Stanford has a fairly low four-year grad rate which I’ve always attributed to its heavy athletics presence. Here are the stats with comparisons from two years prior:
4-year grad rate: Stanford 75/73, Harvard 84/85, UChicago 88/90
6-year grad rate: Stanford 94/94, Harvard 96/97, UChicago 93/95
That’s an opinion, without any support. Also, high school and college athletics are a major time commitment. Different priorities.
Well, there’s also those entrepreneurs who leave Stanford with funding from VC’s and start companies too.
Uh, yeah - given that the 8 year grad rate is 96%, I guess that would be something like up to 4% leaving permanently to start their own companies. EDIT: whoops, make that 3% because the transfer-out rate is around 1%.
The primary reason why Stanford has a relatively low 4-year graduation rate is because a large portion of Stanford students are not in a traditional 4-year degree program. For example, the page at Coterminal Study in Engineering. indicates that 40% of engineering school majors do a co-terminal masters. A large portion of non-engineering students also do co-terminal masters. A co-terminal masters is a 5-year program on paper, although it is possible to finish a co-term in 4 years if you start with a lot of college credits and take heavy course loads.
Stanford athletes usually have a ~94% federal graduation rate and ~97% GSR graduation… similar or higher than non-athletes. I haven’t seen 4-year graduation rates, but I think it is likely that athletes as whole would have a higher 4-year graduation than non-athletes due to athletes being less likely to pursue a 5+ year degree program, such as co-terminal masters. However, there would be significant variation by sport, particularly in sports where redshirting is common.
The vast majority of entering students at all of the listed schools do not submit class rank. I’d be surprised if admits from any of the “top prep schools” listed in this thread submitted rank when applying and are included in the class rank stats above. This relates to why colleges that get a large portion of their class from prep schools or other selective HSs tend to have an especially small portion of students who submit rank. For example,
WUSTL – 19% submitted rank
Cornell – 22% submitted rank
Brown – 24% submitted rank
Northwestern – 24% submitted rank
Stanford – 25% submitted rank
If Chicago has <= 25% of students submitting class rank and hardly any from “top prep schools” submitting rank, it would certainly be statistically possible to regularly admit middle of the pack students by class rank from “top prep schools”. However, I think this is unlikely to be the case. Instead I’d expect Chicago admits to generally have a very high GPA. if you believe the stats at CollegeData, they list the Weighted GPA breakdown as follows:
Average = 4.2
3.75 and Above --83%
3.50 - 3.74 – 12%
3.25 - 3.49 – 4%
3.00 - 3.24 – 1%
Not so. All you have to do is spend 2 seconds on google and you can pick and choose your evidence “Based on [Stanford] university statistics, this puts the football median… …in the bottom 10 percent in terms of test scores.”
“At Stanford, there is a serious tradeoff between athletics and academics: a tradeoff that is under-recognized and goes largely undiscussed.”
You have to support you’re own statement, not my job to google, but you missed this…
“Stanford football players are quite smart, but the data suggests they place near the bottom of Stanford’s admits.”
You stated that the majority of Stanford student-athletes aren’t “academic superstars.” I disagree.
First, test scores aren’t always the most reliable indicator of academic prowess, and why some schools were already moving to test optional or test blind before Covid.
But more importantly you’re missing the fact that recruited athletes a) spend a huge amount of time on their sport, which is going to take away from their academics and b) go through pre-reads and aren’t prepping like madmen and madwomen and testing and retesting to attain the score that they’ll need to be accepted into Stanford, in this example.
Here in the SF Bay Area, the 49ers have a star CB named Richard Sherman who attended Stanford. To me, he’s an “academic superstar,” brilliant guy who represents himself, but I’ll take a wild guess and say his SAT score wasn’t super high.
[quote=“Data10, post:68, topic:2795312”]Instead I’d expect Chicago admits to generally have a very high GPA. if you believe the stats at CollegeData, they list the Weighted GPA breakdown as follows:
Average = 4.2
3.75 and Above --83%
3.50 - 3.74 – 12%
3.25 - 3.49 – 4%
3.00 - 3.24 – 1%
[/quote]
According to @Data10 ‘s post, are those at UC with GPA’s below 3.75 or 3.50 considered “academic superstars” by your measure?
