Third rail of college admissions?

Parents Forum
121

Well, most teams going to tournaments do not have the band going with them and the NCAA still pays for the team. Not all tournaments are basketball or football, so no 10,000 tickets (some schools don’t even have 10,000 students), no marching band, no cheerleaders, no mascot going to lax, softball, baseball, swimming, and tennis events.

All bowl games aren’t on ESPN - Fox/Fox sports, B1G network, PAC12 network all have plenty of sports. I live in a PAC12 state, but BTN is what my cable company chooses to include.

122

Football coaches can have even higher salaries. For example, Michigan paid their coach $9 million. Even the assistant football coaches at Michigan earn 7 figure salaries, which is more than the president.

123

More people can name the Michigan coaches than the college president. The team brings in more revenue than the president. The football coaches could make that much at a different job (NFL, broadcasting) and it’s unlikely the president could. It’s the market.

124

I remember being very impressed that my son’s team GPA exceeded the school’s average. These guys put in 20+hrs practice+races+travel to races+gym workouts (outside of required ;-)) and still manage to kick “academic butt” yet there will be those who still disparage and say they don’t belong or took someone’s place. Lol…carry on
Not to mention some are musicians, belong to debate teams, theatre etc…they are not dumb jocks by any measure…

125

@PurpleTitan $3.2M is much less than coaches earn at some public colleges (though I guess you can argue about the value of the AD compared to the coach): https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailynews.com/2017/08/22/californias-top-public-salaries-go-to-coaches-doctors/amp/

126

@Twoin18, right, football coaching is very much a results-driven meritocracy where the top coaches generate more revenue than a team otherwise would.

I don’t know what special benefits the Vandy AD is giving Vandy compared to the AD’s of college athletics power programs elsewhere.

127

@Corbett -

Mt Holyoke, Smith and Wellesley (and Barnard) are women’s colleges
Vassar, Skidmore, Conn College (as well as Wheaton, Bennington and Sarah Lawrence) were once women’s colleges

Bard(#46), Hampshire(unranked) and College of the Atlantic(#93) are the only LACs in “NESCAC territory” that I am aware of that do not have football and were never all female colleges.

Olin and Babson are “specialty colleges”.

Brandeis is a “research University”

Does anyone know any others?

128

I as a parent don’t care whether or not my kid wants to go to a college with good sport programs, but I do understand why a school with a great basketball team such as Duke would accept a star basketball player with a lot lower GPA and test score than the average Duke student because many campus students attend Duke games and Duke benefits from the national recognition their basketball program brings. For me when Duke name is mentioned, I immediately think of their basketball program even though I am sure Duke has other fine qualities. Now, I do think it’s wise to have some admission standards for even great athletes, but I am sure some schools abuse this. Don’t tell me Lorenzo Ball or his brother got into UCLA with 3.5 GPA from high school. Unless national TV covers oboe playing with the same money and passion, great oboe players are not going to get into UCLA with 2.0 gpa. I bet you minimum standards vary even among sports depending on the popularity of the sport. For example, a great bowler is not going to be treated the same as as a great basketball player.

When I was in high school, I had a friend who was a pretty good high school pitcher(top 3 in the school district) and a decent GPA of around 3.6. He got into Yale early, whereas I, who was a top 3 in the district in tennis was not wanted for my tennis ability because let’s face it, being top 3 in school district is no big deal. I was very surprised that Yale would consider his baseball ability as a big deal because he was just a good in district level.

I could care less whether my kid goes to see athletic events at his college because I myself never went to see a game at my college even though I played a lot of sports in my life and was pretty good high school level player in tennis and soccer, but my kid did tell me he will attend few football games at Stanford to relax. I don’t think my kid will be looking forward to attending oboe playing event to relax or attend a debating contest for fun.

Do you really think a good snowboarder is treated the same as a good basketball player? Now, Chloe Kim, an Olympic gold medal winner will get into almost any school she applies even though the colleges don’t have snowboarding competitions because the school’s brand name will go up.

129

One interesting side effect of the current system is that at many schools, there aren’t many walk-on opportunities. I suspect there are a lot of HS athletes in the NESCAC, Ivies, etc who played a sport well in HS but couldn’t make a team - or don’t want to make the required time commitment - to play that sport in college.

