Third rail of college admissions?

Parents Forum
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@lookingforward I’m not saying that by itself athletes on campuses justify admissions bumps. However, as I stated earlier, why should it change? Should it change so that great students from an academic standing are given more slots in a University? What would that give you?

1> I will let you pick the ranking. USNews, Financial Times, Forbes, World University Ranking… If you take the top 100 Colleges and Universities, what percentage of these are US institutions? Does the ratio of US institutions to total vs. the rest of the world to the total show that there is a problem with how the US Higher Education System works? Especially if you believe the noise that the US Education system for pre University is greatly flawed compared to the rest of the world, isn’t it amazing that the US dominates (and it isn’t even close). Consider also that in most places OUS, a student pays a fraction of what any top US university charges. When you walk on a US campus, how many international students do you see? When I went to Purdue 30 years ago, there were almost 30% international students on campus. Here was a case where it was cheaper for students to study in their own country, but they thought it was worthwhile to pay the extra money to attend a US institution of higher learning.

2> The phenomenon of tying athletics to a University is a very US thing. No other place around the globe are University Sports so emphasized.

Given #1 and #2, I’m not saying that athletics is what makes the US University System so dominant. But I don’t think you can discount it out of hand. It is part of the very unique campus life. There are other parts of that campus life as well from housing, clubs, greek life, etc. that you can point to as the American University Campus that is generally unique, but University Athletics are the biggest part of that. At Williams, the school points at any contest with Amherst as a big deal. If you aren’t associated with the University, you don’t care, but if you are the Football game is the biggest game of the year. In the Big 10, perennial football mediocrity games like IU v. PU are some of the biggest days in the state of Indiana, let alone on the campuses of these universities. For some reason college athletics are big deal from the smallest of D3 schools, throughout the D2 schools and obviously into the D1 schools. My wife graduated from a small regional midwest LAC and her school competes in the NAIA and it packs the stadium and arena for games against their rival. Once a year their school hosts a thing called Silent Night (check it out on YouTube, every game for the past 10 years is available) that rivals anything I’ve seen in a D1 college basketball contest for campus involvement.

Are there other things that the university system could highlight instead of college athletics. Sure. But Why?

222

I agree it’s an important part of campus life, where it exists. And I know the various ways certain other talents can affect admissions, too. But should athletic skill be a bump to an otherwise lackluster applicant? Even the Ivy AI is about the team average, not the individual (though there is a threshold that equates to about a B in hs and roughly that 1100 SAT.)

For tippy tops, the competition is fierce. Should different minimums (again, more than stats,) apply to athletes? In reality, in holistic, a problematic essay, so-so LoR, issues with course rigor, a couple of B grades, and other factors, can slip a kid behind. No so, with the most desired athletes.

Among the many instituional needs, geo diversity means not every great kid from an area, sub-area, or hs, really has an even chance. Of course, in the end, tippy tops can cherry pick what they see as the very best. I feel very uneasy about the way coaches can have pull that affects others’ chances.

That’s different than a top performer, highly active in the right ways, with the attributes the college seeks, getting a little tip because he/she will make a great add to the orchestra or newspaper, the campus ‘voice’ or in other ways. Those kids qualify first, then their tip may have a effect.

223

“Instead I was a prospective engineering major wit’h top scores on the math and science sections/subtests, as well as more impressive other sections of the application.”

Ok so we know that of every 100 kids with 1600 SATs, 800s on all subject tests, Stanford rejects 80 of them. These kids do not have an academic weakness in their application - meaning they could major in English or Electrical Engineering. So for sure it’s the other sections of the application, but for Stanford their hooks could be non-Asian, outside of California, possibly non-STEM.

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But why change the institution for the benefit of an individual applicant? To make it fair? I just don’t see the point. An earlier poster mentioned a world class oboe player. Having the best ever oboe player on a college campus isn’t going to add to the campus feel like an above average QB. It’s not fair, but it is the facts. Students won’t pack the auditorium to hear that world class oboe player because to the average person, there is little difference between the world class oboist’s rendition of Beethoven’s Fifth and the 1st chair at North City High School’s rendition of Beethoven’s Fifth. Universities are looking at the whole applicant that will help that institution satisfy its own goals and not to make sure every applicant has a fair chance.