You yourself imply here that athletes sometimes sacrifice time for academics to pursue their sport. A noble endeavour, in itself. But that makes it difficult to be an academic superstar and a sports superstar at the same time, especially at a D1 school like Stanford where the standards in the sport are much higher… and the competition for academic superstardom is much fiercer (because the competition has more time)
You found the exception that proves the rule 
Love the guy!
Yes athletics takes substantial time, which should be factored in comparing them to other extracurriculars which often take far less time.
However, being a recruited athlete doesn’t take more time necessarily in high school than the other varsity athletes that don’t get recruited.
I have one child in college as a recruited athlete, and the sibling spent as many (actually more) hours at a different sport and wasn’t recruited). And their hours are no different than the very best athletes.
So again, committed athletes put in huge hours, generally the same as recruited or nationally ranked athletes do.
Once in college, it’s a different story as varsity athletics are very time consuming while the high school athlete switches to intramural or recreational level involvement.
I don’t think it’s a 5-year degree program. That would be something like a B.Arch where you cannot graduate w/o five years of progress towards the bachelor’s degree. Or, like Northwestern and other places offer, a five year dual degree between the liberal arts school and the music school. Those are particular programs with a designated longer time to graduation than the traditional four-year path.
In contrast, here you are required to apply for the conferral of each - bachelor’s and master’s - separately. The “combination” allows you to shave some time off the conferral of the latter so that it could be conferred with the former (not the other way around although I think that technically is allowed). This actually shouldn’t slow down progress toward the undergraduate degree itself; rather, it’s typically more for those who are a bit accelerated and can pick up the master’s in less than the typical timeframe. So not sure that’s the answer here.
If there are heavy course loads, it could well be that even those w/o co-terminal degrees need more than 4 years of study. Engineering is definitely an area that might practically require four+ years for some. No shame there.
I’d argue that being a recruited athlete at Stanford is both, there are many academic and athletic superstars. The elite of both. Many, many go on to have great careers in medicine, law, business, etc. Test scores prove nothing. And that’s why they were being dumped before Covid.
One can be excellent in just one area, but I believe one can elevate across many areas, like a CrossFitter. CrossFitters may not be able to snatch with Olympians, or deadlift like the best power lifters, or perform handstand push-ups like a the best gymnasts, but they can perform at an elite level across all disciplines. Just like recruited student-athletes at Stanford.
John Lynch, the 49ers General Manager, NFL HOF Candidate, Super Bowl Champion.
[quote=“arbitrary99, post:73, topic:2795312”]
“I have one child in college as a recruited athlete, and the sibling spent as many (actually more) hours at a different sport and wasn’t recruited). And their hours are no different than the very best athletes.[/quote]”
Absolutely not! An average recruited HS football player spends far more time on their sport as a recruited athlete than the average recruited athlete in a non-contact sport like volleyball, rowing, fencing, sailing, equestrian, tennis, etc. I don’t know what sport your child is recruited in, but it can’t be football.
As I mentioned elsewhere, besides year round training, there are the injuries that can happen on the football field that simply don’t happen in other sports or at least in the same frequency as other sports. There are more concussions, ACL/MCL tears, pec tears, ankle sprains, broken bones, ER visits, doctors visits, hospitals, surgeries, pain killers, etc. That time spent is time that counts spent towards playing football. Certainly, non-contact sports have nothing like this. Even some contact sports like basketball, soccer and hockey don’t have the same amount of injuries as football.
As others have mentioned, you UC folks have a strong tendency to beat your chests far more often than any other elite institution (yes, Chicago is elite) here on CC. I’ll let you gentlemen and women get back to your echo chamber. 
Common wisdom on the Interweb says that you need practically perfect grades to have a good chance of admission. No doubt some are admitted from the “reach” group due to extenuating circumstances. For instance, someone might have had to watch younger sibs during freshman and sophomore year and so only got a 3.4 uw during those years, but cleaned up in junior and senior year while taking significantly more challenging courses and ended up with a 3.7 uw overall. Not sure UChicago would reject that person just because their family’s circumstances prevented them from meeting their potential earlier. This is in part why holistic admissions should be practiced, but under the right circumstances and using sound judgement. Anytime someone has middle of the pack academic performance - regardless of why - it does open up the possibility that they won’t thrive at UChicago.
