Of course, many of the colleges in all NCAA divisions are not that selective, so that the athletes may have been admissible by their normal admission standards (i.e. no admission concession). For example, here are University of Mississippi admission standards: https://admissions.olemiss.edu/applying-to-ole-miss/freshmen/ . Note that in-state applicants who meet the NCAA academic minimums are automatically admitted, as are out-of-state applicants who meet the NCAA academic minimums plus any of 2.75 HS GPA, 1100 SAT, or 22 ACT.
Well the concept of “merit” doesn’t mean only grades and GPA in American colleges and universities. Merit doesn’t always mean the person who makes the least mistakes in their business job either. Merit is a very, very loose term.
Healthy minds, healthy bodies has long, long been a concept at selective colleges going back generations and generations. The UofM statutes of the athlete and the scholar at the old union come to mind every time someone brings up this topic. My third wrote his UofM essay about those statutes because his grandpa talked about living in the union when it was housing temporarily and those statutes all the time (engineering class of '49) and they made a big impression on S3.
I believe that is one effect of their admissions preference.
@iaparent You would have to deduct the amount of grade inflation for those athletes. I’m not saying that all colleges do it, but I’m sure it does happen. That would effect the numbers that you’re seeing.
But shouldn’t athletes need to meet the same strict requirements as everyone else? Why can’t they play a sport AND have high GPA’s? Why make concessions for them?
There are no stats of course so I can’t claim empirically, but is it reasonable to guess the stats for any other specific skill admit group would not also be lower than the general population? Not just athletes…
In fact, in the Ivies and NESCAC there are specific formulas for athletes to ensure reasonable compliance which do not apply to other groups.
Why NESCACs emphasize athletics, Point 1 of 3
This is true. Yet it’s also true that these schools still manage to recruit extremely well qualified classes, at least by conventional metrics. For example, the 2017 USNWR rankings (sorry, don’t have the 2018) put Williams, Amherst, Middlebury, and Bowdoin among the Top 10 National LACs in terms of “selectivity rank” (and in terms of overall rank). These schools may be sacrificing something to recruit athletes – but probably not very much.
OK, let’s take Pomona as an example of a top LAC that puts less emphasis on athletic recruitment. How about Swarthmore as well? Then let’s compare the 25%-75% SAT range for Fall 2016, from the CDS:
Williams: 1330 - 1540
Amherst: 1360 - 1560
Pomona: 1340 - 1540
Swarthmore: 1305 - 1530
None of these schools are test-optional, so it’s a fair comparison. Are Williams and Amherst really hurting here?
As a parent of a “recruited” athlete. I put the “” around the word recruited because throughout the process my son actually did the recruiting. At the upper tier of uber selective DIII, for non-football, basketball, soccer, and maybe a couple regional specialty sports, it is the student that makes the contact in most cases.
In every case, when we talked to coaches at Williams, Bowdoin, JHU, CMU, and UChicago, every coach was very conscience of the students academic potential. At two of the above the coaches were very proud that their team GPA was higher than the average of the institution. I believe in these cases the institution views the whole student. A student that earns 12 varsity letters, 4x captain and maintains a 4.0 unweighted GPA with a SAT north of 1500 is very attractive to the institution. It not only shows that the student is an exceptional student, but also a very successful athlete.
I also tend to believe that if you were to have the same academic stats at the same school and were a member of Model UN, debated club president, all state orchestra, 4x state band competition solo musician medalist you would get equal standing as the athlete mentioned above. Now a world class accordion player or mime artist might get rejected out of hand for choice of passion (that was sarcasm in case you are firing up your he-hates-accordion-players-and-mimes counter post), I do believe that highly selective schools pay close attention to whatever your passion is and your success at that passion.
I also know that many of the highly selective schools “recruit” many athletes of the caliber mentioned above and when the dust settles in the admissions process those athletes, who were told if they use their ED at the school that the coach would advocate for them, are rejected. I read of one such case just this morning on the UChicago board. So, they may get an advantage, but in some cases if they burn their ED with a school, they don’t get in and would have been better off applying somewhere else. All that says is they also might pay a heavy price.
Why NESCACs emphasize athletics, Point 2 of 3
Most NESCACs went coed around 1970. Since then, the number of female applicants has climbed steadily, to the point where many schools are now troubled by the imbalance. At Middlebury, for example, women outnumbered men in the applicant pool by 5,074 to 3,745 in Fall 2016.
So most NESCACs want to recruit more men. And one of the most effective tools for convincing men that LACs are not women’s colleges is a strong, visible athletics program – especially football.
