<p>From a local paper (which unfortunately is pay to read):
[quote]
A member of the National Honor Society and honor roll at Trotwood, Raye-Redmond carries a 4.2 GPA and scored 1730 on his SAT. He scored 28 on the ACT.</p>
<p>Those academic performances (and his football talent) earned Raye-Redmond an early offer from Brown
[/quote]
Looks like one reason ED rates are higher than RD...</p>
<p>and his football talent…</p>
<p>those are the stats that mattered. lol</p>
<p>Some people aren’t great test takers. So what? The kid has a good GPA and probably other attributes that make him a well-rounded candidate.</p>
<p>The Ivy League schools have a formula that allows them to accept a certain number of lower-scoring applicants as athletic recruits. That’s how this individual got in, almost certainly–his scores were too low otherwise, even for a hooked candidate (he is also a URM). But the score he has, as well as his grades, suggest that he’ll probably be able to perform well at Brown and graduate. Brown has a very high graduation rate for athletes.</p>
<p>sally305, this kid is probably not a well-rounded candidate–he is a football player who has stats that are good enough to get through the Academic Index process, and he’s willing to go to Brown. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.</p>
<p>It’s pretty common knowledge that the lower quartile at many schools is full of students who have some hook…sports, celebrity, major donor’s child, URM status, from a state that sends few students to the school, etc. </p>
<p>The mistake is when the unhooked student looks at the lower quartile and thinks, “hey, those low stats kids got in, so can I”, without realize who those kids are. The truth is that an unhooked student’s chance is like 1 in a million when his stats are in the lower quartile at a competive admissions school.</p>
<p>This kid has the basics that can get him thru a challenging school like Brown. He cares about his grades, and his ACT puts him around the 90th percentile. Unless he goes the STEM route at that school, he’ll probably emerge with a very good GPA. If he does do a STEM major, his classmates may be too much stronger than he is.</p>
<p>If I’m reading the charts correctly, this student’s ACT is 91st percentile, and his SAT is 76th percentile. And he has a good GPA. He’s a good student, and his scores are far above average for all applicants–and even more above average for URMs. Sure, his stats are below those of most Brown students–but most of them can’t run as fast as he can. He was also class president (you can find out a lot about him on scouting websites), so sally305, he may be well-rounded after all.</p>
<p>Right. Also, there is a recurring theme on this site, espoused by several frequent posters, that top schools think it is better for students to be “interestingly lopsided.” If he were an accomplished bassoonist or 100% focused on chess or whatever, people might respond differently.</p>
<p>I for one would be happy to do away with college sports altogether…but since that is not going to happen, we may as well accept that running fast is as good a hook or EC as anything else.</p>
<p>^^I agree. IMO, being a big, fast thousand yard rusher or being able to consistently hit the jumper from the top of the key is the most powerful hook/EC an applicant can have to make up for weaknesses on the academic side of application. And, sorry to say, the Ivy League is no exception to this.</p>
<p>This Brown admittee has a very strong GPA but the truth is an Ivy League school can have flexibility for a recruited athlete or other candidates with a special talent. For athletes, the schools provide academic advisors and tutors (as needed) which is appropriate given the time demands of Division 1 sports (and the Ivy is Division 1 Conference). They make sure the athletes do the work (and remain eligible to play sports of course).</p>
<p>Unless this student chooses a ridiculously hard major, he’ll likely do fine. If he picks a major that plays to his academic strengths he’ll probably do very well.</p>
<p>It wasn’t that long ago that the ivies admitted more students with ACT 28 or equivalent. Harvard admitted my H with a 1300ish SAT.</p>
<p>Why is it less admirable to have a strength in sports than in other areas…? When that is what you love to do?</p>
<p>Even in the Ivy League, successful sports teams contribute to the college experience of the other students and the alumni’s pride in their alma maters. (E.g.,Yale Hockey National Champion this year, Cornell and Harvard Basketball in recent years, Penn Final Four Basketball team in 1979, Penn -Princeton Basketball rivalry, Ivy football rivalries - “The Game”…)</p>
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<p>Probably because colleges have shown much more willingness to lower their academic standards to far lower levels to allow athletes, especially football and basketball players, than they will for say orchestra musicians, artists, or other non-athletic admits.</p>
