Student athletes at ivy leagues

@Ashtash, as a parent of ORM twin DD’s, I’ve seen what you are referring to and at least from watching the admissions experience of their peer group this past year there is nothing better than being a recruited student athlete when one is competing for seats at Ivy schools - no other hook comes close…

Here is an advice:

Stop with your imaginary “I am being discriminated” feeling and just work on your application. Your acceptance has zero relation to athletic admission.

Been following this thread since the beginning and will now weigh in. Every Ivy League school will have half of all students (athletes and non-athletes alike) in the statistical bottom half of the matriculating class. Some rejected applicants with high stats feel frustrated when they don’t get into the Ivy of their choice. But if sports were banned in the Ivies, half the admitted students would STILL be in the bottom half of admitted students statistically speaking, and rejected high stat kids would STILL complain…they would simply find non-athletic reasons to complain. If you read CC recruiting threads, you will know about “tips” and “slots” referring to the help that coaches give top athletes with regard to admissions in the Ivies, NESCAC and so forth. However, what gets ignored when people complain about a relatively low stat athlete getting admitted to the Ivies or elsewhere is the fact that for every athlete with low stats, there have to be 1-3 athletes on the same team with higher academic stats to pull up the team average. It is not as if everyone on every team gets a break on their GPA and standardized test scores.

So instead of complaining about the low stat athlete, let’s instead compliment those athletes that are high stat. They get their high GPAs despite missing class to travel to competitions. They get high SAT and ACT test scores despite having fewer test dates to choose from due to competitions falling on test days. For instance, in my kids’ sport, the state championship falls on a SAT test date every fall. And in the spring the kids were in championships that interfered with study time for the June standardized test dates. Other major competitions also fall on SAT dates. Out of the few remaining test dates available, my kids had to fit in SAT subject tests for the Ivies. Despite such obstacles, most of the team is going to be high stat. There are only a few “slots” and “tips” given out by coaches anyway. More in the helmet sports of course, but nevertheless, there are plenty of high stat kids that should be heralded.

Effectively this means my first child only had one opportunity to take the SAT (having to take subject tests on other available Saturdays) and found only two chances to take the ACT. If that is not hardship/pressure enough for a kid trying to get into the Ivies, now one has to consider writing the SAT or ACT with writing for certain schools. Having learned from the first child, my second child did not take the SAT at all, concentrating instead on subject tests plus the ACT. So please understand, that when a recruited athlete gets into a Ivy with lower scores, it may simply be that they did not have the same opportunities to retest than the non-athlete. My athlete #1 (who was not in fact an athletic recruit but was admitted anyway) scored 760/760 on the SAT in a single sitting and twice got 35s on the ACT but had no further opportunities to improve due to athletic conflicts. My athlete #2 (an Ivy athletic recruit) has a 34 ACT (790 math 2 subject test and 720 in another subject test) and could try to get higher stats still this fall… but competitions are held on test dates, and these plus official visits will prevent any retesting during the senior year. Many recruited athletes will be asked to apply ED and will therefore be entirely cut off from December test dates. It is easy to complain about the supposed advantages that recruited athletes get, but let’s realize that the reality is otherwise. These athletes are really amazing, even those few whose stats fall in the bottom half of their class.

@Sam-I-Am, sorry but the trials and tribulations about student athletes having to dovetail testing and sporting events isn’t any different than a STEM student having to juggle an internship or a theatre student having to juggle rehearsals.

As @BigflowerSusie so succinctly outlined, hooked applicants are treated differently than ORM’s and AO’s struggle with it every day, but just like anything else life goes on.

@Chembiodad, probably not. However, OVs, together with test dates lost to competitions, and having to apply ED in order to obtain the recruited athlete tip or slot, are under-appreciated hurdles faced by athletes… and no doubt contribute in a meaningful way to lower stats for some recruited athletes. Also, I suspect that that those that complain about not getting in with their own high stats really do not fully understand the holistic approach used in top school admissions. Or they simply wish to apply a holistic approach to favor themselves and not others. Finally, I suspect that many disappointed high stat kids achieved those high test scores through numerous retests. Most athletes are not going to have the time or opportunity to become semi-professional test takers. I assume admissions officers know this.

I know I cannot take any of the SAT tests in August, October or November due to football.

@Luska19, you confirm my point! ^:)^

@Sam-I-Am, actually most students that are in the 99th percentile only improve their test scores very modestly as there’s not much room between a 1500 and a 1600.

As was already pointed out, many student athletes profile very high academically, so they figure out how to navigate the recruiting landscape, attend OV’s etc and still crush their test and grades.

