<p>Excepting the schools that “run on football as a way of life”, consider that those who participate in athletics will engender and disseminate certain character features such as psychological resilience, unrelenting emotional determination, esprit de corps, and so forth, into the general collegiate community. Perhaps it takes more than academic capability to make a college operate with cohesion as a community. These student athletes are no different than student musicians, student artists or student organizers – the possibility that there may be lower conventional academic skill is reconciled by other skills necessary to be effective, usually in ways that cannot be measured on standardized testing. I would like to think that college is about acquisition of knowledge, method, and awareness; not all collegiate skill or fit is measurable by standardized tests limited to orthodox measure of a few topics of science, math, reading, writing, “by the book”.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that athletics should not be considered at all, but rather that intellectual vitality should be the largest factor. A student with a 3.7 and just a few APs while nearly 20 are offered at the school should not be accepted into Harvard over students with higher scores and who have shown more ambition academically.
Also, the student athletes do differ from student musicians, artists and organizers. Musicians, artists, and organizers are not sought out in the same way that athletes are, nor are they given as easy of a path into a prestigious school such as Harvard for their achievements. If you think that college is about the acquisition of knowledge, then surely you must agree that a student who has shown intellectual vitality in the past would be a better addition to a college than one who has not.</p>
<p>Within the context of your argument, I think a student athlete usually demonstrates the capability to operate “more than one kind of machine at a time” with respect to managing physical output as well as intellectual, academic and psychological output. The knowledge being acquired and presented that makes the community operate will not necessarily be limited to intellectual output. I don’t know the differentials in the academic stats between athletes and non-athletes, and I won’t muddy the waters with too much anecdotal detail, but the two student artists I know who were admitted Harvard from my school didn’t have the best grades but they were prodigies in their respective disciplines, and unusually effective social organizers. Of course, they both practice law now.</p>
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While this point holds true at many D1 universities, Ivy league coaches cannot admit students who don’t meet specific thresholds, and when one institution “dips” too low for a recruit they have to compensate with high-scoring other players (note the -s) AND be careful wrt the other institutions in the league. </p>
<p>OP seems to have started the thread to shoot down anyone disagreeing with him/her. 
But the thread is still going strong so it was a good question to ask.</p>
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<p>@Tom: Why is that? People are more than a set of scores. When academics come easily to you, and testing is something you’re naturally good at, it’s easy to say those with the highest numbers should get first pick. If colleges ran that way, there wouldn’t be a need for an application, would there? The College Board could just send print outs of SAT scores and let the colleges fight it out. But there are applications and colleges consider much more, like the ability to see value in other human beings beyond what score they may have gotten on a test. Since you hold these institutions in such high esteem, I would think you’d try to emulate the character traits of their administration, not try to drag their values into line with yours. </p>
<p>@austinmshauri I am not of the belief that one should change their values in the goal of emulating another. I do believe, however, that the current system is flawed in regards to athletics. Clearly I have not been saying throughout my posts on this thread that smarter students should be admitted as a “set of scores”, I have been saying that they should be judged for their intellectual vitality, their desire, potential, and ambition when it comes to learning. If one student has shown much greater ambition academically (taking as many APs as available to them as the student can handle, joining academic clubs/groups, etc.) AND they have higher test scores, they should have a better chance at getting into an elite academic institution than a student with a decent unweighted GPA in a course load that has very little rigor (2-3 APs taken while nearly 20 were offered). If two candidates are similar, with similar scores(within ~200 points SAT), ECs, and course work (weighted GPA considered, not unweighted), then sports could be a deciding factor, but, in my opinion athletes shouldn’t be allowed to be drastically lower in academics (generally the teams are supposed to average to be within one standard deviation of the average for the school) than other students and still bbe recruited for admission while everyone else has terrible chances. Why should a student who has put little demonstrated effort into their education be handed access to the resources of such a high caliber academic institution rather than the student who has worked diligently and consistently in school in order to have just a chance at admission?</p>
