The Myth of Meritocracy

Applying to College
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<p>The argument about athletes and special cases causing other applicants to be passed over overlooks one major point. Every school in America (and I’d guess in the world) sets aside some slots for “hooks” - athletes, URMs, development cases, legacies and other special situations that the school deems important. Athletes are the easiest targets because you can go online and count the number of players on each roster and point to a specific number of slots; it’s much harder to find out how many low-income students, artists or children of wealthy alumni were admitted in a given year or their relative qualifications. In truth even if you knew all that information it would be irrelevant. Unless you were one of those “hooks” you never had a chance at those slots anyway. If an athlete with sub-standard statistics chooses not to attend a particular school that doesn’t mean you would have moved up the list; that slot would have been given to another athlete. Those spots were never in the pool to begin with.</p>

<p>The other thing that gets me is the belief that this is some sort of huge number. Let’s say that Kentucky has 600 student-athletes all on athletic scholarship (which I doubt), and that all were sub-standard academically (which I think is even further from the truth), assuming they’re evenly distributed through the classes and all take 5 years to graduate, that’s 120 athletes admitted per year. In the '09-'10 class Kentucky had 11,120 applications and accepted 8,785 students; taking out the 120 athletes, that leaves 8,665 spots. If I round up the number of special admits to an even 1,000 that leaves 7,785 openings. If an applicant didn’t get into KU it wasn’t because of a basketball player, it was because they were the 7,786th best candidate.</p>

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<p>I don’t know that Harvard is exactly an exemplary case either, given its well-known historical preference for legacy WASPs. </p>

<p>Neither is the law a reliable indicator either. As you alluded to, Southern universities were often times forced to segregate against their will as a matter of law. Some southern universities did indeed try to integrate before the 1960’s, but were prevented by state governments. Later on, southern universities themselves became institutionalized as bastions of segregation - resisting changes in the law that required them to desegregate. </p>

<p>But I agree with you that it’s difficult to determine what is fair. My point simply is that relying purely on institutions has produced historically indefensible outcomes. </p>

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<p>Actually, that’s the wrong counterfactual to make. The counterfactual would be one where college sports were not important , as happens in most other nations in the world. The best foreign soccer players turn pro without ever attending college, and the notion of ‘college soccer admissions preference’ is simply bizarre to them. </p>

<p>In such a world, those slots really would have been available to other students. </p>

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<p>Nobody is saying that the number is necessarily huge. The point simply is to say that even state universities are not purely academically meritocratic.</p>

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<p>At virtually every other school in the world, yes. Or at least, athletics has little to do with the admissions process. Wayne Rooney and David Beckham can’t get into Oxbridge just because they play soccer well. </p>

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<p>I’ll put it to you this way: is a system where a guy like Derrick Rose was found to have falsified his SAT scores and grades in order to be academically eligible to play at Memphis a good thing? </p>

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<p>Which, by definition, wouldn’t be ‘fair’ to those people with the misfortune to be born poor. </p>

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<p>I agree that that is exactly what the US system has evolved to become. But the point is, it didn’t have to be this way. The US could have evolved a educational system separate from its professional athletic system similar to that of most other countries in the world. </p>

<p>And in fact, the US actually does have such a system for many major sports. NASCAR is the #2 pro sport in the country, yet there’s no such thing as ‘college NASCAR’. Few star NASCAR drivers even went to college at all, and if they did, they didn’t do so on a ‘driving scholarship’. That proves that you don’t really ‘need’ a college farm system to build a successful professional sport.</p>

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<p>Ever hear of Harvard student (and Stanford admit) Adam Wheeler? Check it out. Cheating to get into college is not limited to athletes. </p>

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<p>But we didn’t and that makes us better. An American student can be both scholar and athlete. We don’t have to limit ourselves to one or the other.</p>

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<p>guys don’t feed the sakky ■■■■■</p>

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<p>That’s beside the point, which is that admissions to public schools is not purely academically meritocratic, due to the nature of college sports and other considerations. Does anybody seriously dispute this point? </p>

