I know I can’t get into an Ivy League purely on athletics, but do athletic recruits have lower admission standards? For example, do I have to score a 1500 if I would compete on a D1 team?
28 ACT at Harvard is the threshhold for at least one sport at Harvard, and it seems to be an average. If you personally score higher, you allow room for others with a lower score.
@JBStillFlying what about the SAT?
Academic benchmarks are going to depend entirely on you sport, your skill and the needs of the particular coach in that cycle. That said, a 1500 is in the 99th percentile for the SAT, correct? If so, I can’t imagine there is a single sport in the Ivy where that score in and of itself makes you unrecruitable. But there is way more that goes into the pot than that.
For the sport I’m most familiar with (fencing), 1400 seemed to be the minimum target score for Ivies and other D1 schools with similar levels of selectivity. Of course, a lot is going to depend on sport, need of team, strength of recruit…but 1400 seemed to be the point at which scores would not be an issue, even with coach support.
@luckyblack currently a 28 concords to a 1320 or so - this summer ACT and College Board are supposed to be producing an updated concordance between the two tests so that # isn’t set in stone yet. A 1500 currently concords to a 33 but that might increase a tad with the new tables, from what I’m reading on those threads - so maybe as high as 34? We’ll see. At any rate, no way is a 33-34 NOT good enough for athletics at the Ivies - in fact, it might well leave room for others depending on the particular sport.
I know of recent HYP women’s rowing acceptances with old SAT in the 1900 area which equates to 1350. Associated GPAs were in the 3.8 area and I will assume that recommendations and essays were also reasonably strong.
Agree from my experience as well. I will say it differs from sport to sport, and on how high you are on the coach’s list.
S was a pretty high athletic recruit for Ivy, and most coaches told him they wanted to see at least a 26. I think 28-30 is probably more normal for average recruits, and 33+ for a developmental recruit who may never see the starting lineup. Those assume a 3.8+ unweighted GPA or equivalent.
But these numbers vary wildly based on sport. Football can go lower for a couple guys, some other sports are significantly higher. The academic index targets the schools must meet are for all athletes, not by sport. So it appears that they adjust each coaches target based on the school’s priority and the demographics of the athletes. For example, wrestlers as a group have ACT scores quite a bit lower than rowers. So a school can give the crew coach a high target without really hurting the team and give a lower target to the wrestlers.
If you give the sport you will get better info and possibly some pm’s with very specific info for specific schools. Also, use a calculator to figure your athletic index. As long as GPA/test scores are high enough to get a recruit by admissions, the AI is the number that the coaches care about.
@rennie17 ok that’s good to hear as I would be rowing on their women’s crew
@dadof4kids Ok that’s is useful to know. As I said in my last reply, I would be rowing on the women’s crew.
Sorry I missed that. I am guessing that your numbers will need to be higher than the ones I posted. If you go through the last couple years threads I think there are several that discuss that issue about crew specifically. Crew/Wrestling is my go to example for the difference between required AI’s. I realize there are exceptions (I am one) but crew is a white collar sport and wrestling is very blue collar. That means that on average crew parents are going to push academics more and spend more time and money on test prep than wrestling parents. So an AD can set a high AI goal for crew without negatively impacting the team much, and might do so to buy a few points for other teams that don’t have as many high AI athletes to choose from.
For my daughter’s school (ivy but not HYP), she was told 30 was the number on the ACT. She was accepted with a 32 ACT and a 3.7 uw and 4.1 w.
Depend on the sport, and the recruit. Non-helmet sports have traditionally needed much higher than a 26! Of course “impact players” have more leeway, but ordinary mortals need the 30s. Absolutely the coach does NOT wants a player that would be at risk for academic failure, and “soft majors” in the Ivies aren’t very soft-no “Communications” or “Exercise Physiology” there.
Our public school Ivy recruits(lax and swimming) needed plus 700 SATs, plus 30 ACTs. For women’s softball, nonpitcherfor Yale, 31 was mentioned.