I have 3 children, the oldest was an UW GPA 4.0, enough APs to pass out of his Freshman year at UMD, SAT in the high 1400 and he was all county, all region, and all state violinist in Pennsylvania and an Eagle Scout. He was accepted at UMD, GTech, McGill, UMich, University of Illinois. Not too shabby a list for a Computer Science major. He was originally differed at GTech and UMich and he was all “It isn’t fair, if I were an athlete…” However, he ended up being accepted at every school he applied to. I believe it was the holistic student that was accepted. So maybe he didn’t get a bump, but his EC’s did help him.

My next son is an all state track and field athlete with an 800 time that ranks him in the top 100 in the US. He is also a 4.0 UW ACT 34 SAT 1510 student who writes for the local paper, is Secretary for the Student Government, and plays drums in a rock band. He applied and was accepted ED1 at UChicago as a recruited athlete.

I’ve been on both sides of this argument for the past three years and understand from the customers prospective. I can see with child #1 the argument that athletes shouldn’t get a bump. With child #2, we knew that the athletic part was going to make the college process much easier. We didn’t feel sorry because A> he was an exceptional all around student and B> He works his tail off to be a top track athlete.

When I look at the data that I mentioned above, maybe the admissions departments of the US universities know what they are doing. Maybe when my daughter starts this process in a couple years I’ll feel differently. But, I doubt it.

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I’m not sure what you’re saying. I don’t think I generalized Amherst to all of NESCAC, but if i did , you’re saying Amherst has higher academically performing athletes than the rest of NESCAC?

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^ It’s important to distinguish between what happened for a poster more than a decade ago and what applies today. And my understanding is, that poster offered more promise in STEM, via certain activities, than just a strong M score.

Fact is, most admits don’t present a successful lopsided app.

227

“I will let you pick the ranking. USNews, Financial Times, Forbes, World University Ranking… If you take the top 100 Colleges and Universities, what percentage of these are US institutions? Does the ratio of US institutions to total vs. the rest of the world to the total show that there is a problem with how the US Higher Education System works”

First off, the US college system from community colleges to grad schools is the best in the world. However most if not all of those rankings are based on graduate school reputation and research output, among other things. The powerhouse US universities - Harvard, MIT, Chicago, Berkeley, Michigan etc. are there based on their graduate programs, which do not have any athletes or give preferences for hooks as in undergrad, outside of business school which does give preference to URMs. Athletes can be of any age, all the NCAA says is they only have four years eligibility. Why don’t these grad schools recruit as well for athletes that have eligibility if they can help the sport?

And while thee US Education system is the best, it still has flaws, among them admission at selective universities.

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@theloniusmonk I’m not sure that rankings based on grad school invalidate my argument? Are there rankings based on undergrad that present different data? Is it too big a jump to say that institutions at strong grad schools are more likely to have strong undergrad programs as well?

What is the flaw in the admissions process at selective universities? Stating it doesn’t make it true.

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"BTW, from 1991-2016, Harvard’s endowment increased by 7.4 times, Yale’s endowment increased by 9.9 times, and Princeton’s endowment increased by 8.44 times.

But DivI P5 FBS HYPS peer Stanford’s endowment increased by 10.96 times, beating all 3 of them.

The endowments of DivI P5 FBS private academic elites Northwestern, ND, and Duke increased by 9.22 times, 13.14 times, 12.96 times, respectively."

All the schools outside of HYPS started with a much lower base, so a lot easier to grow a $6B (Duke, Northwestern in 2007) endowment than Harvard which had $35B in 2007. Also those are larger schools than HYP, so once you get to endowment per student, the numbers don’t prove your point.

Again, the it’s the graduate school alumni that give to the school in far larger amounts than undergrad. And Harvard MBAs that are on campus for two years don’t get too attached to the sports teams, if at all. But once they hit a certain point in their career, they’re giving a lot based on their education and connections they made at HBS.

And if your theory is right, wouldn’t Alabama be at the top in growth from 2007 (when they started their football dominance)? Here are the endowments from 2007 and 2016 (wiki):

Alabama - $1B, $1.35B - 35%, good
Berkeley - $.8, $1,7 - 100%, even better and with a mediocre football program
Michigan - $7B, $10B, 50%, really good given that this was the worst period for Michigan football in 50 years.

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@BrianBoiler, well, your first kid also didn’t apply to any privates (especially LACs) who often do care about the music abilities of non-music majors.

Not all colleges admit the same way.

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@PurpleTitan Yeah, that was on purpose really. His goal was to apply to a PhD program out of his Undergrad in CS and he felt that the larger research universities would have been better for that. Not sure that is still his goal or if that assumption was even true.

