<p>sleeplessinbost,
While the NCAA guidelines for athletic recruitment are certainly lower than the Academic Index, your post implies that the AI level is a pure, difficult-to-attain measure. It is not. Use the AI calculator on CC and play around with the numbers. The following is one combination that could academically qualify one via the AI:</p>
<p>SAT I Critical Reading: 540
SAT I Math: 540</p>
<p>SAT II: 540
SAT II: 540
SAT II: 540</p>
<p>GPA of 3.0 in a class of 300 students.</p>
<p>I hope you will agree that these aren't especially demanding. </p>
<p>My ongoing frustration is that many automatically label all student-athletes at Division I scholarship colleges (many of whom are black) as academically inferior. Such labelling raises the question of what causes these impressions and these labels? Yes, the bands may be wider than for the AI colleges, but the vast majority of student-athletes at highly ranked academic institutions like Georgetown (and U Virginia) are very qualified. Furthermore, those schools do an excellent job of developing and graduating their student-athletes. The student-athletes and the colleges deserve better than your (uninformed) derision.</p>
<p>I guess we will agree to disagree. I believe the AI is in fact difficult to achieve for most. Yes 171 is the floor, but very, very few athletes are admitted at this level. I believe the mean AI for recruits has to be within 1 SD of the mean for the entire class. For HYP that would put the mean somewhere in the range of 205-210 for recruits, a very different profile than the one you highlighted.
For those schools without the restriction of the Academic Index, there is a lot more flexability.</p>
<p>You are right that there is more flexibility for those schools operating without the AI, but that does mean that all of the Georgetown or U Virginia recruited athletes are marginal students who couldn't cut it under an AI admit system. </p>
<p>A college like U Virginia has very high standards for its athletes (as do many other highly ranked universities that play major Division I sports). Yes, they may occasionally take in a few students that might not qualify under the AI, but I think people don't realize how few students we are talking about. U Virginia has over 3000 incoming freshman and only about 25-30 of them are going to be on the football and basketball team. I suspect the number of marginal admits changes year to year (and perhaps those closer to the school will have some more specifics), but it is certainly not all 25-30. My guess is that it is single digits, less than 10.</p>
<p>You are most likely correct, especially given the number of teams at larger universities. It would be interesting to see similar comparative data for the Div 1 scholarship schools. i.e. mean SAT scores for scholarship athletes v. entire class. Unfortunately, I have never come across data of this sort. The bar is set quite high at Georgetown with the mean SAT for the most recent enrolled class somewhere in the vicinity of 1425.</p>
<p>
[quote]
A college like U Virginia has very high standards for its athletes (as do many other highly ranked universities that play major Division I sports). Yes, they may occasionally take in a few students that might not qualify under the AI, but I think people don't realize how few students we are talking about. U Virginia has over 3000 incoming freshman and only about 25-30 of them are going to be on the football and basketball team. I suspect the number of marginal admits changes year to year (and perhaps those closer to the school will have some more specifics), but it is certainly not all 25-30. My guess is that it is single digits, less than 10.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That is incredibly inaccurate. The number is surely higher than that; the Office of Admissions grants north of 150 athletic tips per year.</p>
<p>So . . . do I take it that the non-football, non-basketball recruited male athletes at Duke had an SAT average of 1468, above the general population, that year? (That's what would follow if the football and basketball recruits are included in that "recruited athletes" number.) That's pretty impressive. </p>
<p>Also, Duke admitted something like 20 big-and-bigger boys with SATs near or under 1000. Not so great, but hardly an affront to Western Civilization, either. That's more than the single-digits cavalier thought Virginia admitted (and I would guess Virginia and Duke are pretty comparable), but a LOT less than 150. I don't think anyone can whine about athletic tips for kids with 1500 SATs.</p>
<p>So what do the SAT score of the Fine Arts majors look like at Duke or anywhere else. I am guessing there are some skews there too. These kids are admitted based on there voice, their drawing, their portfolios or their musical abilities not primarily their SATs.</p>
<p>Dean J:
Thanks for the clarification. Any chance you could provide average SAT for those 160? I assume the number must be similar to Duke's. The male/female breakdown would be equally informative.</p>
<p>cavalier302,