Some schools have vibrant club or intramural or inter-house sports programs for “regular athletes” - kids who want to play for fun and some level of competition. Like most public high schools - no recruiting, just playing with who you’ve got. Some schools don’t offer much of that.

If schools dropped the preference for athletes in admissions, how would the sports culture change? Teams would get worse, but if an entire league did it, one assumes the level of play would go down to a more amateur level equally, preserving similar competition. Not saying it would be better, but wonder in what ways it would be worse.

130

@OHMomof2
FYI my son’s team at an Ivy has many walk-ons. They do have to go through a rigorous try out but I’d say about 1/3 are walk ons. Having said that not many last all four years as the pace/demands of the sport coupled with demanding academics using cull the field. The ones who stick it out are pretty tough guys tho :slight_smile:

131

According to the NCAA, 46 percent of Division I athletes are walk-ons. Of course this varies by team/school. A top ranked football or men’s basketball program is not going to get many walk-ons, but some of the other teams at the school likely will. I was a walk-on on the crew team at the college with the top ranked overall Div I sports performance, as measured by Director’s Cup type rankings. The vast majority of the team were walk-ons.

132

Let me rephrase. Walk on opps may exist on some teams and at some schools, but such players may not be likely to get much playing time, and many students likely compete for relatively few spots (or just don’t bother trying).

I guess I’m wondering what makes the college experience in a recruited team conference/league different than those that would be in a “for fun” team league.

In high school it’s generally assumed that exercise is important for all, and often team players are exempted from gym requirements and the like, so a lot of kids play. YMMV of course.

With some exceptions, it seems the model has changed by college - good athletes are brought in by admissions from all over to make teams better, regular athletes are left to whatever intramural/club opportunities may exist. Is that a good or bad thing?

133

So to answer OP’s question directly, it’s because certain sports events bring in money, get alumni, professors and students excited about their schools and bring national recognitions, i.e., help further the school’s brand name on national or international level. Therefore, athlete applicants in those sports in particular will get in with a lot lower GPA and test scores than the average. [I repeat that I realize some athlete applicants have very high stats in addition to their athletic accomplishments.] Now, I do think certain “respectable” GPA and test score standard should be in place even for athletes but I am sure it varies greatly among schools. For certain sports such as archery, the school has to have an archery team and have an outstanding record in archery for the school to allow an applicant who is really good in archery to be admitted with significantly worse stats. Otherwise, the school might just treat a great achievement in archery competition (unless the applicant has won very high award in World or Olympic competitions) as just another time consuming activity.

134

In fact the opposite is true. 30+ players per year are walk ons for big time football. The coaches can only give out 85 scholarships so the rest are non-scholarship walk ons. They may not be unknown to the coach, and in fact may have been on the team the year before, but they are ‘regular’ students as far as the NCAA is concerned and did not get admissions help. Until a few years ago, they couldn’t even eat the team’s food at practice and couldn’t receive all the ‘goodie’ that scholarship athletes received.

Basketball is a little different as most teams just have the scholarship athletes, and maybe a couple more. They don’t carry rosters of 20-30 players.

There is an enormous difference between varsity, club, and intramurals.

Schools have dropped sports in recent years. It would be interesting to see if it makes a difference in their applications and recruiting for other sports. A coach told me when my daughter was looking that the school wouldn’t/couldn’t drop her sport because that tiny little school has a football team, so Title IX was going to protect the women’s teams.

135

Sports are also being used as recruiting devices (generally by lesser-known smaller privates who need the tuition money). If they are DivIII, they can get kids who are not willing to give up their sport yet and can go on to be NCAA athletes (though paying tuition for the privilege).

136

I’m most familiar with selective D3 schools, and I know that most of them have admissions screen applicants before the coaches can say who they want, so I don’t think that at most of those schools, athletic recruits are lowering academic standards. But in pools where there are MANY more qualified applicants that places for them, it does seem extraordinary that the Admissions Offices cede their decision-making authority to coaches who are basing their decisions on who gets those prized spots based on who can run or swim fastest, or who’s left-footed on a soccer pitch, or who can throw a ball faster. Sure, there is hard work and perseverance involved in perfecting those skills –as well as natural talent, the right body type, peaking at the right time, and in some cases, the luck of avoiding injury – but there are plenty of kids who achieve at similar levels in things that schools do not value the same way in terms of admissions. These included sports that the schools don’t offer (such as figure skating), music, etc. They also include the kids who worked just as hard but were #3 of #4 on their team, not #1 or #2. Or the kid who chose a more competitive sport. (In our small community, I have seen two kids from our small school “re-direct” from gymnastics to pole-vaulting simply because of the perceived recruiting possibilities. While I was amazed at the time, being strategic seems to have paid off for both of them. )

