NESCACS have officially delayed their timeline do to this. I have now heard that Swarthmore is also “waiting.”
I will admit that I am not following particularly closely, but what does it have to do with recruiting?
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Wow. I am surprised to hear this, since until the decision comes out, it is business as usual, with significant boosts to applicants based upon race. No one knows for sure how the court will rule, nor when they will rule, and meanwhile, the admissions and recruiting process has to move forward. How can colleges delay the process? It is very time sensitive.
As far as I understand, pre-reads normally start 7/1. NESCACS seem to have set a date of 7/15 for submissions with results starting 8/1.
Centennial cited the same reason but I don’t know a date, just that it is “latter than usual.” My guess is that it’s the same.
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Hmm, that is still before the anticipated Sept decision. If the court rules against consideration of race, what will they do with academic prereads that gave a boost based on race, when the actual admissions cycle takes place after the decision?
I didn’t think recruiting prereads factored in race? Nothing about this makes any sense to me.
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From Collegeboard:
On October 31, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases about the consideration of race in college admissions: SFFA v. UNC and SFFA v. Harvard. These two cases were heard separately over the course of the day. We expect the Court’s decision by June 2023 and audio recordings for both the UNC and Harvard cases are now available on the Court’s website.
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Well, an academic preread is supposed to give an indication of whether the recruited athlete is considered academically acceptable to the college. If different standards are applied based upon the race of the applicant in other applicant groups, why would you think that it wouldnt apply also to recruited athletes?
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Oh, so then the delay makes sense, because if the decision comes out in june, the colleges expect it will affect whether or not they can apply different standards based upon race to academic prereads this cycle.
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I believed the the point of a pre-read in the recruiting context was to determine “this PSA will manage the coursework” and primary based on grades/coursework/scores. If they are lowering the standard further than that for anyone, they are doing that student a disservice. Baring that, the coach could pick their “best athlete.” Is there an institutional priority/aspect to the preread?
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There could be multiple levels of preread decisions. For example, if strictly based on academic criteria, a college could have the following preread decisions:
- Student would likely be admitted in regular admission.
- Student would not likely be admitted in regular admission, but is expected to be able to handle the academic workload.
- Student would need significantly greater than normal academic support services to handle the academic workload.
- Student is unlikely to handle the academic workload even with significantly greater than normal academic support services.
In the above hypothetical example, the college may give the coaches full discretion for unlimited numbers of recruits with group 1, full discretion for limited numbers of recruits with group 2, limited discretion for very limited numbers of recruits with group 3, and reject for group 4.
Now, if the college admissions office includes stuff like legacy and URM to its preread, that could move some students for which this stuff applies from group 2 to group 1 (i.e. from the limited number bucket to the unlimited number bucket from the coaches’ perspectives).
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My understanding is they are concerned that athletic hooks will also be disallowed and/or politically untenable.
At the point of the pre-read, schools also know the race of the applicant, so perhaps they want space to blind that information with admissions should considering race in admissions be disallowed (obviously that’s not possible with the coach).
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As noted, almost all SCOTUS decisions heard in the prior year (Oct to May) come out in June. Some are released during the year, but very very few are held over and the Court usually adjourns by July 1.
I just watched a news piece about Thomas and Sotomayor and how they differ on this issue. The comment by the ‘expert’ was that if the court decision requires changes, they could be effective immediately and that would require changes to the applications for the class of 2024, such as taking the race box off the application. Really, if the coach and the AO can ignore race when they already know it, and some students have very ethnic names that could indicate race, does it really matter if a box is checked and couldn’t the AOs just ignore it?
Also, the box is required by federal law and even schools that don’t consider race for admissions have it on their forms. Now maybe the question can be asked later for reporting purposes, but the schools will have to figure out when to ask the question for reporting purposes. At orientation? At registration?
Still, I don’t think is should change recruiting. It might change the ‘points’ given for admission if the school/conference uses such a system and gave extra points to an URM.
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What are the theories on how a SC decision ending (or significantly limiting) the use of racial considerations in admissions decisions could affect athletic recruiting?
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Colleges will increasingly look at less direct methods of achieving URM goals and this could affect athletic recruiting.
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Colleges will be wary of increased scrutiny of athletic hooks and may raise academic standards for athletic recruits (which could affect pre-read standards).
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Colleges may have been considering race in pre-read decisions (e.g., they were using option 1 of the four ucbalumnus outlined above), and will now have to change pre-read standards.
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Not every college is delaying pre-reads or basing the timing of pre-reads on Supreme Court decisions. I know of at least two that have already completed some of them.
I agree that I don’t understand how any ruling could impact colleges’ ultimate admissions decisions for the Class of 2024 at this point in the process. The demographic data for this class has already been collected and widely disseminated, for both athletes and non-athletes. That is a done deal for this upcoming class of applicants.
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Academic standards for recruiting at NESCACs are pretty high already.
You know, that is what is said here all the time, but at our school (affluent Boston suburb with very few URM students -nearly all recruits from here are white) I’ve seen data from SCOIR that shows outliers (in ED admit pool) that suggest that NESCACs are accepting kids with significantly lower grades/scores than you’d expect (I’ve seen SAT 900 and weighted gpa of 3.3).
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Yes, I am certain some were/are. As I’ve said on other threads, some coaches are incentivized to recruit URMs.
Some of the NESCACs like Trinity and Conn college in particular have lower academic hurdles. I’m not saying the relatively more selective NESCACs never dip that low, but generally the Ivy League schools have more give in stats than do Williams, Bowdoin, Amherst.
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It wasn’t Trinity or Conn College. It included some of the schools you mentioned plus a few of the other highly ranked NESCACs. I’m not suggesting this is par for the course, but it did surprise me.
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Obviously, race and ethnicity of students is somewhat known, box or not, by name and picture. (BTW, why does the committee need a photo? Seems only to enable prejudice in favor of attractive candidates.) The issue is whether or not racially preferential boosts to academic credentials will be applied. That seems pretty straightforward, especially with the size of the boost given, as revealed by the lawsuits.
If the ruling is against use of race in admissions, and it is supposed to be implemented immediately (has there ever been a SC ruling whose implementation has been delayed?), what will be done about the prereads that have already been completed with racial preferences applied, but national letter of intent day isnt until november, after the ruling?
I wonder about this. Athletics is different from race, first gen, or legacy status in that it is viewed as a ‘special talent’.