<p>Kerfeet- Stanford may offer many student-athletes scholarships but until they make it through admissions they are not considered “accepted”. Have seen several baseball players though the years that verbaled to Stanford but then didn’t make it through admissions. Wait and see if this player really ends up @ Stanford next year.</p>
<p>Along those lines if Stanford is accepting subpar academics why do they have an understaffed basketball team this year???</p>
<p>And perhaps the player in question has really high SAT’s ?? Sometimes we don’t know the whole story.</p>
<p>And if in fact he does go to Stanford but is failing he won’t be eligible according to the NCAA. If he’s failing in high school he also may not be eligible for college sports per the NCAA. Again, you probably don’t have all the facts.</p>
<p>Kerfeet- wow! Just reread your post. Talk about bias. I take it you don’t know any smart athletes??? There are plenty of problems with athletics and our universities but Stanford usually doesn’t fall under those suspicions. There are lots of great schools academically that also have great athletics.</p>
<p>My son has been a varsity runner since his first semester of high school. He was one of three juniors out of 180 to make high honor roll all year, and he got a 780 on the SAT math test. I was the “geeky” type of smart kid in high school and played no sports, but I have to tell you, my son is smarter and harder-working than I am. He’s like misswan’s son to a tee. Any college would be lucky to get him.</p>
<p>I’m trying to whisper so kerfeet and the other “athlete haters” don’t hear me. We’ve enjoyed many months of open and supportive conversation over here on the athletic recruits forum. The haters were bound to find us sooner or later, but I had hoped they would follow the adage of “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” The best thing about this forum has been the lack of interruptions from posters like kerfeet. We get that there’s a different point of view about athletes in college, and we’re probably not going to change anybody’s mind with arguing. Let’s just hope the rest of them don’t find us. </p>
<p>Carry on, all you student/athletes doing double duty. Your parents couldn’t be prouder.</p>
Really? I thought Stanford had relatively lax academic standards for baseball (after all, they’re so good at it). Are there specific examples you can give without including names?</p>
<p>On some site (I think Rivals) there is a list of Stanford football commits and current attendees, several with 500-550 per SAT section (one had 475 per section but the site said he retook it).</p>
<p>I have worked at extremely selective DIII schools, including a few that have been mentioned in this thread. In addition, I am well aware of the Ivy recruitment process (educate yourselves on the Ivy Index people!), having many colleagues who work at these schools and having attended one as an athlete. In short, athletics matters. If you are TRULY a recruited athlete, this status can have a tremendous impact on your decision. The trick is to find out whether or not you are high on a coach’s list…this can be tough to figure out. The best way to do so is to talk about ED with them - they will jump as high as you want them to if you are truly high on their list and are thinking about ED. On the flip side, I have seen coaches turn very cold on a recruit when they decide not to apply ED. If you think you are a recruit and have a first choice school, talk frankly with the coach at that school!</p>
<p>I find this set of posts really fascinating. I am middle aged, so I attended Caltech deep in the last century. In my years (the crazy 60’s) Caltech didn’t give a hoot whether you played sports. They no longer have a football team (apparently they sell a teeshirt that advertises the fact that the team is undefeated since 1994), but in my time they won one game in four years. At the same time, the coaches felt very secure because the school measured their success by how satisfied the students were with the program. I believe, as I guess the majority of Caltech graduates do, that the entire system of judging collegiate athletes by an academic double standard is a profound corruption of post-secondary education. Thus, I wish that other schools that publicly define themselves as bastions of academic excellence, would find the courage and integrity to eliminate athletic scholarships altogether and judge students on the basis of mental ability and character.</p>
<p>S2 has been focused on LACs and mid-size research Us. Did not want to go Ivy, though his AI is very strong (and one Ivy asked him to send a tape and apply). Did not expect to be recruited or get a tip. Heck, he doesn’t even have a tape. Got calls from several coaches, and three asked for transcripts/scores. His point with the coaches has always been that he is choosing a college first and foremost for the academics. When they’ve seen his transcripts and scores, they seem to understand that. He’s at/above 75%tile for all the schools on his list. He’s a strong enough academic candidate that the coaches can use their clout elsewhere.</p>
