<p>I think Harvard is already saying that they value these experiences as reflected by their move to have their first-ever night football game last season. This was done in part to create a more interesting social experience for their students.</p>
<p>I think Harvard has likewise demonstrated their interest in building a better basketball program with the hiring of their new coach from U Michigan. He was also a top player at Duke. </p>
<p>You may not care to recognize it, but the administration at Harvard probably sees that some of their students and alumni like a good athletic scene and possibly were the driving factors in making them come about in the first place.</p>
<p>Hawkette, I appreciate the effort you put forth in terms of stacking the USNWR Top 30 in terms of home attendance for games, but I don't see why it's important in the absolute. </p>
<p>I could stack the USNWR Top 30 in terms of attendance at theatrical performances on campuses and I would surmise that NU would be near the top because we have a nationally-renowned theater school and probably many more performances than most schools, but that doesn't lead to the conclusion that a school that doesn't have a top theater program should go and create one, if it doesn't fit with their overall mission. </p>
<p>For example, I wouldn't expect MIT to say, "Wow, Yale and NU both have a large % of the campus who attend theatrical productions! We'd better invest in creating theater programs, too!"</p>
<p>Personally I love sports. I grew up in a town with major college sports and I've been to lots of riots/ etc associated with big wins. Its fun to watch games with other fans of that college team (even though I didn't attend). On the other hand, I also feel that much of the conversation at these schools revolves around sports and it tends to dominate the experience. Also, like I said before I think some values big sports perpetuates is at odds with spirit of the academic and community driven Ivies. My argument is that you can have all the excitement and energy of a big sports school without the sports. Places like Dartmouth seem to do this in spades.</p>
<p>"Heck, I think that all of these things should be considered as at least one aspect of the non-academic life is likely to have some importance for the individual student looking for a college."</p>
<p>I think my disconnect is that it doesn't seem unfortunate to you that Kid A prefers urban and Kid B prefers rural, or that Kid C prefers a Greek system and Kid D doesn't, but it does seem unfortunate to you that Kid E prefers a social scene that doesn't feature big-league winning college sports teams whereas Kid F does. Because you keep saying that Kid E, in essence, "doesn't know what he's missing" and "if he only experienced a winning team, he'd know how fun it could truly be."</p>
<p>"I think you make a good point about the risk to the Ivy colleges of offering athletic scholarships as it just may be too great and could be seen as devaluing their academic brands, but having both great academics and great athletic scenes and athletic scholarships does not seem to have hurt the academic reputations of Stanford, Duke, et al."</p>
<p>But that doesn't therefore mean that HYP has to or should do it! Having a great undergrad business school hasn't hurt the academic reputation of Penn, but that doesn't mean that Harvard and Princeton should do it. If they wanted to, I'm sure they could do it with their usual high level of excellence. But clearly they don't feel that undergrad business is part of their mission. Same with offering athletic scholarships to facilitate winning football teams, presumably.</p>
<p>I think hawkette brings an incredible amount of valuable knowledge and information regarding college athletics to this site. Why do you want to shut him down?</p>
<p>It has been made abundantly clear that many people here could care less about college sports, but that does not discount its importance to thousands and thousands of collegians and alums in this country, and obviously to college applicants.</p>
<p>Personally, I could care less about college mathematics, but that does not mean it is not important to college applicants and not worth discussing on these boards. Why the hate for college sports?</p>
<p>""I also believe that some folks who previously have never directly experienced major college sporting events might also find them to be a lot of fun."</p>
<p>Some may. Some may not.
I live in a city with major college sports. I've been to some games and a tailgate because my husband things sports is a lot of fun. I didn't find those things fun.</p>
<p>Younger S is like me, and deliberately chose a college without major sports. Older S does fine sports fun, so chose a school that offered major college sports. </p>
<p>Not everyone is like you or wants to like the things that you like.</p>
<p>I don't see hate for college sports as driving many of the responses to Hawkette. What I think is inspiring the responses is Hawkette's conviction that college sports is something that everyone likes or would like if only everyone were exposed to college sports. It's appropriate to have a variety of types of colleges to serve the variety of people who want college educations.</p>
<p>^^^ Interesting that you should use Penn/Wharton as an example. I actually think it DOES hurt the academic reputation of Penn (SAS) that Wharton is so dominant. You really have to look beyond Wharton to discover the true academic excellence of the rest of Penn. Wharton tends to eclipse the rest. That is exactly what the Ivy League does NOT want athletics to do! </p>
<p>Hawkette- Of course those other cities have professional sports teams. There is just not the same concentration that there is in the northeast. Nashville does not have basketball or baseball, which is partly why Vanderbilt draws such a crowd. Also, Vanderbilt is in the SEC and a lot of fans go to see the other teams. There is a huge fan base for most of the SEC teams in Nashville. (don't misunderstand me- I love Vandy sports and had basketball tickets even though I am not offically a Vandy parent until August). </p>
<p>I also remember how excited I was to be going to son's Ivy homecoming game his freshman year and I kept bugging him to "make sure we had tickets". Little did I know that 3/4 of the stadium is empty- even for the homecoming game! Let's face it- sports have been incredibly diluted, and it isn't the be all and end all for your college to have a competitive team. It is fun and wonderful if it exists, but not worth changing the world over.</p>
<p>pizzagirl,
The football attendance data is from a thread done last year in which the weekly attendance was tracked for all of the 28 colleges that play football (Caltech and Emory do not). The idea was to get a relative sense of the vibrancy and interest level of this activity on various campuses. </p>