<p>This discussion repeats itself so often here that I should be tired of reading and participating in it and yet, it is always entertaining. Way to go, OP.</p>
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<p>The reason is simple: supply and demand. Harvard and the other Ivies don’t give athletic scholarships. Hey, I’m convinced that some play games with financial aid, but you’ve got to at least qualify for fin aid to get $ and they can’t sweeten the package too much. So, most kids who are top athletes, even those with good enough stats to get into an Ivy, opt for schools like Stanford, Duke, Georgetown, USC and others where they will get athletic scholarships and where they also get a lot of other perks they don’t get at Ivies. Moreover, the Ivy League has limits on how “low you can go” for athletes. The Ivies are not going to admit the kid with a 1200 (out of 2400) SAT score. And being able to admit those kids makes for stronger teams. Plus, those who want to turn pro know that it’s easier to do it from those schools than from the Ivies. There is usually no more than one pro recruit per year per sport–for the entire Ivy League. The teams aren’t as competitive, so it’s harder to develop your skills. You don’t get the post season exposure other schools offer at the Ivies. There’s not even an Ivy championship game in football. Practice hours are limited by league rules. So, the very best athletes in the US rarely opt for the Ivies in sports, especially sports in which there is a chance to play professionally post college. </p>
<p>Fewer schools give merit money for music or acting–and many that do are conservatories. So more kids who are really good at music and acting want to go to Ivies. There’s simply a bigger supply. If you are really OUTSTANDING though, you’ll get in with weaker stats. Yo Yo Ma strikes me as a highly intelligent man. However, I’m sure the Harvard admissions officers didn’t even bother checking his SAT scores. He was a famous cellist when he applied. Musicians THAT good rarely go to Harvard; they go to Julliard or Curtis, or they don’t go at all. Still, while Harvard and Yale have to recruit athletes to fill their teams, students have to try out to make the orchestras and there are a heck of a lot more good musicians trying out than slots in the top orchestras. Many of the Ivies have a dozen or more a capella groups that are really, really good----and getting in is highly competitive. The Ivies don’t have to recruit to attract good singers, the same way they have to in order to get top athletes. They get them anyway.</p>
<p>And there aren’t the # of pro athletes applying to the Ivies that there are of actors atnd actresses. Clare Danes, Jody Foster, Julia Stiles, Emma Watson, Kellee Martin, Natalie Portman, Jordana Brewster, and Emma Watson were all famous actresses when they applied to college. </p>
<p>Or to go back to my “Guys and Dolls” analogy, there are fewer people competing for the role of athletes at the Ivies than there are competing for a slot in the orchestra, the singing groups or on the stage. </p>
<p>@tomwantssnow I’m not saying you were saying he’s not a great athlete. But I’m saying its totally fair for him to have a chance at Harvard. Harvard, while it’s an academic institution, it also weighs on the college athletic leagues and games. Being an athlete is much harder than getting 2400 on SAT, I’m sorry to say the truth. They have practice all afternoon every day, while we have time to work on the school work and prep for tests. Athletes actually show so much integrity and determination, and if he managed to stay on top of the league to be interested by Harvard & managed to take a few APs, he might as well excel in college. As many people said, admission is not all about scores, neither the academic ability. Personal achievement is also another thing, which the athlete you’re mentioning seemed to have. His integrity to be on the top shows that he as well have a great possibility to become an academian. Getting 5s on APs and over 2300+ on SATs? So many kids get that nowaday by taking expensive tutorings, so it doesn’t show the geniune academic potential that much. I think what you need to do is stop whining and trying to see bad parts of the athlete schoolmate, but try to outstand at least in one field like him. </p>
<p>@jsmike123qwe you might want to look at the bigger picture. Maybe your friend wasn’t suppose to get into an Ivy so he will end up working that much harder which could end with him getting into a top college for his masters degree. Life can work out funny that way. My husband went to a state school, got awesome grades, a great job, was accepted to Columbia for an MBA, and now has his dream job! You just never know what life has in store for you.</p>
<p>I don’t think tom is “whining”–at all. Nor do I think we can draw any conclusions about someone’s “integrity” from the fact he plays sports. Additionally, a lot of parents spend a lot of money on special coaching , sports clinics and travel teams to develop their kids’ athletic abilities. </p>