<p>“I believe, as I guess the majority of Caltech graduates do, that the entire system of judging collegiate athletes by an academic double standard is a profound corruption of post-secondary education. Thus, I wish that other schools that publicly define themselves as bastions of academic excellence, would find the courage and integrity to eliminate athletic scholarships altogether and judge students on the basis of mental ability and character.”</p>
<p>I wonder how people like you and kerfeet can be so certain that your views reflect the only plausible approach to the admissions process. It seems to me that private colleges in particular could take a variety of different views of what kinds of students could bring value to the college and who in turn could benefit most from the experience offered by the college, and that so long as the relevant criteria are open and above board, there is no “profound corruption” or lack of “courage and integrity.”</p>
<p>Agreed. My athletic recruit son boy has a 95.37 GPA in IB, student gvt, editor of the paper, natural helper(peer counselor), 2 season team captain, academic bowl, etc etc PLUS 18+ hours of sports practice a week-why shouldn’t it show colleges he is excellent at time management and has a lot to offer any school?</p>
<p>It would. Admissions knows the time element it takes to compete in a sport and considers it. And time management only becomes more important in college. </p>
<p>A bit off-topic, but a law student/Olympian spoke to my group and told us that his grades improved as his time commitment in his sport INCREASED telling us that sports at the college level need not be a win/lose academically.</p>
<p>my D has worked 30+ hours a week at her sport for 4 years, 11 months out of the year. </p>
<p>but if she stopped her sport I think her gpa would fall, the discipline and energy she gets from her sport helps her maintain a high gpa and a fully loaded AP schedule.</p>
<p>Recently, I emailed a coach at an Ivy League school asking about recruiting standards. He/she replies back saying “I will generally recruit athletes with these times/distances.”
However, on further asking, he/she says “since competition is so high, we will only support athletes with times much higher than these times”
My question is then, why would this coach tell me a “recruiting” time/distance that does not even matter to her/him since they wouldn’t support an athlete with that “recruiting” time?</p>
<p>jumper, they want to see the whole pool of athletes. Some years they are more successful than others in signing the highest recruits. Other years they need to drop lower on the list. They need a much longer list than the number they finally choose. The coach is being realistic with you about who eventually ends up being admitted, in most years.</p>
That approach would not work in the IVY league or tne NESCAC … in both those leagues teams and overall programs are not judged by “average AIs” but are assigned a set number of slots of recruits in each AI band … recruiting more high AI recruits has no affect on the number of the lower AI band recruits a school can recruit.</p>
<p>@ Riverrunner: What would happen if 2010, let’s say, wasn’t a good year and so they had to lower standards, would they still support those who qualify, yet may not as good as last year? Or would they just give up 2009 athletes and pursue the year after and hope for better? In other words, not recruit any of this year’s athletes and wait for next year?</p>
<p>I’m going to take a guess at this one, Jumper… the track coach has to recruit for all distances, jumps and throws. So if he can’t find any good jumpers one year but is having good luck finding throwers, he’d probably spend his likely letter support on the throwers, and then look doubly hard for jumpers the next year. I don’t think a good coach is going to gamble on someone who hasn’t shown some solid potential in high school. If you’re on the bubble athletically, the best thing you could do is have solid academics, and demonstrate a work ethic and desire to improve. All college coaches believe they can improve on a high school athlete who has basic athleticism and desire. They can’t let too many years go by without recruiting in each event, obviously. </p>
<p>You would do well to stalk the rosters of the schools you’re interested in and check the grad dates of the current jumpers to see who really needs you. If you’re invited on officials, you will meet not only the coaches and current athletes, but also the other kids in your recruiting class. As the recruiting season progresses, you can find out who is going to each school, if you keep in touch, and will have a better of idea of which schools might still be looking for someone like you.</p>
<p>Is your spring season is going as well as you’d hoped? Hang in there…there’s a spot for you somewhere.</p>