If a school wants to deemphasize athletics, then football is the first thing to go. Football requires particularly large numbers of recruits, and (anecdotally) sacrifices in academic quality. Furthermore, it causes the most Title 9 headaches, because it is the only major NCAA men’s sport that has no women’s counterpart (also wrestling, but wrestling programs are much smaller and less popular).
There are, in fact, many highly ranked LACs in NESCAC territory (New England and upstate NY) that have no football programs. They include Vassar, Mt. Holyoke, Smith, Skidmore, Connecticut College, and Wellesley. Would emulating those schools be an effective way to attract male applicants?
@megan12 Based on my experience yes there is some grade inflation but by the same token there is grade deflation as well. My own experience, in a required freshman rhetoric class, made that crystal clear. My instructor had a policy that each student was allowed 3 unexcused absences from class and each dropped their grade by one letter. On the 4th absence you failed the course. She did not include athletic absences as excused. I talked with her about this, explained I could get anything she needed from the athletic department but university travel should be excused. Her answer was that her opinion was athletes already received too much help and preference and she was not going to contribute to it and was going to offset the scales a little bit. I snuck through with a D in the class because I had 3 travel dates that conflicted with class and it was required all freshman take the class 1st semester. She also restricted me from writing or speaking about anything that had an athletic component because I was the only athlete in the class and as such no one else cared about sports (but apparently we all cared about the duties of a mortician on student wrote about continuously).
I don’t disagree that there are those that can have high stats and be an elite athlete but as many have said there is a balance. My wife is currently working with a blue chip football recruit who has not yet been able to sign his LOI because of his SAT score, he can’t meet the NCAA minimum, he needs 40 more points on the math section. This kid should not be going to college period much less a highly selective school and will most likely be an academic casualty. At the same time, as much as the Stanford coach or an Ivy coach would love to have him as a football player, he would never get in, he is too far away from their admission requirements. On the other hand if he can help the football program and as a result the school, wouldn’t it make sense to let him in if his SAT is 40 points below their typical admission requirements?
Lumping all athletes into the same pile is ridiculous. I think back to a friend from high school that never stood out in the classroom but did on the football field. He played major division one football, was an all-American, and I believe won a national championship. He would have been a first round draft pick in the NFL but decided to pursue med school, at which point he dropped off my radar screen. Imagine my surprise, years later when he walked in as the attending cardiologist when my father was hospitalized. I just read an article about a former classmate, football player, that after his 8 year NFL career has become one of the leaders in the solar energy field. Again not a standout student by any means but now a leading authority that is trying to bring about global change.
I’m more concerned about the quality of education these atheletes get than how many are accepted. Some schools take great advantage and make it difficult for student atheletes to get a good education. Not fair to other applicants but also really not fair to student atheletes who, for the most part, will end their sports careers upon graduation.
Our older kids play sports recreationally and would never get recruited. They had/will have plenty of options. I think you just cast a wide net knowing that some schools aren’t going to value your child the same way you do.
Why NESCACs emphasize athletics, Point 3 of 3
The following points are anecdotal; I have no data to back them up. However, you will find that they are widely accepted as valid in the NESCAC community.
- NESCAC athletes tend to end up in the business or financial sectors after graduation.
- Successful NESCAC athletes have intangible qualities (leadership, discipline, ability to work in teams, hard work, competitive drive) that also contribute to success in the business or financial sectors.
- Successful alumni in the business or financial sectors account for a disproportionate share of donations.
The point is that this group feels slighted or threatened in some way by student athletes. You could substitute any other group and probably get the same results of people complaining that such and such was “unfair”. I just don’t get the antipathy toward student athletes that is a constant theme here. I don’t know, maybe people are projecting their high school feelings if they went to a high school where athletes were a big deal. I also doubt unis are “sacrificing” brain potential. I have a friend married to a former UofM quarterback and he’s no duffer in the brain department… I don’t know many former college athletes that are loosers old or young which is anecdotal of course. My kid was a football player and a lacrosse player in HS and he’s no dummy either and good enough that he could easily have taken the athlete path in college but thought better of it on top of engineering. College recruiters look at BOTH athletic prowess and academic markers for the particular selectivity of the college. They can’t recruit kids who can’t get admitted based on academic standards.
@momofthreeboys are your friends with Mrs. Tom Brady?!?!