<p>I think athletics only confuses the issue. OP’s friend didn’t get int an Ivy because nothing made him an undeniable “must have.” And this category is far more than actors, legacy, good stats and all the rest CC thinks it is. You have a multi-page application. Each part, each question, is a chance to make an impression- or not. Transcripts are just one section and scores are a line or two. Your app is a self presentation- it either conveys what they like or it doesn’t. The better it does, the further you advance. Or not. </p>
<p>It’s simply not about perceived hs Big Dog You are not applying to another hs. You are applying to take a major leap to that college. You either get it or you don’t. If you don’t- if what comes across in your app is limited in thinking, without a good record of actions and impact, without some perspective on what matters- your scores and rigor simply will not trump. They are building a community-- NOT just trying to fill seats in some physics or history class.</p>
<p>And then, when all the great kids are in the final discussion, factors like geo diverity come into play. Or the limited number of seats. For the rest of your life, you can gripe that it’s not all about who has the best stats.</p>
<p>All that does is show limited understanding. </p>
<p>What a lot of people don’t realize is that ivy league-level colleges don’t necessarily look for people with high grades and statistics. It’s just that the majority of people who they are looking for happen to be ones with excellent grades and statistics. People that are highly active in their school or have done extraordinary things outside of the classroom like doing research or such are likely to have similar success in school in the form of grades and scores. Harvard and Princeton and Stanford might have their top certain percentages have perfect scores or close to perfect on SAT/ACTs but that is not because they actively pursued that. It is just that those admitted students happened to be likely to have those super high scores. Scores and grades are nothing but numerical factors. People can twist them in whatever way they want but at the end of the day, these colleges don’t look at them the same way as most people think they do. </p>
<p>I’m always amused by these threads where kids yearn to be admitted to certain schools then complain about the admissions processes that result in exactly the classes they’re so desperate to join.</p>
<p>Erase</p>
<p>@humanities2014
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<p>Perfect 2400 scorers average about .04 -.06 of 1 percent per year of the several million who take the test, so I’m not sure how you can say this is “easier” than being an athlete. This figure has fairly remained constant despite increased test preparation.</p>
<p>When my daughter took the ACT a few years ago she sat in a room for four and a half hours and got ONE question wrong (which she felt was arguable). How do you test prep for this type of mental endurance and accuracy and if you could, wouldn’t this be similar to what an athlete does when they train?</p>
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<p>Hard to make generalizations like this. Determination - maybe - but integrity, not always. On the bus to and from games of my son’s HS soccer team (which lost in the state championship) the kids would regularly be drinking and the language and topics of conversation was horrific.</p>
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<p>I absolutely agree with @jonri here that " a lot of parents spend a lot of money on special coaching , sports clinics and travel teams to develop their kids’ athletic abilities". I would add not just special coaching (my son’s friend has a pitching and a separate batting coach) but also personal trainers. Not only is a tremendous amount of money spent by parents, think of all the TIME these parents spend driving their kids all around the state for their travel teams (ughh, this is my wife and me) and to their clinics and specialized training. I would argue that a lot more time and money is invested in the making of a superior athlete than in test prep for the SAT’s or ACT’s (I don’t think kids actually do a lot of AP test prep but I may be wrong).</p>
<p>I am not taking sides on the debate of whether elite college should recruit athletes or not because I see merits in both arguments. I just think that broad generalizations need to be supported by facts.</p>
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<p>@Tom: Then surely you understand that it works both ways. Ivy colleges won’t change their admission policies to suit others, no matter how much those others may believe they should. I’ve been reading this board a long time and there are many people who disagree with the holistic admissions process. Many, many more of them than could ever be admitted still pony up the money to apply. The colleges have absolutely no reason to change how they do business. All you can do, if you don’t care for their policies, is to refuse to do business with them. </p>
<p>Edited for spelling…</p>
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<p>I have often wondered this myself!</p>
<p>And yet … despite all their “flaws” … you all so badly want in. </p>
<p>If hypothetical Rack-and-Stack U opened tomorrow, whereby they took all the 2400’s that applied, then the 2390’s, and so forth til they filled their beds, it wouldn’t be a desirable place at all. The closest that any US college comes to this approach is Caltech, and that’s a school with relatively limited appeal and brand name power in any kind of greater context outside a narrow math/science world.</p>