<p>mythmom - re # 111 - we also qualified for financial aid & the top schools were very generous. I don't think our lack of resources hurt D, in fact they may have helped. I believe certain institutions want to reach out to middle class kids, and by our professions, I am sure they knew we were middle class. Sometimes I just wonder if that helped. Hey, we are just happy our D was accepted and are appreciative of her good fortune.</p>
<p>"The central mission of all colleges and universities is academic not athletic competition."</p>
<p>Who says? By pursuing their current admission policies, the leaders of most of our most selective colleges and universities have implicitly made the judgment that athletic success is also important.</p>
<p>Suppose that the Czar of the Universe (who bears the honorable name EMM1) takes the plausible view that the central purpose of our most prestigious colleges and universities was to train future leaders of the country. Now, it should be clear that anyone who scores 1250 on the old SAT (about the bottom for non-URM athletes at those schools) easily has enough raw intellectual firepower to succeed in leadership positions (would that our current leaders were so smart). In addition, high-achieving athletes typically have other characteristics which are important to leaders (ask any business person). Mightn't it make sense to have people with that combination of attributes trained at our most rigorous institutions, surrounded by people even brighter than they?</p>
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Is there any point that even you would conclude that the admissions preferences given to recruited athletes are too large?
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Of course there is. Some fine schools are notorious for throwing their standards away for their football players. That's a shame. But I value the scholar/athlete model. I see it as no different than valuing the lopsided academic, with brilliance in math who might need work in the humanities. Athletics at the highest level is extremely time consuming; it should be understood that the athlete had to sacrifice some academic stats to devote the time necessary to her sport. </p>
<p>So in a nutshell, if you do not value athletic prowess, there is nothing that would convince you that athletes deserve a bit of slack. If you do value athletics, you will automatically understand that a bit of slack should be granted.</p>
<p>Basket weaving, pursued at the highest level, is also time consuming.</p>
<p>The scholar/athlete thing is a complete red herring. Schools do not have to lower their academic standards to admit scholar/athletes but routinely lower their standards in order to recruit athletes that will allow their athletic teams to win. An across the board tightening of the NCAA rules and the Academic Index for the Ivy's would allow schools to maintain robust athletic programs without lowering their academic standards.</p>
<p>One of the interesting insights in the book, "The Game of LIfe," that surprised me is that former recruited athletes do better in life (defined in terms of income) than you would expect based on their academic credentials. But they also demonstrate that this has nothing to do with their level of atheltic preformance so the same would be true if we just tightened the rules a bit. Who wins in this case: athletes who are a bit more scholar and a little less athlete.</p>
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In addition, high-achieving athletes typically have other characteristics which are important to leaders (ask any business person). Mightn't it make sense to have people with that combination of attributes trained at our most rigorous institutions, surrounded by people even brighter than they?
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</p>
<p>To play devil's advocate: This one of the most common justifications for giving such weight to athletic ability in the admissions process. But it doesn't really seem to align with the behavior of highly selective schools, who are allocating a scarce commodity through the admissions process and who incur an opportunity cost every time they award a slot to an academically weak athlete.</p>
<p>If previous participation in athletics demonstrates the sorts of leadership/teamwork/dedication skills that seem desirable, wouldn't a solid but non-impact athlete with a 1350 SAT/3.7gpa have those qualities in the same measure as a star with a 1220/3.3? And if athletic prowess is a proxy for positive personal attributes, then a college really shouldn't care if the recruited athlete arrives on campus and decides not to play. If, on the other hand, participation in athletics imparts these qualities rather than demonstrates them, why do so few schools still have real phys ed requirements?</p>
<p>I think mini nailed it: tipped athletes enhance the experience of all student athletes; they help teams compete credibly, which is a valuable recruiting tool for all student athletes and even non-athletes who enjoy attending athletic contests (there are some great rivalries in conferences like NESCAC and the Ivies); their performances please supporters who often include alumni, donors and trustees; and they can generally cut the academic work. These all seem like fine reasons to give athletic preferences. It's just a question of balance; Schulman/Bowen/Levin convinced at least some college officials that things were indeed out of balance.</p>
<p>Marathon man,</p>
<p>You were doing fine till you asserted the following: "tipped athletes enhance the experience of all student athletes; they help teams compete credibly, which is a valuable recruiting tool for all student athletes and even non-athletes who enjoy attending athletic contests (there are some great rivalries in conferences like NESCAC and the Ivies); their performances please supporters...." None of these things require lowering standards to recruit high impact players. All could be accomplished with tighter standards enforced through across the board NCAA rules and the Academic Index at the IVY's. It is the evenness of competition that makes these events exciting not the records set.</p>
<p>"Schulman/Bowen/Levin convinced at least some college officials that things were indeed out of balance."</p>
<p>Really? Which highly selective schools have significantly tightened admissions standards since since Bowen (the former president of Princeton) pleaded to "stop me before I kill again."</p>
