<p>If it inspires them to get more physical exercise, maybe!!!</p>
<p>Actually, I'm kidding a little about the exercise. I understand the frustration that athletes are given some preferential treatment during admissions to highly selective schools. But I must add that through a variety of posts here at CC I've come to understand the commitment and dedication that is required to succeed at high level athletics. I also believe that at Ivy's and other highly selective schools, athletes are typically excellent students as well. I don't think that they are given a lot of slack regarding SATs and GPAs. Anyone else have the data on this?</p>
<p>Quote (idad #36):
"The WSJ recently asserted that particularly Harvard's influence has declined dramatically in the past 30 years, while Chicago, Stanford, and others and their respective students, have been much more politically and socially influential." </p>
<p>One might even say that, in light of current events, the University of Chicago has been the most influential of all.
<a href="http://olincenter.uchicago.edu/straussconference.htm%5B/url%5D">http://olincenter.uchicago.edu/straussconference.htm</a></p>
<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>
<p>Catherine, was your post supposed to show that considering the athletic background of applicants was a good thing or a bad thing?</p>
<p>The main point was that the state universities seem to be where the route to political leadership lies in most instances.</p>
<p>Past Presidents of the 20th Century:</p>
<p>GWB: Yale
Clinton: Georgetown
GHB: Yale
Reagan: Eureka college
Carter: US Naval Academy
Ford: U of Michigan
Nixon: Whittier College
Johnson: Southwest Texas State Teachers College
Kennedy: Harvard
Eisenhower: West Point
Truman: Spalding's Commercial College (one semester)
F Roosevelt: Harvard
H Hoover: Stanford (pioneering class, 1891)
Wilson: the College of New Jersey (now Princeton)
Taft: Yale
T. Roosevelt: Harvard</p>
<p>When one looks at those without family and money, the route to the presidency does not seem to be through HYP either. Particularly since WWII.</p>
<p>4th floor,</p>
<p>I emphasized that as much as the top half of HYPs class is usually selected on "best student" criteria, hence the brilliance. It is the fat tail that bothers me. According to Karabel's The Chosen (I am checking many of the references now) athletes in the most prominent sports often had avg SAT scores between 150 to 180 points below that of the rest of the class.</p>
<p>Consider this, even a weaker state school will have some students who possibly should be at HYP and would be near the top. Would it make HYP better schools to have perhaps a 100 more of those students if they also admitted another 1500 of the weaker students who were good athletes or community leaders? I submit, it would not. Even though total numbers of good students would increase, average quality would fall. While Caltech and Chicago look beyond scores and grades, they do so with the goal of finding other indicators of academic ability, not social respectability. Moreover, the curricula at tough grading schools make it likely that those accepted for social reasons will not graduate at all.</p>
<p>I repeat: Neither the faculty nor the top grad programs use social criteria for themselves. If they did, the schools' reputations would plummet. Getting tenure at HYP is a difficult, meritocratic, and usually bruising process. Hence, such rules for undergrads are at worst cynical, at best self-serving means of buying social support and improved donations. I don't support any regulation of this, but I do believe that a good ranking system needs to be created on purely academic criteria that shame schools that play games with their tails. It would also reward schools like Olin or Cooper which are less known but very selective.</p>
<p>If my work shows promise and I can obtain the data, I may create and publish such a ranking myself.</p>
<p>Hmm. I don't think of "leadership potential" as being equivalent to social respectability. </p>
<p>We talk a lot at cc about the playing games with the tail phenomenon. It's equivalent to the current HOOKOLOGY thread. But I confess to thinking that a kid who shows leadership potential and high enough GTA (grades, tests, academic achievements) is as valid a HYPS admittee as the kids with extraordinary GTA.</p>
<p>As I said, I never thought of "leadership" as being a proxy for social class or respectability. Social class is more of a proxy for capability to donate, another game played in the tail. I would not expect that a kid showing leadership, i.e. may one day run a corporation or a country, would come from a family who can donate $$$. At least, if that's true, the American dream is only a fantasy.</p>
