<p>^Yep. But for reasons completely different. I think a school should be diverse, or it'll end up like some of the lesser Ivies did years ago in which they accepted primarily Jewish people and, thus, lost their appeal to many non-Jews, but this is obviously not the case for sports, since MIT, Caltech, UofC, etc. are still great schools that function well without recruitment programs.</p>
<p>Actually, AA and recruitment have almost nothing in common. AA is mostly about fixing socio-economic dilemmas. Our society and our athletes aren't gonna suffer under the oppressive decrees of the non-jocks because Princeton stopped recruiting football players.</p>
<p>And seriously, though. Art and math ARE more important than football...right?</p>
<p>Great but I know a lot of people including myself who believe that colleges can still be great schools that function well by admitting students based on merit, not their ethnicity. Just like I think that athletes are important, you think URMs are important. The difference is... athletes actually have to work to be good (and by working that hard for something it shows me that they have other desirable characteristics), URMs do nothing and therefore show no more desirable characteristics that I would like to have in a classmate than the average applicant.</p>
<p>"AA is mostly about fixing socio-economic dilemmas." Yes but AA isn't about socio-economic status. It's about the color of someone's skin... </p>
<p>To me, the football players are just as important as the artists on a college campus. You obviously don't agree, but if a school doesn't care about athletics AT ALL, I'm not going there. I know many other great students who agree with me.</p>
<p>It's obvious that art and math are important disciplines and contributions to society. However, sports and entertainment too is an important facet of society. Intellectually, it's safe to say Art and Math are more important than Sports, but people and society will want to live and sense more than in the fields of academics right? People want to have fun and enjoy life, whether that means performing art, taking pleasure in solving the most difficult math problem, or watching a game of Football.</p>
<p>Um, unwritten...did you read my last post thoroughly? Athletic recruitment has nothing to do with URM advantage. It's debatable whether or not our society will be better or worse off if blacks and Latinos aren't represented at good schools. It is NOT debatable whether or not society or professional football will function because good football players are underrepresented at good schools.</p>
<p>And BirdKiller, yes, sports are important. I never said that recruitment should not take place at all. But it shouldn't take place at top schools with relatively little influence on the sports world. I mean, HYP not recruiting isn't gonna bring down the NFL, right? In fact, they have so little bearing on the professional sports world that those schools not having sports teams at all wouldn't affect anything related to pro and serious amateur athletics.</p>
<p>And please...will someone agree with me to the fact that good artists and scientists are more important to a society than good athletes? Sure...football can be entertaining, but I think society would be much better off with the next Einstein than with the next Michael Jordan or Babe Ruth</p>
<p>All I'm trying to say is...Princeton would probably be better off accepting some of the incredibly talented individuals whose interests lie in science, math, art, and humanities than some linemen who are, as someone said, a "cut below the average acceptee."</p>
<p>So good schools should not practice athletic recruitment while other schools can? Why is that? Is there some responsibility that these good schools have over others?</p>
<p>It's not like as if these schools will ignore or undermine the athlete's academic record. You have to have some faith in these admission officers :)</p>
<p>As for the function of society, we don't need sports to make the world to function, but it certainly makes it more enjoyable to function. Although I am not actively observant in the world of sports, I consider it, and other entertainments, as important as literature, art, math, and whatever fields you find are important. Depends on each person's values and opinion I guess.</p>
<p>I have no idea what you're talking about in the 1st paragraph so I'll skip that.</p>
<p>"All I'm trying to say is...Princeton would probably be better off accepting some of the incredibly talented individuals whose interests lie in science, math, art, and humanities than some linemen who are, as someone said, a "cut below the average acceptee.'"</p>
<p>Yes, but Princeton already accepts many great artists, scientists, etc. What's one more when you can have an athlete who also is a good student? If you're so concerned with diversity, there you go. It's not like Princeton is accepting a random schmuck who can throw a ball well. If you look at the stats for some of the URMs admitted to schools- such as UVa I believe, it's difficult to say the same.</p>
<p>^Haha. Yes! That's exactly what I'm trying to say (to some extent)! If they attract the world's best professors and have enough money to support the world's best labs, they have the responsibility to teach the world's best students rather than some good students who also happen to be good athletes. It is not impossible, as MIT, Caltech, etc have shown.</p>
<p>Also, I'm not saying ALL good schools should stop recruiting - just the ones with crappy teams in certain sports...again, like Pton and football</p>
<p>Ok...unwritten, here we go - URM diversity is essential because it is a SOCIAL issue. Athletic diversity is not essential because it is not a social issue; it is there to add money in most cases and is a matter of funding, not having any bearing on important social issues. For example, if black people are underrepresented at top notch schools, then they will suffer as a culture. If athletes are underrepresented at HYP, then no one in the professional world will give a ****</p>
<p>And even we assume that sports diversity in top schools is, for some odd reason, crucial to a healthy society, recruitment, as I see it, does not add needed sports diversity to a school. By all means...accept people who play sports. In fact, many athletes ARE accepted at HYP and given SLIGHT advantages on the ECs. But don't RECRUIT them. There is a difference between the two.</p>
<p>"If they attract the world's best professors and have enough money to support the world's best labs, they have the responsibility to teach the world's best students rather than some good students who also happen to be good athletes. It is not impossible, as MIT, Caltech, etc have shown."
