Student athletes at ivy leagues

Ivy athletic recruiting is like no other; given they can’t provide athletic scholarships, full pay, but maybe lower academically qualified student athletes have an advantage - I believe that other conferences such as Patriotic League have more diversity since they do provide athletic scholarships.

Hey someone has to be at the bottom of the graduating class from these schools…

I’m guessing you all are referring to money sports, because the prevailing wisdom in my daughter’s niche sport is 700+ target and GPAs in 3.8-4.0 range.

These types of scores only exist in maybe three male sports. FB, BB, and Ice Hockey. The decision the college has to make is whether they are going to field a serious team. Keep in mind BB, and Hockey are full D1 and even FB plays a few decent teams. If you are going to field semi-respectable teams the schools have no choice. So what you are really saying is you want the Ivies to drop these male sports. Keep in mind the Ivies only drop down to very low AI’s if it’s a key impact recruit. The typical player has decent numbers. My guess is that the vast majority of the alums and current students want to keep fielding decent teams. Though it may seem strange to you the historical rivalry of the Harvard-Yale Football Game can not be overstated to outsiders. This means a lot to both schools and even today is taken quite seriously. If you don’t know the history of the Doonesbury Comic Strip I suggest looking up the BD character and why he is revered at Yale.

Is anyone else tired of threads that are little more than clickbait?

The OP is a rising HS senior. Assuming that there is in fact an applicant that is admitted to the Ivy League with those stats (and I don’t know that there is), the OP is missing the point, which is: that applicant is not competing with the OP for a spot. That applicant is only competing against other student-athletes for a specific position. So if the student-athlete is a male point guard (or offensive tackle, or whatever), the nonathletic recruit (or the female swimmer for that matter) is not competing for the same seat.

Now if the OP’s issue is with athletic recruiting at Ivy League schools, well, that topic has been done to death here, and it’s not going away.

@SevenDad yes, referring to money sports, no reason to go down into the lower echelons for Olympic sports.

@SevenDad and @SAY, no not just money sports or three male sports - it’s all over…

Agree, hooked student athlete applicants aren’t competing and never will compete with nonhooked applicant. Is it fair - I have idea…

@Ashtash I highly doubt anyone is getting in to an Ivy with a 21 ACT - my daughter’s friend in gymnastics had a 27 ACT and a 3.7 and they told her no thank you. Maybe it’s different when you get into sports like football, but I still can’t see a 21 ACT getting anyone anywhere near an Ivy League school.

Preference for recruited athletes yes but very low scores no. The occasional extremely low scores is restricted to a few male sports and only the impact players. Having been through the process and knowing the composition of ivy teams the truth is much different than represented by the posters above. This is the policy of the schools and most of the alumi agree with the policy. You are truly chasing after windmills to think this policy is going to be changed since virtually every elite school has a similar policy. It sounds like Cal Tech is the school for your children since it’s the only school I’m aware of that has zero preference for athletes. MIT and U of Chicago also don’t weight very much. But then look at the schools. Go to a weekend sports event at those schools and then go to a Harvard -Yale FB Game or a NCAA final four Hockey Game and experience the school spirit. Hey it’s a choice and that’s the choice the schools have made and it’s not going to change. People who haven’t attended the Ivy League often do not understand that the students and alumi have great pride in their sports history and the fact that the schools have managed to maintain high quality athletics without athletic scholarships and graduate virtually everyone. Their is a reason Bill Bradley is such an icon at Princeton.

You just have to look at the lower end of the stats that each school published on each class, and yes for example, Stanford has about 20 admits in the ACT 18-23 range. So yes they do admit that low.

Stanford isn’t an Ivy- they are known to recruit athletes with lower scores than an Ivy. I know a gymnast who got into Stanford with an 1800/2400 SAT (and she had to take it three times to get to an 1800).

@Ashtash The Ivy athletes I know (even in football) have grades and standardized testing well above what you have noted and I do know some people who the coaches liked and admissions rejected for academics (guess we know different people). My experience is that the bar is set higher for athletes than you believe but I have only anecdotal evidence from a small sample size. I have zero problem with academic recruits at Ivy or any colleges. I attended an Ivy school and benefited from the fun at football games, being in the NCAA basketball tournament etc. and know that athletes add value to the school. I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this.

I always have to laugh when I see some of these comments from folks who truly have no clue about athletic recruiting at the Ivies. A rising senior from my son’s HS team was told by a HYP school to raise his GPA a bit and he should be fine. This kid got a 35 on the ACT and has a current unweighted GPA of 3.91. Yup…really low scores. Those coaches are really rummaging through the bottom of the barrel.