@turtletime I worry less about that. I do not have a student athlete, but I do have multiple friends with kids playing D1 sports. 1 Acro & Tumbling, 1 Women’s Besketball, 1 Baseball and 1 Football and one of DD2016’s friends is an academic tutor for a major D1 football school. They are all pretty smart kids academically in their own right. But, I am simply astounded at the academic benefits that these kids get. The level of tutoring available to athletes is phenomenal and it is no surprise to me that they maintain awesome GPA despite the time they spend on athletics. All of the athletes I know are required to attend X amount of tutoring per week which can amount to a basically one on one or small group education. They are also given special consideration for testing, dorms and food. The connections that they make during team appearances is also phenomenal. They are provided entire wardrobes in sponsored team wear, shoes, jackets, workout wear. I do not doubt that schools take advantage of their athletes, but the athletes are also given much in compensation in terms of preferential treatment and opportunities. (Same is true of preferential treatment of academic superstars in terms of fellowships, internship and research opportunities) If anyone is getting the shaft it is the average kid who has to make their own opportunities.
I don’t hate student athletes, kudos to them for having the talent and dedication to earn a spot playing collegiately, but I am also not feeling any sympathy for the tough road they have self selected to follow either.
OP here. I think the point that I would like to stress which maybe I didn’t clearly enough in my original post is that sports is a given a special status separate from all other exctracurriculars. I’m not saying individual athletes don’t deserve to be at their respective schools because they do indeed work hard, have discipline, develop teamwork skills, etc. But there are other extracurriculars that build discipline, teamwork, etc other than athletics and they do not command a completely outsized role in admissions. I don’t think it is all about the money necessarily. There is something in the culture which very few folks want to examine or admit.
@arsenalozil I understand your first post. While I agree somewhat, not totally. Athletes are one group, most likely the largest, but not only. I think musicians, theater performers, high school journalists, president’s kids, rich donors, and legacies also receive special status in the admissions process. Every national academic contest winner gets special consideration. Kids who pull themselves out of miserable circumstances from inner cities get special consideration. Students from trailer parks in rural america but still exceed in the classroom get special consideration. I don’t think there is anything wrong with any of these.
This question ranks up with “Why do celebrities get special access to express their political opinion?” They do, most everybody agrees there is something odd about it, but really don’t know what to do about it.
The article linked to above in #12 also says:
and goes on to state that they do well in both economically and in community involvement. That suggests the schools are not picking slackers. Perhaps the schools think that a kid with a slightly lower GPA that is a high level athlete was able to balance both aspects of life and be successful on both fronts. It is not surprising that they may end up with lower GPAs (although not true of all sports) as there is a big time commitment (although if that is true of those that quit their sport, may be a different story).
Many of the recruited athletes are in smaller sports like swimming, fencing, crew which do not get much love from the general public but are very demanding. These schools think there is value in having athletes among their students. The reality is these kids are highly sought after because there are far fewer excellent athletes that also have the stats for a top college. The schools may also value violinists and dancers, but there are many more to choose from so they don’t need to do any special recruiting. But a kid that is nationally known in the arts or anything AND has good stats is also likely to be admitted. Just like with anything else, it is all about supply and demand.
True.
…with “nefarious intent”, according to The Price of Admission: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges – and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates by Daniel Golden.
I read the book, found it interesting, but was glad I got it form the library and didn’t spend $ on it.
It’s about legacies, celebrities and development cases too, but puts the elite college athletic recruiting system (mostly the preppy sports) in the same bucket - a way for wealthier white folks to get their kids in (at the expense of Asian applicants, mostly).
OP, you might enjoy it. It gets into unintended consequences of Title IX and explores the issues you raise in some depth. It also repeats itself a lot.
I’d leave out musicians, theater performers, high school journalists - on an individual basis they may be desired but they get nothing like the organized athletic recruiting system with coaches giving admissions lists of athletes they want to get in despite lower academic credentials. Recruited athletes are in a class of their own in admissions. (As are president’s kids).
I don’t object to athletes getting a tip in admissions similar to talented oboe players or actors but in general I think too many places are held for them…oboe players have to balance school work and their EC too.
That said, I also think private colleges do what’s best for them and that’s fine.
I don’t have an issue with athletic recruits. What I do have a problem with is URMs getting singled out as taking other more deserving students’ spots at elite schools, when I think the data would show that athletes are getting more of an admissions boost than URMs generally. I think holistic admissions is a good thing and most who graduated from an elite school would agree that holistic admissions contributes to what makes the experience special. Creating a special entering class is an art that requires a school to look beyond stats. The American college experience that most want requires athletes and diversity in all its forms, and that will result in higher stats kids sometimes losing out to those with lower stats at elite schools, which have limited enrollment. I’m tired of all the complaints about the system in all respects. If you don’t like the system, choose a college that has a different mission and admissions philosophy. No one is owed a spot. Period. I think the system is fine as is.