Is this common? I have not run into this.
I also wonder about this, just sharing what I’ve heard from a few coaches. I could see some highly rejective D3 administrations deciding athletic recruiting in its current form is not politically tenable (assuming race can’t be used in admissions), time will tell how things shake out.
It’s also possible the likely change to non-race based admissions along with the Ivy athletic scholarship lawsuit might lead to some changes in that league….but I haven’t heard the Ivies are delaying pre-reads this year so that seems like it will be business as usual.
Common app requires a photo. Just go to a tippy top, walk around. Then go to a non selective state 4 yr colkege, walk around. The difference is startling.
Nope.
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Hmm, maybe it was just the tippy top? I distinctly remember kid had to supply a headshot for application.
Both my unhooked kids applied to numerous tippy tops. The both attend(ed) tippy tops as well. No photo required anywhere prior to admission.
The only time I remember photos being required was registration for standardized tests.
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Yeah… not sure about this. Definitely not the ones D applied to.
There are a fair share of tall, beautiful, athletic kids at tippy tops (athletic usually being the key word), but the rest of the kids are regular people (albeit very smart).
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I haven’t encountered any required photos in apps either.
I do agree there are other race tells like name and block/neighborhood. If the common app race checkbox is eliminated, or suppressed at the school level, students will still be able to work their race into their essays (I will encourage my URM students to do this).
Also, some activities/clubs and awards communicate race.
Perhaps to allow for another form of verification (i.e. that the winner of some athletic event is actually the athlete being recruited) to reduce the risk of a Singer-type fake athlete situation?
As others have noted, photos are not generally required in regular college applications.
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Top schools are the ones most concerned with “creating” diversity. I bet a very large number of the kids applying to begin with are ones with College Board National Recognition Awards.
It’s like the AOs say when advising on TO: “we can’t unsee what you show us.”
Which they supposedly use to make sure that actual student is taking the test.
Recruiting questionnaires usually ask for a photo, though it’s not required, and I doubt any coach will overlook data that speaks for itself.
I remember seeing that requirement years ago but don’t see it on the common app for 2023 or 2024.
This could certainly affect the prereads, if the schools are giving a boost based upon race (and they surely are) to the recruited athletes, above and beyond the already lowered thresholds for athletes. That’s why D3 is waiting, so that they won’t have to possibly go back and tell applicants, “Sorry, we can’t take you, based upon the new SC decision.” Will be a lot less messy if they just delay the preread results.
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The standard for positive pre-reads at the selective academic D3’s is higher than “can they do the work” in our experience and hearing and reading about targets that coaches have set for their potential recruits and seems to be more relative to their general admits. If a school had applied different academic thresholds for URMs in the regular pool, seems reasonable to assume that applied to athletic recruits as well. This obviously changes the goal post on pre-reads for URMs if SCOTUS strikes down affirmative action…
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I would think that this might impact recruiting in a different way than mentioned so far - often a coach at a selective D3 has only so many “slots” or “tips”, and they use those on kids that have the athletic talent, though might be on the lower end of stats. If they think the kid will be admitted due to being tippy top academic applicant, or a URM, they encourage the kid to apply ED, knowing the kid will very likely be admitted (without using one of the limited slots/tips).
If you can’t give a preference to URMs, then a coach might need to adjust their thinking on which kids get a slot or tip.
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That line of thinking seems more reasonable to me, but my impression is that it was an admissions directive, not athletics.
Disallow athletic hooks? You mean, have the school’s teams be composed of amateur athletes who are simply the most athletically talented students who were admitted based upon their academic achievement, as if college were a place to go to learn something academic, rather than to play a sport? Oh the humanity!
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I doubt athletic hooks are at risk. There is a sense of “merit” in valuing athletic skills to create a separate pool. Legacy is most at risk in an adverse ruling IMO.
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there are repeated instances of legacy athletes receiving preferential treatment, which means the coach isn’t selecting the fastest/strongest/best athlete from his candidate list. This could be because the parents are financial supporters of the sports programs, or other programs.
It could be that some of these legacy athletes would be admitted under regular admission due to their legacy hook, so they count as “free” (in terms of not using any recruiting admission boost slots) to the coach.
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