I read a few older threads about athletic recruiting at Vassar, the trajectory of which seems to suggest that the influence of coaches has been growing over the years. E.g., this from a summer 2017 thread:
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My sense has been that Vassar is specifically focused on improving the success and visibility of its Men's teams. During recruiting communications with Vassar, it was apparent that Vassar would was go deeper into the academic pool (ie. lower test scores) for athletes they wanted than some other peer schools.
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I am trying to get a firmer read on this. Full disclosure: my child is a non-athlete who adores Vassar, but his high school is likely to have a few talented athletes applying as well. I don’t know the other applicants’ grades/test scores relative to my son’s, but have a general sense that all of them are academically qualified.
Thoughts on how much of an edge the athletes will have? (Be brutally honest; I can take it!) Thanks.
I may have actually been the one who posted that about Vassar recruiting. If it wasn’t me, our experience with Men’s Soccer was that Vassar coach had leeway to go deeper into the academic pool to get the players he wanted since our soccer player was told the required ACT score was 3 points lower than Grinnell’s required score. It has been working, as Men’s Soccer at Vassar is now very competitive in the very strong Liberty League conference. I don’t know anything about any other sports at Vassar. Even with Men’s Soccer at Vassar, it is entirely possible that, now that the team is a contender for conference championships, the leeway previously available is no longer necessary since the recruits will be knocking on his door rather than the other way around.
The other component is that recruits will apply ED1 after an academic pre-read so an RD student is not going to be competing for admission with ED recruits. Even a non-recruited student who applies ED is probably not competing head-to-head with the ED recruits.
Thank you, @Midwestmomofboys ! My son is likely to be an ED1 applicant (at least he currently expects to be). I’m interested in your comment that he wouldn’t be “competing head-to-head” with the recruits. Could you say more on that?
Unpacking my own question a bit, I realize that one premise underlying it is the perpetual (and probably unquantifiable) worry about smaller schools limiting the number of kids they will take from any one high school.
Agree with the above. Different pools. OTOH, how many applicants a school will accept from one particular school is another. There are too many good applicants and I would not expect any college to accept a large number from one particular school. But that is just my guess. Athletes in general apply ED1 to get coach support. Ask your GC what they think.
Thanks, everyone. @mamom that is my worry – that there will be several kids already slotted in (formally or informally) as admits from his high school. And of course there are only so many seats in a class as a whole.
His GC says “let’s not worry until we see who applies.” Which I guess sort of validates my fears!
I think your concerns are valid. Your son won’t be compared to recruited athletes but the remaining potential admissions spots for your son’s school if any (those who are not legacy, not urm or and not recruited athletes), is thereby much smaller. I don’t mean to be negative but I would have a back up plan.
At this point, it is what it is. The situation is out of your control, there is nothing you can do about who and how many apply from your son’s school. So since worrying about it won’t do anything, why worry? (aside from having a Plan B, which, of course, you should have anyway). Good luck!
I don’t really understand the worry. Pretty much everywhere, unhooked kids have a certain number of slots and their admit rates will be lower than the overall ED or RD rate.
And unless your HS has 10+ strong candidates or hooked/near-automatic admits applying to Vassar, I really don’t think crowding out should be a worry.
Several years ago, Vassar men’s swimming recruitment mirrored the same academics standards as the non athletes. S2 was told he had to bring his ACT into Vassar’s range to be accepted (which he did in the fall of senior year). Additionally, he played an unusual musical instrument well but that also did not matter unless his scores were in Vassar’s range. There were lots of discussions at the meets and championships on how the swim team could have drawn more swimmers but the academic requirements were paramount and restricted the pool of swimmers that could actually be on the team. Yes - this was several years ago and it could have changed but Vassar was unique in that they would not compromise on the academic qualifications of their swimmers. Additionally, in 2016, the Vassar Men’s swim team was 19th out of the 108 D3 teams for their collective team college academic GPA just one point behind Williams College. S2 applied ED1 to Vassar and was accepted. Three years earlier, S1 applied RD as an athlete with stats in range for Vassar and was accepted. So it is hard to predict how the other Vassar applicants at your son’s high school will affect his chances. If your son really loves Vassar, it will show in his application.