My statement above when I say less than 10 students is meant for the football and basketball teams which together recruit about 25-30 players a year. Maybe you or someone can estimate how many of these would have fallen short of the AI level of 171. Would it have been all 25-30 or some smaller subset? Maybe I got this one totally wrong. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>As for the absolute number of athletic tips, can you help me understand just what this means? Does this mean that the student would NOT have been admitted without this preferred consideration? Also, do you have any idea how many of these 160 tips at U Virginia would fall short of the AI 171 level? And finally, how many athletes were enrolled in last year's freshman class, ie, 160 is what percentage of total athletes?</p>
<p>There are students in the 160 who could have gotten into UVa on their own, some who might have been waitlisted, and some who benefited significantly from the coach's involvement. I'm not sure about the number of students in that last group. We read these students during the first two rounds of review without knowing about the coach's interest. Dean Blackburn goes over the recruited athlete apps and makes the final decision on their case.</p>
<p>In other threads, I have pleaded for a greater level of respect from others (particularly those with Ivy League connections) to extend greater appreciation to the student athletes at the Division I scholarship-awarding top privates (Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, etc) and some top publics like U Virginia (UC Berkeley, UCLA, U Michigan, U North Carolina). My impression is that a great majority of these student-athletes would have been academically qualified to play in the Ivy League or Patriot League. Furthermore, I suspect that many of these athletes were contacted or recruited to play for one of the Ivy or Patriot colleges, but they opted for the Division I scholarship college instead (perhaps due to money, desire for higher athletic standard, etc.). </p>
<p>In your opinion, am I way off with this view?</p>
<p>you have to place things in context. i don't want to stereotype, but sports like golf, tennis, crew, squash, etc. don't normally attract the stereotypical "dumb jock." I wouldn't be surprised if the overwhelming vast majority of special admits via sports (the ones where the SAT scores are 900) are going into football and basketball. For example, of UVa's 160 spots, say 50 of them are roped off for the football, men's basketball, and women's basketball program. I'd bet you'd find that that group would have significantly worse scores than you would for the number of spots set aside for the crew, tennis, and soccer teams.</p>
<p>
[quote]
My impression is that a great majority of these student-athletes would have been academically qualified to play in the Ivy League or Patriot League.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Your view applies to Stanford, Northwestern, and (probably) ND the best. Duke also if basketball is excluded (Duke's special admission for basketball players is obvious). I've seen SAT/grad rate data before; I don't think other schools you mentioned like Michigan, UCLA, Berkeley even come close.</p>
<p>Sam Lee,
I'd be really interested to see any data that you can put your hands on. It just frustrates me that people see these athletes, mostly black athletes, and put them automatically in the box that says academic underachiever. If there are facts to support this view (particularly as it applies to the elite privates of Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Georgetown) and elite publics (U Virginia, UC Berkeley, UCLA, U Michigan and U North Carolina), then that would really clear a lot of this up. But what I see/read instead is a lot of stereotyping that I don't believe is accurate. </p>
<p>jags861,
Even for a strong athletic school like U Virginia, the recruited numbers going into football and basketball (men and women) is probably no more than 35 a year (20-25 to football, 3-5 each to basketball). I agree with your comments about the likely academic strength of the other sports (although this is also a stereotype and I wonder if the facts support this), but I really want to understand just how low and how often a top school goes to admit (more than marginally weaker) athletes into these high profile sports.</p>
<p>hawkette, god doesn't give with both hands. Most incredibly talented athletes do not have good GPAs or SAT scores. Check out the profiles of top basketball and football recruits on rivals.com. Yes, some are smart, but a great deal of recruited athletes at top schools are completely outmatched in the classroom (which I guess is why they all major in anthropology, sociology, af-am studies, communications, etc, lolz).</p>
<p>How do you see standardized test data and/or gpa data on these student-athletes? I went to the website, but I don't know where to find that info.</p>
<p>GPA and SAT data aren't available for all athletes, so you sort of have to poke around to find anything. Here are some winners I've selected from Duke's past few football recruiting classes. Keep in mind that these guys are all two-star recruits at a program that is considered to be one of the worst in D1-A.</p>
<p>It's good to see that Duke, a USNews top 10 university, has its priorities straight. I won't even go into the atrocities my own university commits. <em>sigh</em></p>