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<p>Better according to who? Seems to me that other countries produce plenty of elite athletes without the benefit - if one does indeed exist at all - of a college sports system. </p>

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<p>Of the tiny fraction of Americans who actually excel and both sports and academics, there are plenty more “scholar-athletes” who give that first term a bad name. Perhaps the most egregious case is Dexter Manley, who played 4 years of college ball at Oklahoma State on his way to the NFL, yet after retirement revealed that he didn’t even know how to read. </p>

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<p>Those who don’t appreciate my posts don’t have to read them.</p>

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<p>Very few people who play sports in college actually play in the pros. Isn’t one of the points to give kids from disadvantaged backgrounds a chance to get a college education, even if they were not the brightest eggs in the HS box? Also, since pro careers can be notoriously short, it’s good to have a backup career in hand.</p>

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<p>I have never met anyone who respects sociologists.</p>

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<p>But that’s not what actually happening. You’re not just giving any kids from financially disadvantaged backgrounds a chance at a college education. You’re giving kids from financially disadvantaged backgrounds who are also highly athletically talented a chance at a college education. But why should that matter? Let’s face it : most people, whether financially disadvantaged or not, are not athletically talented. In other words, if you’re poor and you lack athletic ability, you’re doubly screwed by the system. </p>

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<p>But do they? Ever since the implementation of the NBA draft rule barring high school seniors from jumping directly to the pros, it’s become a running joke within the college basketball world that the very best recruits are “one-and-done” players, to the point that coaches and fanbases even plan so accordingly. Kevin Durant, Greg Oden, Michael Beasley, Derrick Rose, John Wall, OJMayo - all stayed in college for only one year. Even those stars who stay longer rarely graduate. What sort of backup career do you really have if you don’t actually graduate? </p>

<p>Furthermore, even the education that many athletes receive is little more than window dressing designed not to really provide marketable skills, but simply to help them skirt NCAA Rules and maintain athletic eligibility. Rigorous coursework is rarely undertaken; scandals abound where athletes are provided academic credits for courses they never actually took, or cheesepuff “physical education” courses where easy A’s are handed out to basketball players who - wait for it - know the rules of basketball. </p>

<p>“Michigan is a good school and I got a good education there,” Harbaugh said. “But the athletic department has ways to get borderline guys in and, when they’re in, they steer them to courses in sports communications. They’re adulated when they’re playing, but when they get out, the people who adulated them won’t hire them.”</p>

<p>[Birk’s</a> Eye View: Jim Harbaugh slams the joke that is most non-conference schedules - AnnArbor.com](<a href=“http://www.annarbor.com/sports/birks-eye-view-jim-harbaugh-slams-the-joke-that-is-most-non-conference-schedules/index.php]Birk’s”>http://www.annarbor.com/sports/birks-eye-view-jim-harbaugh-slams-the-joke-that-is-most-non-conference-schedules/index.php)</p>

<p>The 39-student class was popular with several of Harrick’s players, since the coach wasn’t a stickler when it came to attendance, studying, or showing up for the College of Education course’s only test. Below you’ll find that test, a 20-question mockery that includes such brain teasers as, “How many points does a 3-point field goal account for in a Basketball Game?” Not surprisingly, each student got an A from Prof. Harrick.</p>

<p>[The</a> Smoking Gun: Archive](<a href=“The Smoking Gun: Public Documents, Mug Shots”>Three Points, Two Credits, No Net | The Smoking Gun)</p>

<p>Be honest - how many star college football and basketball players major in, say, engineering or computer science? Athletes tend to congregate in the easiest majors. To be fair, such behavior is entirely rational, as sports surely consumes much of their time, leaving little for studying. But at the same time, it also means that athletes don’t have much of a backup career.</p>

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<p>The US admission system is baffling.In my country,all one has to do is ace one test that covers 9th to 12th grade material.All students who get a B average and above get government sponsorship to college.</p>