This reminds me of the parent of a legacy student that won’t admit that legacy mattered a lot - why not admit it, lucky you!

Admitting that the world isn’t fair is part of life; most highly successful people admit that luck had a lot to do with what they achieved. - they don’t need to apologize for it, but acknowledging it goes a long way…

It sounds like there are few outliers coming from OPs school, but all in all we’ve found the Academic Index rules fairly firm- nothing less than 30 - and this is for internationally ranked, 'like road to Tokyo 2020 kind of athletes.
I’m still trying to figure out if OP is simply prepping for his next debate or just bitter.
Here’s a note, ‘Ivy League’ is the athletic conference.

And yes, college board is a nightmare. It felt like every athlete in our city took SATs in January of Jr. Yr. so they have something in the bag for recruiting purposes.

@Chembiodad, right on! :-bd

@chelsea465, I think you’ll see that many 28’s are getting accepted, offset by 32’s at a school who’s average ACT is a 34.

I guess it’s possible in another sport. In ours they were not giving 29’s a positive pre-read.
Another thumbs up for luck though!

@chelsea465 as with my son’s sport…nothing below ACT 32 with competitive GPA. That’s the way it goes…:wink:

@Ashtash This will be my last post here since it doesn’t sound like you will budge – but quite frankly it is not up to you to decide what is “acceptable” or not in Ivy admissions. If you are dissatisfied with the way Ivy League (or any other) schools compile their class than you can voice your complaint by choosing to not apply to those schools. The fact is that no college wants to fill itself with academic drones so in the admission process value is placed on attributes like athletics and other talents. It sounds to me like you are just resentful that spots are being taken by people who you feel are “less qualified.”

2 comments. First, I think that everyone has challenges for the test dates. However, for S, ACT in September and April are the only 2 that he can do without missing major competitions. Just today I told him that if he doesn’t get the scores he needs on one of those 2 dates, the next available date is during world team trials and he may have a very difficult choice to make.

The second point is that I know all sports are different. But S is at the point where skipping world team trials would really be a tough decision, even if it meant by going he was missing out on the Ivy League. I’m not getting more specific just because if I did a 30 second google search would give you his name. But he’s at that level in the Olympic styles. And he was still told by the 3 Ivy coaches we talked to that if he gets a 25 on his ACT next month, the conversations will be over until he can show them a better score, preferably 30+, or at least very close. They didn’t spell it out, but I think if he gets 26-30 they will tell him it probably isn’t good enough, but at least he is close enough they won’t write him off yet.

I still question the 21 or even 24 ACT with a GPA in the low 3’s. Minimum AI is 176. That’s a hard floor, per Ivy agreement. Here is what 176 means:

UW GPA
ACT-------------4.0
20------------------3.7
22------------------3.4
23------------------3.0
24
,
I seriously doubt that there are more than a few of these admits every year. Once they get in they still have to be able to pass their classes with 20+ hours a week of athletic commitments, more in season. I don’t see a kid with a 3.4 GPA and a 23 ACT cutting it at any Ivy school, even if he/she was a full time student with no outside activities. What I have been told from multiple sources is that admissions will not rubber stamp anyone who it doesn’t look like has the academic ability to succeed at their school. Is a 28 ACT going to feel like everyone else is smarter than he/she is? I’m sure at times yes. However, that student with enough work is still smart enough to get through his/her classes. I don’t think a 24 ACT student is smart enough. And I’m probably more charitable than the AdCom’s.

@Chembiodad Given your username you are probably more up on statistics than I am. However, the AI of all athletes at a given school has to be within one standard deviation of the student body. I’m not sure if a 30 ACT average for athletes is going to be good enough if the average of the student body is 34. Plus I am assuming that the GPA of the student body is north of 3.9 at most if not all Ivy’s. So if the average athlete has a lower GPA, that means even less leeway on the test scores. I think you are right in principal, I’m just not sure if the numbers are quite that far off.

Of course, I took Statistics 101 in 1992, so I could be wrong.

There are schools without sports, but you can’t go to an Ivy league school without sports because that’s what the Ivy league IS, a sports league. You can even go to a school with some sports that don’t mean that much to the admissions standards. Go to Reed, go to CalTech, go to U of Chicago. They have sports, but don’t give much, if any, advantage. Will there be people at those schools with low ACT scores? Yes, because they might be a legacy, or someone famous. I’m sure there are a lot of good schools where you wouldn’t even know there were sporting events going on, but those schools aren’t in the Ivy league. The Ivy league likes sports and the schools are always going to admit athletes that you feel don’t deserve to be there.

Point made. Based upon that and considering that this thread is now denigrating into debate and going in circles, the time has come to close.