<p>Okay....you force my hand; the two this year are basketball recruits. My older son's friend had no hook at all, though. Local MA kid, not a great athlete, musician, etc. Not a URM, not a legacy. He ended up going to Yale pre-med.</p>
<p>That's wonderful. It's nice to hear stories like that.</p>
<p>Recruited athletes really are treated differently. I know a female lax player at JHU who barely had a 3.0 from a mediocre local public school but on July 1the summer after junior year in high school, exactly at noon received calls for free tuition,room and board to JHU, and also had the option of
major scholarship to UNC and Duke.
By the way, she struggled academically first year but changed her major so that she is gettiing Bs and a few As in her new major.</p>
<p>more importantly, these are exceptions to the rule. a 3.5 has ivies as a huge reach; 3.8+ at prep schools less so. i know myself - i was a 3.5 uw unhooked into columbia. The difference with prep schools is that they DO send 3.5ish students to ivies, which publics would never do. it is NOT the case that 3.5s are expected to go to ivies, or that the majority of them do. </p>
<p>and come on, you just tried to convince us that two ATHLETES were standard 3.5 matriculations to harvard. misleading behavior at best.</p>
<p>It's interesting that so few people are mentioning my school, which is generally looked upon in this area (Connecticut) as better than Choate or Hotchkiss. I didn't apply to either Choate or Hotchkiss because I knew I wanted to go where I am now.</p>
<p>
[quote]
and come on, you just tried to convince us that two ATHLETES were standard 3.5 matriculations to harvard. misleading behavior at best.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm not an expert, but isn't a major part of the Ivy League that they can't recruit athletes and that athletics departments can't accept students into the admissions. I'm sure it has some effect, but I would have thought it's not a major fact. If it is, that's good for me, since fencing isn't that popular of a sport, as far as I know!</p>
<p>khaki: where are you now? Unfortunately, lots of great schools are not discussed on this board.</p>
<p>And as for the Ivy League and athletes, yes, they DO recruit. I believe that there are no athletic scholarships, however. (At least that is how I remember from years ago......anyone with more current information, feel free to correct me.)</p>
<p>The problem with ranking by Ivies is that both the schools and the parents PUSH the kids to go to an IVY which gives "wrong answer" among "friends" in helping with homework etc. One famous example is changing a classmates "unknown" in Organic Chemistry.<br>
The kids should go to the school that makes them most happy.
I had a long talk with the Dean of Stanford Admissions (whom I used to work with on admissions committee) and his only comment is that the kid does well at the school they attend. The school itself does not matter. Is the course work at Exeter or St Paul's harder than the course work at a second tier school - probably not. Are the top 5% of any of the schools diffenent - probably not. Are the lower 50% of the schools different, of course.</p>
<p>If you are a white female, are your chances worse than white males - yes!
If you are a star tennis player or newspaper reporter or chess player are your chances better - yes.</p>
<p>ps
Some colleges do have athletic scholarships (in fact, I believe almost all that I know of do, they are just limited to a certain number by NCAA). There are also scholorships for being an Eagle Scout (I got one to Stanford) or being from a certain company ....</p>
<p>Sorry, lvilleslacker, I did not intend to mislead which is why I clarified. They were just the first examples that I thought of because there was a recent article about them on the school website. Of course being a highly recruited athlete increases your chances of admission. Our school hasn't published their matric, but my son has shown me the folder on his intranet with the 2008 college acceptances....plenty of Ivies and I am certain these are not all 4.0 students (just going by the tiny fraction of 4.0's on the grade distribution graph the school distributes). My older son was admitted to some fine LAC's with a mere 3.0 and not a hook in sight. The academic profile of the top bs really do carry some weight. That would definitely have not happened at our public school....with that gpa he would have been lucky to gain admission to our local state u.</p>
<p>What Princess'Dad?</p>
<p>White females have it tougjer than white males?</p>
<p>I thought it was only minorities that had a bit of a curve to overcome.</p>
<p>BrooklynGuy is correct.</p>
<p>Ivy League schools do recruit. They do not give out athletic (or any other merit) scholarships. It is an agreement that goes back a long way and has nothing to do with the NCAA. So while an Ivy League recruit does not sign a National Letter of Intent (as no scholarship is offered), they are often issued "likely letters" early in the admissions process which would indicate they are highly likely to be admitted.</p>
<p>Ivy League schools are limited (by their league rules) to certain academic standards as measured by the Academic Index. It is a measurement combining either GPA or Rank with ACT or SAT scores. Schools must have a certain level across all of their athletes (regardless of team) and there is a certain minimum score for any athlete regardless of school average. Typically teams are given their own average to meet by the school (some higher than others), with each school allocating scores based upon their own priorities.</p>
<p>Teams often recruit more players with top scores to average out those who barely make the cut. And I believe it is possible to get that minimum score with a 3.0 (but you better have near a 1600/1600 SAT). Don't have the scale in front of me, but it can be found through google.</p>
<p>Speaking of recuiting athletes and college, I stumbled across this article recently. Blecchh!