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@theloniusmonk: And you cut out the rest of my post where I show that Duke, ND, and NU grew their endowments faster than DivIII U of C, WashU, Emory, and JHU. The sizes of those endowments are in the same range.

Among endowment peers, Stanford beat out all 3 of HYP as well.

BTW, it’s impossible to deal with Cal’s endowment because each UC has their own endowment but there is a big general UC endowment as well. Recently, the UC’s have been encouraging alums to donate to the specific UC endowment instead of the general UC endowment, which is why the Cal-specific endowment was so tiny and is growing much faster.

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@BrianBoiler, OK. Just saying that you can’t draw the conclusion that sports matters far more than music as an EC draw if they aren’t applying to the same types of schools.

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“But why change the institution for the benefit of an individual applicant? To make it fair? I just don’t see the point. An earlier poster mentioned a world class oboe player. Having the best ever oboe player on a college campus isn’t going to add to the campus feel like an above average QB.”

We’re not talking oboe player vs. above average QB, we’re talking oboe player vs sports where nobody outside of relatives shows up. How are sports with nobody attending benefiting the campus? An admissions officer once mentioned that a lot of these sports are AA for rich white applicants. They benefit the applicant, the admissions office for sure so they can have the class they want, but not really the campus outside of having a demographic. I can see the strongest sport getting preference (e.g. lacrosse at JHU or ice hockey at Princeton) but outside of those, not so sure.

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“Among endowment peers, Stanford beat out all 3 of HYP as well.”

Stanford may be the best college in the country, certainly I think it is. However when it comes to endowment, it’s not a peer of Harvard, not even close. In 2007, Stanford $17B, Harvard $34B. Those are not peers, now Stanford is 24, Harvard 36, closer so maybe a fair comparison can be made over the next few years.

Again are you saying the success of Stanford’s athletic programs was the primary cause of this increase in endowment? I would counter that maybe it was the donations from the Google co-founders who did their master’s at Stanford where they formed the company.

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@PurpleTitan
Emory’s endowment took a massive hit compared to their peers in the recession due to large Coca-Cola stocks. Emory’s endowment dropped to 3.5-4 billon or so in 2009. They have thus diversified their portfolio… I personally think investment quality matters more than alumni support, but I might be wrong…

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@theloniusmonk: You’re picking out isolated examples but again, all 3 of NU, ND and Duke (none of them anywhere near Silicon Valley) beat out all 4 of UChicago, WashU, Emory, and JHU in endowment growth.

In 1991, all 3 of UChicago, WashU, and Emory had bigger endowments than all 3 of NU, ND, and Duke.
In 2016, NU and ND was ahead of all 3 of UChicago, WashU, and Emory, with Duke ahead of WashU and Emory and just barely trailing the U of C.

How do you explain that?

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@VANDEMORY1342:

From the start of 1991 (and the end of 1991) through the end of 2009, KO actually outperformed SPX by a massive amount so holding KO shouldn’t explain Emory’s endowment’s relative underperformance in endowment growth.

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“What is the flaw in the admissions process at selective universities? Stating it doesn’t make it true.”

This whole site exists because of the flaws and really it would divert this thread if we discussed it here. But for sure here are some flaws

  • the admission process favoring the wealthy and upper middle class, and wealthier neighborhoods
  • process being confusing, unpredictable for many applicants
  • the stress it's causing students in high school
  • early decision where the student is locked in and college has all the power
  • hooks distorting the process
  • financial aid where meeting full need, is a lie and on and on.
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“For tippy tops, the competition is fierce. Should different minimums (again, more than stats,) apply to athletes? In reality, in holistic, a problematic essay, so-so LoR, issues with course rigor, a couple of B grades, and other factors, can slip a kid behind. No so, with the most desired athletes.”

Again I’m not sure why the assumption is made that an athlete’s application is some hot mess…
There is a assumption the rest of the elements of the app aren’t up to snuf. How do you know this?
The student athletes I know (class valedictorian, mock trial, national merit semi-finalists etc) were all AP students who would have no problem writing a competitive essay, gaining glowing LoRs and submitting stellar stats. Admittedly these athletes participated in sports that skewed heavily towards academics (crew, golf, tennis) but they were equally competitive with any non-athlete applicants.

As to alumni donations my kid has noted that alumni from his team are counted as the most generous of the larger alumni base. They are very proud of the mark they made on their school and some would argue continue to make…