My son was offered to play football by all 8 ivies, plus several D1 schools and a service academy. He has a 3.95 gpa, and scored a 33 on his ACT. His resume is solid in terms of leadership, volunteerism, and awards/memberships. He is not the only bright & talented athlete on his high school team either. Football has been a part of his life since he played flag football in kindergarten, then moved into tackle ball in 3rd grade. But his main priority has always been his academics and personal character. Whatever school he chooses here in the next couple of weeks will not only get a great athlete but a great young man with the highest of integrity who could cut it just about anywhere, football notwithstanding.

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

First, I don’t know of any recruited athletes that got into the Ivies with extremely low scores and grades. Lower than the average scores and grades perhaps, but extremely low? no. You might have had Stanford in mind.

Secondly, who cares regardless? I’m more tired of seeing a thread like this popping up from time to time seemingly only to serve the purpose of venting one’s resentment based on irrational and ill-informed line of thinking. Who says the Ivies must accept only those with the highest test scores and the GPA, or even meet a certain “standard”? Even if, for the sake of argument, the Ivies are admitting those recruited athletes with “extremely low scores and grades,” so what? According to a study that I read awhile ago (unfortunately, I lost the source, perhaps someone here on CC knows which one I’m talking about), such hooks as recruited athletes, URMs, first-generation, etc. with lower scores and grades in comparison to their unhooked peers, are doing as well as unhooked alumni post-graduation. As far as the “mission” of educational institutions, isn’t that all that matters?

As a parent of an ORM Asian-American son with absolutely no hook of such kind, and with no particular interest in any sports, I have no problem whatsoever with recruited athletes, URM and first-generation applicants making up a portion of the Ivy classes each year.

@BigflowerSusie
Are you assuming URM’s can’t be truly exceptional academic savants? I can tell you that they can… especially one’s from a certain continent below Europe. Exceptional comes in may forms and being an exceptional athlete is one of them. They have just as much merit as an exceptional academic.
I will say that I have evolved on this stance as I was little upset that the URM athlete that I tutored in High school got into Princeton with a 1750 out of 2400. But I realized how silly of me to judge another hooked URM applicant like myself and disregard his exceptional athleticism. He won the Junior Olympics for shotput and is a great football player ( he does both for Princeton).
However maybe Hooks shouldn’t be able to be compounded. Like a student can only use one hook. Or only one hook can be considered is they happen to have more than one. That sounds fair to me as I do feel that non-hooked applicants shouldn’t feel jaded about college admissions.

Well there is your example for a low stat Ivy league athlete…

@VANDEMORY1342 No assumption is being made. Every year, I have a class of 120 students or so and I know where they end up every cycle. 2017-8 will be my 15th yr for this job. My general rule to my students is - tell them the whole story upfront. For the URM students in my class, I told them to use the URM angle to no end in their essays and apply to schools even if they think their scores will not get them in. For the ORM students in my class, I told them (especially their parents) what they are up against. This cohort of kids need to apply to schools that fit even they are not the top 20.

I talk to AOs from top schools every year and every cycle, I don’t blame the way they do the admissions. They can’t afford to have a class filled with 50% pre-med Asian students… nor they can fill the whole BME class with 80% Indian females. You will be surprised how sympathetic these AOs are with respect the kids they reject every year.

Think after all these years, I know a thing or two with the inside look of admissions. Along the way, I help more URMs, ORMs to get into the right schools than I can recall. One of my best students was admitted to a low ranking state college with a SAT eqv of 1050 back in his days. His job now is an investment banker running the Asia division of a well-known international bank (easily a ten-digit AUM under his watch). I always hold him up as an example to my students- don’t worry about the school ranks. I know people got in HYPSM and end up so so… and I know people like this guy. Scores don’t mean a darn thing after the initial process. Absolutely meaningless. JMHO.

As a parent of kid who has okay scores (well within the AI), but probably wouldn’t make it to Ivy without sports, I was very concerned about the success rate of the athletes that spend hours and hours per week at practice compared to the admits with 4.5GPA and 1600/1600. When I asked the Princeton coach, he blew it off saying something like, “these guys know how to work through the setbacks. It’s the kids who’ve always had perfect scores and were first in their class who are the first to leave the school.”

There are characteristics provided by various experiences and backgrounds that are an added benefit to the community- athletes, URMs, a variety of socioeconomic strata, and yes, even legacy cases do have some reason for being admitted. I guess there will never be any consensus as to the balance.

@happy1 I have no doubt there are recruited athletes with high scores and grades, but I’m simply saying that I know these people personally that have been recruited and I don’t think it’s acceptable.