<p>As the numbers indicate, the level of attendance on Ivy campuses is comparatively low. This continued into the basketball season where I did a similar analysis for men's and women's basketball and found the gaps to be even wider between the Ivies and the group of Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, and Notre Dame. </p>
<p>The Ivy numbers were more positive for ice hockey (though still behind women's basketball at the Stanford, Duke group of colleges) as a few Ivy schools actively support their teams. Ice hockey is played by relatively few colleges; within the USNWR Top 30, only 8 colleges for the men and 6 for the women field teams and only 59 colleges nationally for the men and only 34 for the women. </p>
<p>Why does any of this matter? For the individual student, it may not. But I am a strong believer that non-academic interests should be factored into any college selection decision. These athletic events are social outlets on a campus and some students enjoy them quite a bit. And others who arrived without any interest at all left with a strong interest and a lot of good memories. MOWC's child at Rice is a good example of this.</p>
<p>"It is fun and wonderful if it exists, but not worth changing the world over."</p>
<p>I could not agree more with this statement, but my emphasis is on the fun and wonderful and others see my suggestions as changing the world over. Frankly, I don't think that great changes need to occur at the Ivies in order to provide "the fun and the wonderful" and I think it may happen more and sooner than we think with the upcoming changes in financial aid.</p>
<p>Hawkette, have you ever done an analysis on student population and the number of NCAA and club sports each school provides? This would provide a sense of sport participation. If you did, I think Ivies would fair better than the traditional, larger sports powerhouses.</p>
<p>I have not done or seen anything like that. Frankly, my interest really lies on the social side of athletics, but I have become more of an expert than I ever planned on the winning and losing and, to a much lesser extent, the participation activites. My sense is that the participation rates don't differ that greatly depending on how you look at it and what you value. Do you assign equal value to club sports and varsity sports? If so, then I'd be confident thinking that there aren't great differences and they might even favor the non-Ivy colleges. But as I mentioned to Corbett earlier in this thread, if one's goal is to play Division I athletics, it is far easier to do so at the Ivies than at Stanford, Duke et al.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Stanford football is weak. When Stanford football gets better, more fans will go to the games. Football is just as much about wins and losses as it is about "the scene".
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Tell that to Pete Carroll and to that other team from across the bay: </p>
<p>12/01/07 Stanford, CA Stanford 20, California 13<br>
10/06/07 Los Angeles, CA Stanford 24, USC 23 </p>
<p>And, fwiw, how would the graduation rates of student-athletes compare between the weak Stanford and the national powerhouse of California?</p>
<p>^ Xiggi! My long lost friend...I know that. It was two games...they still finished with a 4-8 record last year and have not gone to a bowl game since 2001. They haven't won a post-season bowl game since 1996.</p>
<p>For the last 9 years, Stanford has been a Pac-10 bottom dweller and attendance has slipped. That's one reason why Stanford decided to lower its stadium capacity when renovated in 2005.</p>
<p>And, yes, I'm jealous that Stanford has a brand new stadium. Cal's plans are still being held up in court by the crazy City of Berkeley and tree-huggers.</p>
<p>"The intercollegiate teams compete in twenty women's and twenty-one men's varsity programs ranging from football to sailing....
Nearly half the College's undergraduates participate in intramural sports programs. All Harvard students are encouraged to take part regardless of athletic background or ability. In the course of an academic year more than 800 upperclass team contests are scheduled in over 25 sports." FAS</a> Handbook for Students: Chapter 9: Extracurricular Activities</p>
<p>I continue being among the people who'd rather play than watch sports, and who never missed the fact that my alma mater wasn't one of the sports powerhouse universities.</p>
<p>Hawkette- I think the big problem here is that you don't really have a concept of just how hard it is to build a top level program and attract top-level athletes. It is NOT going to happen just by changing financial aid. Also, along with a top-level program comes obnoxious alums, huge recruiting violations and payola........ It is highly likely that the Ivy League simply did not and does not want to deal with all this. </p>
<p>Yes, there are great athletes at Stanford, Duke, Rice etc. The majority of the top collegiate athletes are going to state school powerhouses where they have a bunch of other big, strong guys around them to help them succeed and perhaps win a championship or, in the case of a select few, make it to the pros. Stephen Curry is the HUGE exception and NOT the rule here. Also, maybe the Ivy League wants to focus on moderate success WITHIN THE LEAGUE in a VARIETY of sports. Rice has great baseball- the other sports not so much. The Ivy schools have the luxury of building strong programs in wrestling (Penn), hockey (Cornell), track (Princeton) and not having the be all and end all be the top spectator sports which are the meat of alumni interest. Also, Penn basketball sold out and tickets were hard to get. What's the advantage to giving scholarships to step up the program? It's already attracting student body interest.</p>
<p>Interesting perspective, MOWC ... Disclaimer: I grew up in Philly before moving to St. Louis, and was admitted to Wharton but turned it down for NU. I have a lot of heart for Penn, personally. (I am aware that your son has not had such a great experience there, from reading other threads, and I'm sorry to hear that.) </p>
<p>Hawkette: You said: "But I am a strong believer that non-academic interests should be factored into any college selection decision."</p>
<p>I don't think you are any different from the rest of us in this regard. I daresay that EVERYONE on this thread thinks that non-academic life should play a role in college selection decision. The difference is, the rest of us are approaching it from more of a "different strokes from different folks" perspective (some like urban, some like rural, some like Greek, some don't want Greek, etc.) and you are approaching it from the perspective that a stronger athletic presence is *always a positive for a college and that those who don't value it just haven't been exposed to all the fun yet.</p>