Great so then only the best purely academic students should be admitted to the Ivies, etc. That means no artists who are also good students, no actors/theatre people who are also good students, no amazing athletes who are also good students. No entrepreneurs and inventors who are also good students.</p>
<p>God, who would want to go to a school like that? Certainly not me.</p>
<p>When did I ever say we shouldn't have good artists, actors, entrepreneurs, and inventors at HYP? By academics, I mean the ARTS, HUMANITIES, and SCIENCES. i.e. EVERYTHING EXCEPT FOR ATHLETICS! Hell, I never even said that schools shouldn't have athlete. I just said that athletes shouldn't be RECRUITED at top schools. Read my lips - ATHLETES shouldn't be RECRUITED at top schools.</p>
<p>You're putting words into my mouth.</p>
<p>One last time:
We need to have good artists, scientists, and writers in top schools for society to progress
We need to have URMs in top schools so that the imbalance can be somewhat corrected (this may be debatable)
We do NOT need to have good athletes who also happen to decent students at HYP for society to be healthy</p>
<p>And I ALREADY SAID that these schools have plenty of athletes. They don't need to be given further advantages through RECRUITING.</p>
<p>The justification for athletic recruitments is that they have talent and they should be rewarded for that talent. The only people complaining are those who have never been in sports(football, baseball, basketball, soccer,lacross)Most athletes who are recruited have spent tons of hours each day preparing themselves for their sport, thus they might not have as much time as some nerd to study or do their homework.</p>
<p>I'm not putting any words in your mouth, you said it yourself in the excerpt that I just quoted from above.
So what you're saying is an inventor, entrepreneur, actor/actress, or artist that is a good student is automatically a better student than the athlete who is also a good student? I don't understand your reasoning. Frankly you just seem to be extremely biased against athletes for whatever reason.</p>
<p>This guy/girl obviously places more value on academics over sports which is great, and s/he might be against recruitment solely because it's unfair to prospective intellectually bright applicants by his or her perspective, not because of personal problems.</p>
<p>And hunter #9 So people who don't play what your definition of a sport is (football, baseball, basketball, soccer, lacrosse) are automatically nerds with too much time on their hands? </p>
<p>And talent in a hunter#9 Sport is NOT A JUSTIFICATION FOR ATHLETIC RECRUITMENT. Some guy being a good lineman does not imply that he deserves to go to HYP more than a math genius or a piano prodigy or the next Ernest Hemingway. </p>
<p>And once again, for the millionth time, I'm not against small advantages for athletics, I'm against RECRUITMENT, which is different.</p>
<p>And how can you just assume that athletes spending 'tons of hours preparing for hunter#9 sports would contribute as much academically as someone who doesn't play a hunter#9 sport if they had the time?</p>
<p>And by the way, my dream school wasn't HYP. But while we're making rash assupmtions, you are probably a southern hick who can't excel in school worth a rat's ass so you need recruitment in a hunter#9 sport to even have a chance. Is that fair...?</p>
<p>unwritten, I'm saying that scientists, "inventors, entrepreneurs, actor/actresses, or artists" are better at science, inventing, founding small businesses, acting, and performing than are athletes who are of a lower calibre academically and must need recruiting to get into HYP. And ultimately, science, inventing, founding small businesses, acting, and performing are more beneficial to society.</p>
<p>By similar logic, if they are equal, then why must athletes need to be recruited? Why can't they go through the admissions process just as other people do?</p>
<p>I'm not saying that athletes should be given disadvantages. I'm saying that they shouldn't have recruitment as an OBVIOUS advantage over other applicants.</p>
<p>And why do you think that am I biased against athletics? I'm just saying they shouldn't be recruited, because math "nerds" and humanities people definitely aren't recruited.</p>
<p>Even students at shcools like Princeton like to go to football games and other sporting events. I think for most people, football teams and other sports teams add a sense of school spirit that can't be provided by orchestras or bands or theatre plays etc. Schools like Princeton/other Ivies want to recruit so they aren't completely terrible at sports, even if they maynot be the best.</p>
<p>I still can't figure out why the OP's so anti-athlete.</p>
<p>Seriously, when you say that everyone is acceptable but recruited athletes...you don't think that's a little biased? Maybe a lot? If you value other activities more than athletics, fine. That's your choice. You can CHOOSE not to attend sports events, etc. But the reality is that the colleges don't base their decisions on what YOU want. Lots of students respect recruited athletes with high GPAs and great test scores. Lots of students want to attend good football, etc. games. Why does your opinion get to outweigh theirs?</p>
<p>Op let me see if I understand you. You believe that while athletic recruiting is fine for schools with big time programs in sports, it should not take place in schools that would sacrifice the academic standards in order to admit an athlete to a subpar team. You say instead that athletics should be treated like any other EC, giving a small advantage to the student that plays it. Am I essentially correct? My response to you is twofold firstly, most schools that have academic standard still hav them for athletes. They won't admit anybody that doesn't meet the standards which admitidly are lower the for normal students, but not incredibly low. Secondly, athletics are a major enjoyment for those who go to school. Its a fact of life that most people like sports more then any classical music concert.</p>
<p>As a scientist and a musician, years ago I would have agreed with asiaknight - I don't anymore. Why is art or music more beneficial to society and how do they make society progress anymore than athletics. The general population is far more interested in watching a game than going to a museum to see a Picasso. It has also been my experience, that the leadership and team mentality qualities that many athletes bring to the workplace is highly desirable. For some reason, many academics don't seem to understand this and really lack these qualities. Universities are in the business of producing people who will be successful in the future. Unfortunately, this requires skills beyond just intelligence as can be told by all the "smart" people who get laid off from their jobs.</p>
<p>I don't get why the schools need "justification" in the first place. They're private institutions who can accept whoever they want. Why the hell would they need to justify it to your standards?</p>