<p>At our high school, athletes recruited to Ivy league schools tend to be students who will do well there - kids with 1400 (old style) boards and B+/A- averages, but they are not the top students. Nevertheless, the majority of students going to Ivies from our school are recruited athletes. One reason for this, I believe, is that sports are part of the campus atmosphere and provide campus spirit, making a winning team, or at least a competitive one, important to colleges. I know my teenage son, for instance, has no interest in going to a college without a football team, even though he knows he won't be playing at the college level.
Another reason so many kids are recruited at top schools is that, because there are no athletic scholarships, students do not have to play. So you can get in as a track recuit and never go near the team. Therefore, the schools have to recuit more athletes than they need. This means that a small school like Williams has to recuit more athletes than the University of Michigan, since Mich. has athletic scholarships and the kids they recruit will lose them if they don't play, so they play. At Williams, for instace, you can be recruted to play tennis and just say "not interested" the day you start school, and you have nothing to lose.</p>