have dual citizenship making anything north of the border affordable and possible to get into with only straight A’s, something over 1400 on the SAT, great references, and pretty much nothing else).

@Ashtash- my daughter was told the minimum ACT was a 30 for athletes at her Ivy and she wasn’t recruited by HYP (her score was higher than that but the coach said that is what they want to see as a minimum). A 30 is certainly lower than the average student at an Ivy but it’s hardly an “extremely low score.” I think it’s at the 95th percentile. My daughter is in a sport where test scores and GPAs are generally high; I don’t profess to know anything about football, wrestling, etc…

Yes, these would be for football and basketball which generate revenue and public interest. Harvard couldn’t get to the NCAA tournament with just 4.0 32+ athletes, but this subject has gotten beat to death on other threads.

I don’t know if you all know wha Naviance is, but if a high schooler’s school is signed up for it, you can view all the scores and gpas admitted to that school. You can very well tell which are the athletes when someone is admitted to Dartmouth with a 21 act or UPENN with a 24! Or cornell with a 3.6 weighted

@Emsmom1 I know people who have gotten in to ivies with 21 act and 28 and basically a whole bunch in the 20s. Their gpas were in the mid or low 3s.

@Tiggerdad Extremely low as in 21 act, 26 act, 3.6 GPA, 3.4 GPA, etc.

@chembiodad Exactly!

@twoinanddone Way too often

And to clarify, do I think these kids deserve it? No. Am I upset with them? No. I’m upset with the schools

@happy1 you can see above the people I know that have gotten recruited. I understand the whole wanting to have a good team argumen and the revenue argument. I know every argument in the book. I just find it ridiculous how people with such low scores and gpas are getting in. People are just as skillful at other things and put just as much time into other things that schools don’t recruit for. Things that will actually chnage the world. I just don’t think these schools are schools alike are living up to their mission and values. As for other hooks, those annoy me just as much, however, I see schools lower their standards way more often for athletes than other hooks. I mean to be honest, there’s nothing people can do about it. There is so required GPA, so they’re not breaking any rules. I just know people who work so hard and spend just as much time doing truly meaningful things and it seems all their hard work goes to waste. It’s just upsetting to see a student with a 4.5 end up at the same school as someone who has a 3.2 because he/she didn’t get into any where he/she truly wanted to go. oHowever, someone who can hit a ball, took one AP course senior year, after being approached by an ivy, a GPA well in the low/mid 3s and an act score in the mid 20s, attend an ivy

Also, one last thing, I know many amazing athletes with great grades and scores. I honestly think now a days some athletes think they’re allowed to take it easy and have things come to them. I’ve been an athlete and debater and several other things at the same time at one of the hardest schools in my state and mainted a above a 4.0 and got a good score on my act. And just like me, tons of other people do it. After all, these ARE academic institutions, right? The people that work their butts off to get in do it for the education. These kids and their balls just got the opportunity and took it.

  1. The Naviance info is suspect, if a student retakes a test that second score doesn't always get reported. Even outside HYP, the academic index requirement is going to make it almost impossible for a coach to get a 21 ACT on the team. I'm pretty sure this is the source of the information.
  2. I'm not ambitious enough to find it, but there is an absolute league minimum academic index number that each individual athlete must meet, I don't think a weighted 3.4 and 21 ACT will get you there.
  3. The required average academic index varies by school but has to be way higher than that. So even if a school was admitting 21 ACT's, which I doubt, they are going to have to have a bunch of athlete scores in the high 30's for every athlete score in the mid to low 20's.
  4. Athletes still have to get past admissions. S was told by several coaches that in addition to GPA and test scores, he must stay in top 10% of class and have no C's on transcript, and keep loading up on the AP and honors classes so they can get him by admissions. I think even if a coach was willing to take the AI hit to his/her goal, admissions isn't likely to let a 21 in.

I’m not trying to be defensive, S is close to 4.0 unweighted, and test scores a lot better than 21. So I don’t have any skin in the game. But everything I have seen and read, and the conversations I have had with coaches, makes me believe that this just isn’t happening. 28 ACT 3.7 I believe. Those were approximately what we were told would be required for a coaches #1 prospect. But we were also told that most of the athletes on the team would have to be 30+, some quite a bit higher to account for those #1 recruits.

If admission is based on 80% merits and 20% social economic status, the demographics of attendance in the top 50 schools will be completely different. Schools will argue they can’t have such lack of diversity or have nobody to recruit in their sports teams on and on. I knew a couple of athletes recruits got into HYP with 26-29 ACT, 1250-1380 SAT and GPA in the mid 3s. Did that upset parents of kids w/o hooks and kids scoring at least 150-200 pts higher, well… that’s life. Train a kid with ability early on and stick with it. My explanation to those parents is always - using the official language - hey - those kids took a lot of time to do training, therefore no time for other ECs, no time for even 2 APs, just time for the regular CP classes, and SAT/ACT don’t matter if the kids are ranked with top 5 statewide in a popular sport or hold top national ranks. There are obviously some recruits doing very well in scores and stuff - these guys are probably used as a counterbalance of the very low score ones, and made the average to look good. The more popular the sport and the greater the importance of that to the specific school, and the higher the ranking of the kids, the greater the tolerance of the low scores (and vice versa). These top schools basically have 50% of the admissions block out for kids w/o hooks - take out the sports kids, the URMs, the F-Gs, the legacies/development candidates - you get down to the very few spots available for truly exception brilliant kids to polish the overall academic scores of the admitting class. JMHO.