<p>What is "leadership" for a high-school student? If it means forming an organization (not a high-school club), directing its vision, recuiting others to participate, and actually getting something productive done, then is see the point.</p>
<p>Otherwise, if it doesn't mean social class and connections, what does it mean? Popularity, such as being elected to meaningless class office or being captain of a sports team? Good looks? Or what?</p>
<p>Consider this, even a weaker state school will have some students who possibly should be at HYP and would be near the top.</p>
<p>"some students that possibly should be at HYP?" I can guarantee you that many "weaker" state schools and otherwise have many students capable of HYP level work. They don't choose those schools because (a) they can't afford it; (b) they're going to a less expensive school to afford graduate school down the road; (c) their parents aren't well connected; </p>
<p>There is a presumption in this thread that HYP and the others are the only schools worth attending. Heavens, just think of all the successful people who did not go to an IVY league school. You get out of any school what you put into it. Even Harvard admits to grade inflation, on the premise, I suppose, that if a student is good enough to get into the gate, they're smart enough already. grades shouldn't matter.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It is the fat tail that bothers me. According to Karabel's The Chosen (I am checking many of the references now) athletes in the most prominent sports often had avg SAT scores between 150 to 180 points below that of the rest of the class.
[/quote]
There are a couple of problems with this. Even if the athletes are 150-180 points below the average, they are still scoring in the mid 1300s (old SAT), which is probably pretty good considering the time they spend on their sport. </p>
<p>If you only admit students based on test scores, you end up with a very one dimensional set of hot-house flowers. My son was accepted at Harvey Mudd, Rice, U Chicago and other great schools, but we really encouraged him to attend Dartmouth based on the student body. He doesn't need to be around more people just like him -- he'll probably end up with a graduate degree in physics or math, and will spend his entire working life with right brain people. Even the athletic admits at schools like Dartmouth are there for the academics -- otherwise they'd look for a Big 10 school.</p>
<p>If you knew me, you'd laugh at the thought of my defending athletic admits! I come from a family of academic types, and am certainly married to one. But I think there's benefit to diversity, including academic diversity. If you have graduates of Ivy's running the country's businesses, government and academic institutions, I think it's in our best interest to have them be a little more open to other points of view.</p>
<p>You really want to know how a high-schooler demonstrates the capacity for leadership?</p>
<p>Runs the school paper. Captains a team. Organizes a service project. Founds a debate team. Starts the dance club and teaches the dance class. Real clubs are not nothing.</p>
<p>Starts a business. Volunteers every summer to teach kids from less-advantaged backgrounds.</p>
<p>Speaks out in class with an unpopular but well-founded argument. Becomes the group designated driver and does a project interviewing local police departments on teen drinking and driving and how to alleviate the problem.</p>
<p>Refuses to give in to peer pressure and develops a visible group of friends who influence an entire school to change behaviors.</p>
<p>Befriends an outcast. When you are the popular girl, admit you are a lesbian and campaign for diversity.</p>
<p>I could go on. Leadership is a real trait. Personally, I value someone of high intelligence who has the courage and character to lead as much as someone of extremely high intelligence who sits in a corner and analyzes events correctly. If we don't have leaders how do those of intelligence who don't have leadership characteristics have any impact?</p>
<p>And it's just not true that all highly intelligent people are leaders.</p>
<p>Leadership and creativity are not just shown in school. We had a student from our school a number of years ago who got accepted to Brown with a 3.00 average (don't know SATs). But he had published in the New Yorker. He has since gone on to publish more articles in major magazines as well as a book. Not long out of college,he is more accomplised than many of his classmates who had perfect grades and were president of the French club or whatever. So there are many ways to shine - not just through school. -and colleges know that.</p>
<p>
[quote]
And it's just not true that all highly intelligent people are leaders.
[/quote]
I think this is very true. Some very intelligent people just see too many sides to a situation, or analyze too many variables, and end up thrashing.</p>