I suspect that it’s hard to hire coaches if you don’t’ give them this right, and it’s easy to argue that athletes play a valuable role on many smaller campuses, bringing together students whose commonality is their sport rather than their major, their SES, etc. Parents who have watched their kids refine their athletic talent naturally think that they have “earned” their admission, and to be fair, applying as a recruit is complicated in that you’re trying to find a place where you can thrive as both an athlete and as a student. But if your child has been spending all of his/her time in the dance studio or practicing the clarinet, it’s hard to understand why dedication to a sport is somehow more “worthy” than that.

While there is plenty of anecdotal evidence about giving (and if you played on a college team, you probably get sport-specific e-mails and solicitations to “connect” you to that), I saw research in a professional capacity that showed that having been a college athlete was, in general, not linked to strong alumni giving. (I don’t recall the entire set examined but know that it included at least one Ivy.)

I do think this is a problem for applicants, and I am realistic about how many kids would like to be able to play at the college level but simply are not good enough, and to me, it seems unfair. But I’m not really sure what the fix is at ones where this practice is so firmly entrenched.

137

There are schools for the student dedicated to the dance studio or clarinet, just like there are for athletes. Those schools are also very competitive to get into for those dedicated to their art or performance pursuit. Schools give and edge to those students because of their talent, yet we aren’t complaining about that…hmmm.

I think one issue is people underestimate the ability of these athletes, particularly at the D1 level. When I think back to the baseball league for thousands of kids in our area, every dad thought their little junior was something special, yet not one of those made it to D1 and were lucky if they played at their junior college. Most ended sports after high school. My guess is most posters can’t name a D1 athlete from their area, because it is not easy to be that good. Being best at a high school generally means very little because it is a national, and in some sports, world wide competition for a spot on these top D1 teams. And since DIII aren’t getting money, they are just getting an edge to fill something the school offers to all students. If the students didn’t pursue that, well that is on them - it’s not like it is a secret. If someone wants to play in college, they just have to be good enough to do so, DIII ranges widely in athletic ability required based on school and sport. This isn’t t-ball, college don’t owe everyone a turn.

Whether a musician or athlete, the very best who go to the very best schools often times did not get into their craft to help college admissions. They did it for hours and hours over years because they love it and are dedicated to it. A student not spending 20-40 hours a week training at something should make spectacular grades because they have so much more time than someone that is. But the student that is excelling academically while being an elite athlete or artist is and exceptional young person. I think some are just disappointed that their student didn’t have this amazing “thing” they got into at such a level, but what isn’t fair is to begrudge those that did.

138

I once attended an admissions presentation where the officer said, “We have students here from 49 states. If you know someone from Wyoming please tell them to apply.”

I also remember reading an article several years ago that a school built a new Hillel center. They were actively recruiting Jewish students because they wanted to make sure the building was used.

I’ve walked through student centers that hang up flags of all the countries they have students from.

My point is that everyone is looking for a competitive advantage, a way to stand out, a hook. Athletics is one, but others may include geography, legacy status, ethnic origin, etc. That’s part of what “holistic” means. And those hooks are going to vary by school and even by year. This year Wyoming, next year Montana.

Whether it’s right or wrong is another story. Everyone wants diversity on campus, so these decisions have to be made somehow.

None of my kids attended a small LAC but I would imagine that if they have many teams, a significant percentage of their students are athletes. That becomes part of the school culture. Even if you’re not an athlete, if that kind of environment is not attractive to you, maybe it’s not a good fit.

139

On my son’s ivy team, there is currently only one player (a junior) who walked on as a freshman. Roster and travel spots are limited, so there is very little opportunity for walk ons.

140

Some majors have long-time walkon programs

http://uwbadgers.com/news/2017/2/1/football-real-opportunities-walk-ons-get-their-shot-at-wisconsin.aspx

https://www.kcisports.com/walkOnThisWay.php