<p>curious14: Top athletes want to play at the top of their game as do top musicians. There goals are not only competition but personal bests as well. A strong team/orchestra encourages performance.</p>
<p>This is supported by a parent writing now of choosing one school over another to find team at athlete's level, although another school is the more preferred environment. Other posters have pointed out the damage done to a musician by performing groups beneath their standards.</p>
<p>So, I do think athletic excellence does become a recruiting tool. And following thoughts posted above by others, if the recruited athletes bring in alumni donations that support many aspects of the a school, particularly a DIII school, doesn't the entire student body benefit from its athletes' prowess?</p>
<p>Alumni contributions are another red herring. In the face of league wide restrictions alumni should be indifferent. In addition there is no real evidence that aggresive athletic recruitment increases contributions from alumni.</p>
<p>The studnents decision to sacrifice academic rigor for athletic rigor is, of course, their own.</p>
<p>The Ivies and NESCAC colleges are selling the opposite: the promise that you can have academic rigor without sacrificing an athletic experience on a much higher level than your HS experience, even if you came from a leading HS athletic program. This is a prominent feature of campus culture at colleges like Williams, Middlebury, et al. and frankly, part of their marketing niche. Particularly in the large team sports where the heavy tipping is concentrated, that "next-level experience" would be tough to provide without some measure of athletic preference in the admissions process. For me, the more interesting questions involve where the "tipping point" is in terms of number of students admitted based on athletic talent, in which sports, and how low the floor should go.</p>
<p>Curious:</p>
<p>This is not an argument pro or con athletic recruitment. But in the last Harvard campaign, the first positions to be fully endowed were those of the coaches. The least successful parts of the campaign were the most obviously academic: the library and graduate fellowships.
It cannot be that all the alumni who contributed to endowing the coaches positions were themselves athletes. While Harvard or Yale football players are not all that likely to turn pros, the Harvard-Yale game is the top event in the school calendar.</p>
<p>Actually, in support of marite's point, my daugther was "recruited" by her good guy friend at Yale to travel to Yale for the Yale-Harvard game (retitling in deference to friend. Haha.) I was shocked -- SHE WENT! She said she wouldn't dream of attending a game at Columbia (she attends Barnard); in fact I think it was the first football game she ever attended.</p>
<p>It is clear that Curious can't see that all athletes do not sacrifice academic rigor for athletics. You may place no value on athletics, but most colleges do. Marite's endowment story & Mythmom's tale of D's interest in a storied football tradition are good examples of why that is. Americans are crazy about college sports & carry lifelong loyalties to those programs. Athletics have been an intrinsic piece of our oldest & most renowned colleges since their founding. Why is that so hard to accept? </p>
<p>A top athlete's incredibly demanding schedule may account for an occasional B, and that is something that would be allowed for ANY prospective student who brings exceptional talent to a college. Would you consider a prodigy violinist, who practices six hours a day, to be sacrificing academic rigor if she chose to focus on humanities and arts courses? Or failed to graduate with a 4.0? </p>
<p>Mythmom, my D thinks football is "dumb," yet attended the big game at her sister school's stadium. While certainly not as famous as Harvard/Yale, it is one of the nation's top H.S. teams & was a nationally televised game. Thousands of fans, lots of excitement...an "Event" atmosphere that was great fun for all. Alumni send $$ to support the school partly out of nostalgic ties to their team. Nothing wrong with that.</p>
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It cannot be that all the alumni who contributed to endowing the coaches positions were themselves athletes.
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That is debatable. One of the reasons that athletics is valued by schools is that participants are frequently very successful (i.e., wealthy - they are far more likely to get an MBA than a PhD in French literature) and very loyal (because their athletic experience at college was memorable, and because old rivalries die hard). I would bet the per capita $ contributed by team sport participants far exceeds that for any other club or organization.</p>
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Who wins in this case: athletes who are a bit more scholar and a little less athlete.
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<p>Sounds like someone close to you may be just a "cut below" the other guy athletically.</p>
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None of these things require lowering standards to recruit high impact players.
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<p>I think Notre Dame, Duke, Stanford, Northwestern, UCLA, Texas, Wisconsin, North Carolina football/basketball, heck their athletic programs would vehemently disagree.</p>
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It is the evenness of competition that makes these events exciting not the records set.
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<p>Curious, I'm curious. Have you participated in competitive sports on any level?</p>
<p>Why does one assume this amounts to "lowering standards"? Looked at another way, the college lowers its standards every time it takes in a student who managed to swing a 2400 SAT score in a 3 1/2 hour period in their lives, but has little else to show for it. That, to me, is a matter of lowering standards. They are simply a cut below the recruited athlete who has spent thousands of hours in disciplining themselves and perfecting his/her skills, carries a full academic load, and manages a 1900 in the same 3 1/2 hour period the day after the big game.</p>
<p>Why shouldn't an athlete sacrifice some academic rigor for athletic excellence?</p>
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but we need to remember these are academic institutions not farm clubs for sports teams
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<p>Better let the NCAA know this because they're doing everything they can to keep those 17 year olds from trying to go pro.</p>