Thanks, everyone. @waverlywizzard , not an “objection” – just trying to figure out what proportion of the ED seats are filled by athletic recruits before non-athletes get a first read.
I hadn’t realized, when we started this process, that the higher admit rates for ED might be accounted for (at least in part) by athletic recruiting. I am sure that the proportion varies by school, and I am trying to find out the proportion for Vassar.
@chemusic , yes, I agree that there seems to be no question of compromising academic standards. I believe that most schools in this tier (including the NESCAC) get far more qualified applicants than they can take. The question is how how many qualified scholar-athletes are getting first dibs on seats – thus how many seats are left for the qualified non-athlete ED applicants.
In other words: the Common Data Sets let us figure out ED admit rate versus RD admit rate. While I know I won’t find an actual number anywhere (please correct me if I’m wrong!), in essence I’m trying to gauge the ED admit rate for non-athletes.
I don’t understand the concerns either. All athletic recruits not treated equally at most any college I know. It depends upon the sport, the coach and the relationship that the AD has with Admissions.
The athletic recruits that go through the AD, are usually not going to be in the same pool as everyone else. However, yes, that there athletics at a school does take up seats just as any flagged category dies even though those seats are filled without dealing with the rest of the applicants.
However, it’s often times not so clear cut. Certain colleges and AOs do note athletic prowess in the apps and some will take that into heavy consideration. I know because my kids were all excellent athletes but only one went the recruited athlete route, yet coaches from their colleges contacted them immediately after acceptance to come by. Also, in some cases, my athletic recruit son was not given an official thumbs up by the coach, but the admissions office still took the sport into consideration and the coach gave him a call after admissions. Athletes do get consideration in several different ways.
Also, at many colleges with active intramural and club sports, there may be no official recruiting, but admissions is advised to keep athletic into consideration. It’s rarely possible to measure the extent of the impact or if it even is there. It’s more a tip factor, maybe.
@waverlywizzard , he’s a future applicant,not Class of 2023. Time will tell!
In the meantime I’ve found a few articles analyzing the issue (not Vassar-specific). Some schools, like Brown for example, are transparent about the # of spots they reserve for athletes – and when you do the math (as one article I found did) you see that the ED advantage nearly vanishes for non-athlete applicants. Others are not transparent about the #s, but the effect is real.
My understanding is that Vassar doesn’t have a specific # of “slots” (as NESCAC schools do) but does have a separate pre-read process. We’ve not succeeded in finding out a rough % of ED admits who have already gotten positive pre-reads – thus we can’t tell what the actual ED admit rate is for non-athletes.
My spouse was recently at a college admissions workshop for parents and asked reps from similar schools about this. They got defensive while eventually acknowledging that yes, going into the “regular person” ED round some seats are already filled by athletes. Given the defense reaction, we haven’t had the nerve to ask Vassar directly.
I will say that I’ve now heard from several sources I trust that schools don’t so much “cap” admits from a given high school, unless the numbers are getting high enough to skew the class (someone said “like, 10 applicants to a small school”). So that’s something …
If there are seats that are limited, it is because of an agreement within the conference or because the school wants to. NESCAC is a very strong conference. Vassar is different because for many decades it was a women’s college so the male sports don’t have the same conference traditions that an NESCAC would.
Vassar admitted over 300 students in the ED round this year. That number is much too high to be majority athletes, and since Vassar doesn’t have a football team, their % of athletes is lower than at other lacs. Being male in the applicant pool is also a very big advantage as the applicant pool skews heavily female. Last year the admit rate for males was 34%
Does your HS subscribe to Naviance? Ours does, and we are able to see how many students from S’s HS applied/admitted/matriculated to a given college across multiple years. It won’t specifically answer the slotting vs. ED question, but could at least let you know how grads from your HS fared during previous admission cycles.