Which is somewhat ironic because it is originally an indigenous sport. When my husband grew up in Eastern Ontario, it was primarily Native kids playing the sport. I wonder how many indigenous students there are at these prep schools or at the Ivies.
Revenues agreed, but there is a pro indoor league.
There are indoor, outdoor, and box lax professional teams. There is a world championship going on right now with an Iroquois team, a USA team, and a Canadian team. There are womenâs pro teams. Most of the players have ârealâ jobs too because they donât make much playing pro lax, but there are a lot of minor league baseball and basketball players who donât make much either. Pro lax players play because they like it, not for the money.
âThose of us who see what student athletes do, what student athletes do, what they contribute, know how powerful that contribution is to a schoolâs cohesion is.â
No one in 27 pages has even tried to explain how athletes in sports that the student body is dimly aware of, like skiing, sailing, and water polo, powerfully contribute to the cohesion of a school. Maybe if you explained how the golf team powerfully contributed to my undergraduate experience, I would see it.
Since Harvard has 42 varsity teams, is it more cohesive than Penn with 33 or Cornell with 36 (and larger student bodies)? Is Harvard more cohesive today than it was during my undergrad years, when there were only 41 and rugby was a club sport? How can you tell? How are you measuring that cohesion and its causes?
âWhat seems to be angering people here is that Harvard âsavesâ 200 spots for athletic recruits over 200 equally qualified students in the general pool. If not for those 200 spots, everyone else in the big pool of 30,000 qualified applicants (and perhaps a few less qualified âdevelopmentâ students) would have a better chance at getting one of the 1700 spots.â
Thatâs not really the issue, if I may generalize. Itâs that Harvard is not up front that 200 spots of the 1700 go to athletes, 200 for development/legacy, 200 for first gen/urm, 200 for geographic diversity, international, so really youâre competing for 50% of the class, say 850 spots if youâre not in one of those buckets.
Now the relevant question would people still apply if they knew their rate was 1% or even less. They still would, adolescents even if they know the odds are 1 in a 1000 of getting in, think theyâll be the one (from recent research on the adolescent brain on why they take risks even though they know better).
Why does Harvard need to be âup frontâ and that specific? Itâs common sense. There are numerous articles, common data sets, anecdotes, etc. that have been around forever. The game changes but the info is out there about what elite schools are looking for . People still apply, despite the odds.
âI still wonder why anyone cares about this. It is a private college not publically funded and they could fill their undergrad with whomever they want.â
Even though theyâre private and technically, can discriminate, they get federal funding for research, so this is not a straightforward case of a private group being allowed to limit entry or have hard quotas.
âThose of us who see what student athletes do, what they contribute, know how powerful that contribution is to a schoolâs cohesion is. If others are unconvinced then so be itâŠâ
Thatâs a strawman, do you actually have data on this, the lists I see on happiest campuses, students etc are pretty wide ranging and do not have any one feature like sports or being in a city thatâs common. Iâve attended two schools, one where sports was not integral (except for one) and one where it was a significant part of the culture and social scene.
And are you saying that the violinist, artist, entrepreneur, molecular biology researcher do not make a powerful contribution to the campus? Interesting.
To me, it doesnât change my position if the majority of athletes are reasonably qualified. Itâs the exceptions that I mind. Not for the class, but for the individual.
Please donât forget this is more than the cumulative stats staring you back. Some kids canât present as ready for the week to week academic challenges, some donât have the rigor, donât have the personal resources, perspective and more. Some need gentler, more accommodating environment, to thrive and feel the success. That isnât any different than us telling countless CC kids, to find the right match, where they can be empowered and grow.
People seem to be thinking this is a simple game of probability - itâs not. Just because you can calculate the overall acceptance odds of a candidate with similar stats and background after the fact, it doesnât mean that being offered admission is a random event. The admissions committee is reviewing all the candidates and making a determination for each one, not rolling a pair of dice for every candidate and only accepting those who get double sixes (~2.78%).
Sure, some candidates will ultimately be chosen over others for what amount to apparently arbitrary reasons, but Iâm guessing most candidates that get rejected and think they were on the wrong side of luck just donât have a full picture. Surely committee members go to bat for their favorites - the potential star that lacks confidence, the troubled youth that overcame adversity but could become a leader of leaders, the potential art prodigy that just isnât good at math. But a kid that lacks remarkability or comes across as a bit obnoxious didnât get rejected because he lost out to an athlete or an URM, nor did a dice roll turn up empty.