<p>In addition there is the common stereotype of the “dumb jock” college athlete with a strong back and weak mind. This stock character has been common in US popular culture for more than a hundred years. </p>
<p>This stereotype gets reinforced from time to time when a scandal erupts (not normally in the Ivy League) where it is shown that this or that football or basketball player got admitted to college in spite of abysmally low test scores, or reading at only a 3rd grade level, or some such thing. These kinds of scandals just don’t happen for college students who got in with the help of talents and ECs other than athletics.</p>
<p>So all of these things can add to make college athletes certainly more famous but at the same time less academically admirable than their non-jock classmates.</p>
<p>I just chalk up athletes as a sort of loss leader. Some number get in for various purposes and the U sees the benefits, even if we don’t. </p>
<p>He’s hs class of 2014. Hasn’t applied yet so doesn’t really have an admissions “likely letter” in hand. So, how certain is all this, really?</p>
<p>^ If he applies to Brown he will get in. He has received an early offer from Brown. That has to be coordinated with the admissions committee.</p>
<p>I would bet there are far fewer talented football players (and basketball, soccer, whatever players) with good high school grades and stats than there are musicians with good high school grades and stats applying to the Ivies. The boy showed he is pretty much exemplary in more than just academics or sports. I’m not surprised Brown accepted him (I wonder if he got into other ivies).</p>
<p>As for his SAT score, I see people advising students that they may be better on ACT than SAT. This student may be one of those students or he may just not be good at standardized tests.</p>
<p>
While this may be true, Brown mostly takes people who are good at standardized tests. When they take somebody who isn’t, it’s because of some strong counterbalancing reason–like being a good football player. That’s OK by me–the Ivies only compromise stats so much, even for a star.</p>
<p>His admission to Brown is probably conditional on achieving some level of good grades as a senior.</p>
<p>
I agree. But I’d add that the candidate still needs to convince the adcom at Ivies (and a few other Div-1 programs like Stanford and Northwestern) that he can graduate. In this case, he may not look very competitive for Brown, but he’s still well above the average. That’s enough to convince the adcom. Most other Div-1 schools don’t care as long as he/she meets the NCAA elgibility.</p>
<p>Lots of time between now and the likely letter, which won’t come til fall. I’d bet it’s conditional, too. Academics, no disciplinary actions, no injuries. I can’t see this as a done deal. But agree this is one where the coach will have sway over admissions. </p>
<p>Since there are occasional threads about the AI, here’s a good link: [Varsityedge.com:</a> Athletic Recruiting at the Ivy League](<a href=“http://www.varsityedge.com/nei/varsity.nsf/main/athletic+recruiting+at+the+ivy+league]Varsityedge.com:”>http://www.varsityedge.com/nei/varsity.nsf/main/athletic+recruiting+at+the+ivy+league)</p>
<p>Just a few thoughts on this - </p>
<p>First, the Ivy League was organized as an athletic conference and excellence in sports has been a tradition ever since football was invented at Yale in 1893. The Ivy League is also the only Division I athletic conference where the student athletes are required to met an academic standard that puts them statistically in range of the typical student on campus. The Academic Index is calculated using the student’s GPA and standardized test scores and the score of the athletic cohort must be within one standard deviation of the average non-athlete. At HYP this means an AI around 210, which translates to about 700-710 per section on the SAT and an unweighted GPA around 3.8 (4.0 scale). </p>
<p>Now does that mean that every athlete must meet that standard? No. A coach may be able to bring on a star football, hockey or basketball player considerably below that level,as the OP noted. But they still must be above the AI floor of 176 - which is in the top 10% of all students attending college in the US. </p>
<p>Also, nobody gets admitted to an Ivy League school until the complete application is evaluated by admissions. The Likely Letter is an early assurance issued by admissions beginning 10/1 of the students HS senior year. No other offers are in any way binding.</p>
<p>For those who believe that excellence in athletic competition should not be part of the mission - there are colleges that have that philosophy, ie Caltech and to some extent, Yale :)</p>