Personally, I’d be very surprised if they were admitting as many as 17% of the class at less than 3.75 (w), but I don’t really have much evidence other than my own two who are there. One currently has an overall GPA that’s a tad below the ol’ high school metric (uw basis) and the other that’s a smidgeon above. Both kids went in with decent academic prep and excellent grades (IMO). However, there are lots of other kids who came in with notably more. And there are plenty - scores - of others who outperformed my kids academically in HS but were rejected. GPA is crucial but it doesn’t tell the entire story. Nondorf has explained a few times (and it’s been repeated here) that the number of applicants who would do fine at UChicago is probably 3x the number admitted every year. Not sounding much like “where fun comes to die” - but then he is trying to attract the highest number of applicants possible.
A bachelor’s degree requires 180 credits, a master’s requires 45, and a co-term requires 180+45 = 225. Completing a co-term requires 5 year’s worth of credits. I completed 2 co-terminal masters degrees at Stanford and have known many co-terms while attending. While it is technically possible for a co-terminal masters student to only take undegraduate courses during the first 4 years to avoid delaying the bachelor’s and apply to graduate with just the bachelor’s early, that would be a traditional master’s and defeat the purpose of doing a co-term. A co-term allows the student to instead simultaneously work towards both degrees – regularly taking graduate classes towards the masters prior to completing 4th year. If you regularly take classes towards a master’s degree, it is likely to hinder progress towards bachelor’s degree.
The co-term page I linked above used to list percentage of coterms who complete the program within 4, 5, 6, and 7+ years . It used to state that only 18% of engineering students completed the co-term in 4 years. They seem to have removed the number of years section from the page more recently. Considering the portion of students purusing co-terms and number of years to complete, it’s a safe bet that the coterminal masters program has a noteworthy impact on 4-year graduation rate… but not as much on 5+ year graduation rate.
As a general rule, if a highly selective college shows an abnormally low 4-year graduation rate, there is usually a good reason for the reduced graduation rate has little to do with a relatively small portion of students being recruited athletes. Even if 100% of recruited athletes took >4 years to graduate, it still would not explain the degree of Stanford’s 4-year graduation rate difference. However, I see no reason to assume that athletes have a lower 4-year graduation rate than non-athletes (aside from football and a few other sports where redshirting is common). Athletes as a whole don’t have a significantly lower 6-year graduation rate.
For example, among highly selective colleges with a 34+ 75th percentile ACT and <25% admit rate, the colleges with the lowest 4-year graduation rate are as follows (as listed in 2019-20 IPEDS). Aside from Stanford, the listed colleges are not especially known for athletic success or degree of athletic preference. Instead there are other factors. Northeastern and GeorgiaTech primarily have low 4-year graduation rates due to their extensive and extremely common co-op programs. These 2 colleges are probably the 2 highly selective colleges with the largest co-op participation rates. I’m not as familiar with Cooper Union, but I suspect both student financial challenges and co-ops contribute. Until recently, they used to charge no tuition, but still have a larger portion of lower income students than most other highly selective colleges. As discussed, Stanford has an extremely high co-terminal masters participation rate, perhaps a higher participation rate than any other highly selective college in the US.
Maybe that’s because we like our elite institution more than all those others like theirs 
I have a relative at a top D1 who used the time off this year to get a couple of hip surgeries. Took the year off academically as well. Not football but a contact sport nonetheless. I have no idea how a football player at UChicago fares with respect to all the injuries. I would seem to me that concussions and surgeries aren’t consistent with getting a lot of schoolwork done, but I’m not the expert. We do have one, however, who - though he doesn’t weigh in often - beats the chest with more enthusiasm than the rest of us when he opts to. @BronxBorn?
B.Arch - 5 years. That explains CU.
ROTFLOL!
@FStratford and @sushiritto, I believe Richard Sherman was valedictorian of his high school class. I know Andrew Luck was. Lots of those Stanford athletes are really impressive, on and off the field.
You can always find exceptions to the rule, it doesn’t make it the rule. I would find it laughable to say that football players in general are as well qualified as other students and any university.