SunJournal.com</a> - Central Maine's News Source</p>
<p>Goalie,</p>
<p>My nephew was a great athlete (I won't say which sport as that will id him). He was heavily "recruited" by the coach at Harvard and was offered full FA. Now they may not have scholarships and be need blind - but how many % of the football team is on scholarship vs bio majors?</p>
<p>There are rules and there is reality.</p>
<p>Dazzle wrote:</p>
<p>"White females have it tougjer than white males?</p>
<p>I thought it was only minorities that had a bit of a curve to overcome."</p>
<p>This last statement is contrary to actual fact, where the minority is Hispanic or African-American (not Asian). Both Hispanics and African-Americans have an EASIER time getting accepted into ALL schools - prep schools, colleges, Ivy leagues, you name it. Easier than white males or white females, and far easier time than Asians of any sort. That is the truth.</p>
<p>goaliedad....I believe they can be quite lenient when it comes to the gpa/sat combo. My older son had yet another classmate....this one a basketball standout. He had to take the SAT three times to get his minimum required 900 for admittance to Brown. He was intelligent, but was also from another country and I am sure the language was an issue. He was a close friend of my son's, and this is not hearsay....this is direct info from him to my son. In any case, he was rookie of the year his freshman year and had a successful career at Brown.
Also, there really is lenience as far as fa is concerned. My daughter is a gymnast and has friends/former club teammates at both Cornell and Brown. In both cases parents were told that money would be made available. Even if it was fa and need-based, you can bet a highly recruited athlete might have more of a chance to received that money than a student with higher academic stats; particularly in the more high profile sports like mens hockey. It think someone once aptly put it, and it might have been goaliedad..."Need-based" aid also refers to how much the school "needs" the particular applicant. Yes, Princess'dad....I agree with the "rules/reality".</p>
<p>I never meant to say that there isn't room for interpretation in both the AI and FA.</p>
<p>For example, the GPA component from my understanding can be a weighted (by the high school or college) number, so how a "college prep" vs "honor" vs AP are given additional weight can be manipulated to make any B student look like valedictorian. A bit harder to do with a C student ;)</p>
<p>And every Ivy has a team where they put their 170s (minimum AI score). Harvard uses hockey and football. Others use basketball. They all use minor sport recruits to bring their overall averages up to the school minimum.</p>
<p>As FA goes, they do have to pass muster with the NCAA and if there is non "need-based" FA going out, they have reporting requirements to show that athletes do not get a disproprotionate amount relative to non-athletes.</p>
<p>That being said, every school has ways to make generous reads on their CSS profile to ensure maximum need.</p>
<p>And if you have been following the college threads lately, you'll see there is need based FA at the Ivy's for families earning $180K or more. And no-loans is now the standard.</p>
<p>Not hard to imagine getting a full-ride based on need these days - even for non-athletes.</p>
<p>At Ivy League schools, the coaches, conductors, directors, etc. have a certain number of students that they can place on a kind of "want list", in order of how much leeway they feel the student will need from their normal chances at admissions. This does not guarantee admission, so the coaches and so forth will obviously try to pick candidates that have a reasonable chance of admission. So, for example, if a coach has a list of 10, the one in the #1 spot is the one that will need the most variance from the regular admissions standards. The ones in the #9 and #10 spots might not even get in, because they were too far below the mark on other metrics. On the other hand, if the athlete has a stellar application in other ways, the coach won't even put them on this list, because they don't need the extra push.
This is the way that these schools guarantee that they have the best drama department, orchestra, football team, et cetera.
Source: I have been told several slight variations of this by Ivy coaches who send motivated, hard-working athletes to me to tutor for the SAT.</p>
<p>My Top 10</p>
<p>1-Exeter
2-Andover
3-Hotchkiss
4-St-Pauls
5-Deerfield
6-Choate
7-Mercersburg
8-The Hill
9-Milton
10-Groton</p>
<p>I like most of that list, but Mercersburg and Hill probably don't belong there. There are a lot of schools I would replace those two with.</p>