âAnd are you saying that the violinist, artist, entrepreneur, molecular biology researcher do not make a powerful contribution to the campus? Interesting.â
So because I say athletes have an important contribution to their schools Iâm also saying THOSE IN THE ARTS DONT?..SMH
âTo me, it doesnât change my position if the majority of athletes are reasonably qualified. Itâs the exceptions that I mind. Not for the class, but for the individual.â
And guess whatâŠa non-hooked student can fail to thrive at HYP too. There isnât some magical equation that says if you received a perfect SAT or ACT and have a stellar GPA that you will succeed in that environment. Iâd argue that the bookworm student that exclusively focuses on academics actually is at a disadvantage. The assumption that student athletes somehow lack the ability to not only survive but thrive at an Ivy is wellâŠinsulting and uninformed.
I have contact with many Ivy athletes and they all are doing just fine and distinguishing themselves on campus. I say BRAVO. 
First of all non-athletes are not a some sort of legally protected class so Harvard can establish a quota for athletes in spite of receiving federal funding. Secondly anyone can google âIvy League athletic recruitmentâ and get all the information they want - this is not a well guarded secret. Obviously, you can also get detailed information about this subject right here in the CC Athletic Forum. Thirdly Ivy League schools invented college sports and they are part of these schools history and traditions. Over the years the schools and their alumnae greatly invested in athletic infrastructure and facilities. Next - these schools know that their athletes are going to become very successful people and generous alumnae. Employers in certain industries love college athletes. For example, Investment Banks need entry-level analysts who are not stupid and can take a lot of crap. Ivy athletes fit this description very well. Etc.
It seems these academic powerhouses have a quota for the really academically talented students. Everyone else is admitted because of the variety of very random reasons. If athletes are eliminated the number of the academically exceptional admits will not increase. So who cares if they admit some athletes or more students with green hair.
Sure. But again, Iâm speaking of the exceptions, which I have seen. I am not assuming athletes, in general, lack anything. Nor that ALL athletes should go to H.
I, too, know of many doing well- and have reads lots of stories on CC. But that doesnât begin to cover what can come through in an actual app package, the non-sports aspects, for some kids.
Not everyone âdeservesâ a Harvard. Itâs not that they donât hypothetically deserve a chance, IF they have the other skill sets. Itâs that some simply do not. I don;t want to go into specifics, but if anyone knows lots of kids, of various sorts, you know there are some you hope find the right path for them, not just the tippiest top college.
Have any of the schools had a problem attracting enough flute players or dancers or molecular biologists without reserving special spots for them? I think if the orchestra director needed an oboe and no oboe players ever applied, heâd somehow find one and make sure that applicant got in. But the director doesnât need 7 oboe players every year and the lax coach does need 7 new lax players.
Probably not University of Mississippi or others of comparable selectivity, though.
Adcoms can know that thereâs a need for a particular instrument and someone willing to play it at that college, certainly. And it may be the last bit that tips one kid in, assuming all the rest is there. But it wonât be someone with incomplete other credentials. Frankly, if they had no oboe players and no one qualified had applied, they could draw in a faculty member or staff.
Faculty do have some pull with certain majors, they do get to vet and offer opinion. The obvious is the music supp.
It depends on how you look at it. For example, the test scores of some Ole Miss players are at https://www.â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â /documents/1003085-university-of-mississippi-raw-data.html . Several of the football players had an ACT English score of 12, which is below the typical threshold used to estimate illiteracy. In that year, the CDS suggests that none of the other 10k+ students had scores below the football players with 12s. Maybe the number of SDs different from the mean at Ole Miss is less than Harvardâs AI limit due to lack of range restriction with their high acceptance rate. Maybe not. Regardless, some of the football players were admitted in range that is unlikely for nearly anyone else, and that difference for some of the Ole Miss players is probably more important than the difference for Harvard athletes, as it is more indicative of being unprepared to be academically successful and graduate.
MODERATORâS NOTE:
Closing thread. I kept this open as long as possible, but when, after numerous nudges too stick to topic, the posts question a userâs professionalism (which I deleted) and UMiss, itâs seems clear to me that there is nothing original left to say.