<p>If you think size is irrelevant for track and field then you’ve never watched a half-way competitive track meet. It common to find women high jumpers who approach or exceed 6’ in height - at least the ones who are out there winning. Talented male high jumpers are are very seldom less than 6’ and guys of 6’4" or 6’5" are common. Same thing in the throwing events (shot put, discus, hammer, and javelin). Those guys are not only tall but huge as well. It’s not unusual for a star in one of the throwing events on the track to also be a star lineman on the football team. Those two sports sports both favor the really big boys.</p>
<p>Down on the running track different inborn skills are favored. There is not a track coach alive who will claim he can turn a slow person into a Div 1 level sprinter. As the coach in “Chariots of Fire” put it: “You can’t put in what God left out.” Can a coach teach a slow runner to be a somewhat less slow runner? Sure, with hard work and good instruction everyone can improve at least a little. But anyone who thinks that track and field is an equal opportunity sport were body size and natural ability are irrelevant is woefully misinformed.</p>
<p>There are many short distance and middle distance runners (Manzano is one), and height can be a slight liability on the curves for sprinters. </p>
<p>Malcolm Gladwell and others have suggested that athletic talent is much less relevant than hours of practice.</p>
<p>News that should gladden the hearts of the haters on here: The University of Maryland just announced they are recommending the elimination of their cross country and track & field programs due to financial concerns. Other east coast schools did this already, such as the Univ. of Delaware and Seton Hall.</p>
<p>Someone used height as an example, and then Bay began to focus literally on height for some reason. But that wasn’t the point; the general question was regarding inborn athletic potential. Genetics matters a lot; it defines your range.</p>
<p>Innate potential takes many different forms, depending on the sport. Size and height are advantages in most sports, but not all. Example: You’d like plenty of fast twitch muscles as a sprinter, plenty of slow twitch muscles as a marathoner.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Look, like it or not it is still part of the prevailing American educational philosophy, at least among elite institutions, that someone who is (a) physically gifted, (b) disciplined enough to develop those physical gifts to full advantage, and (c) smart enough, but not necessarily smarter than everyone, is just as valuable an addition to a university community as someone who IS smarter than everyone else, or for that matter someone who is smart enough but also a charismatic leader. Elite American colleges want all of those people, and others besides. That is what has MADE them elite American colleges, and they are going to stick with it.</p></li>
<li><p>I heard an amazing recruited-athlete story this weekend, which I really can’t repeat because the information would be too identifying to the kid involved. But it sure convinced me that things are very, very different if you are a recruited athlete and multiple Ivy-type institutions really want to fight for you.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Yes, it is. Wharton is an anomaly (an undergraduate business school embedded in a highly selective, private research university). Only a minority of graduates of these schools are business entrepreneurs. Many go into academia, law, medicine, engineering, business and financial consulting, government, and information technology rdt&e. In all of these fields, what you know counts for a lot. The main focus in admission, in my opinion, ought to be on getting the smartest, most imaginative students who can make the best contributions to sharing, increasing, and spreading knowledge. However, many elite schools feel a need to salt the student body with student leaders, scholar-athletes, legacies, and development admits who may or may not be among the most academically qualified. It’s about $$$ but probably also about customer satisfaction (based on a premise that smart kids can’t figure out how to entertain each other, wholesomely, unless admissions crafts a balanced class for them.) I suppose this practice must serve their interests or it would not continue. However, a few top schools (Caltech, Chicago, Reed … Oxford) don’t seem to practice it so much, yet they do just fine. I think we are entering an era when the distinction between business entrepreneurs and knowledge workers (or “thought-leaders”) is becoming increasingly fuzzy. So maybe the smartest guy in the room is as likely to become a future multimillionaire donor (or public figure) as the back-slapping, well-connected schmoozer.</p>
<p>Re: customer satisfaction ^. The allegedly underqualified athletes must be part of the social balance to prevent the super smart kids from taking too much of a self-esteem hit after encountering so many others just as bright. This way, they can continue to feel superior to approximately 20% of the student body.</p>
<p>Let’s look at the posited numbers. I’ll use Dartmouth as an example, because it’s the only Ivy I’m familiar with (and it’s the ivies and similar schools that evoke the most concern, it seems). Dartmouth is the smallest ivy, with a very remote location, unique setting: not everyone would be happy there. Unlike HYP, its early program is ED and binding, but to get any legacy advantage one has to apply early, so if a legacy applies, he or she is accepting the opportunity cost of not applying elsewhere early (a financial risk as well), in addition to the cost of applying early in the school year (without what boost he or she might derive from senior grades, or retaking tests). So we’re really talking about the early round of candidates only, and these students are coming out and saying that Dartmouth is their first and only choice at that point, which does in fact make them more desirable in the college’s view than regular decision candidates, legacy or not. Any student applying early, that is, gets a boost; the question is whether the legacy receives an additional boost. (None of this is true about HYPS, which are SCEA, but it is true about the other ivies, which all have ED.)</p>
<p>Okay: in 2010, of 1594 candidates for ED, 460 were accepted. If 10% of those were legacy, then that’s 46 kids. (The actual percentage of alum sons and daughters, as Dartmouth puts it, was 13.7 for the class; at least some of those will have been admitted regular round, since not all legacies are able and willing to go ED). So you have 46 kids, a handful of which might be developmental, another larger handful might be athletes as well as legacies (since Dartmouth alums tend to value athletics): 35 kids without another visible hook. But legacies are, as a group, and by definition, the product of parents with an educated background, and possibly financial resources as well, so they are likely to be high-statted overachievers, and so at least half of those 35 would represent excellent candidates legacy or no. So maybe 17 kids, probably fewer, out of a class of 1113 got a boost from legacy that actually represented a slight advantage over another candidate. 17 actual legacy boosts from an applicant field of 18,778.</p>
<p>I think recruited athletes or those with an exceptional physical ability should be given consideration the same as a person with superior intellect. Being able to do something amazing with your body is very special. I don’t think it should trump intellect but it shouldn’t be far down the list as to why this person qualifies. Athletic ability should be given weight but those athletes do need to have an intellect too.</p>
<p>Doesn’t Notre Dame have the largest number of spots reserved for legacies? I also recall that Notre Dame has established a large spread between relatively high Early Decision acceptances vs Regular Decision acceptance admisssions.</p>
<p>"Re: customer satisfaction ^. The allegedly underqualified athletes must be part of the social balance to prevent the super smart kids from taking too much of a self-esteem hit after encountering so many others just as bright. This way, they can continue to feel superior to approximately 20% of the student body. "</p>
<p>TheGFG - this assumes all athletes are dumb. I know Ivies have a bunch of athletes who can kick the proverbial academic butt of the best of the academics only students.</p>
<p>texaspg–my comment was tongue in cheek! Regular posters know that I’m a defender of collegiate athletics and the value and intelligence of student athletes. My D is a recruited athlete at an elite and was well-qualified academically to attend her school. Furthermore, she and the majority of the student body are having a blast this fall enjoying the success of their football team and the related hoopla.</p>
I would say that this is an educated opinion, based on observing motivated students with professional voice teachers who, nevertheless, were not able to overcome intonation problems. I also know some other people who seem almost completely tone-deaf–I can’t imagine that some of them could ever learn to sing in tune at all. There certainly are people who advertise that they can give anybody perfect pitch, etc., but if these techniques really worked they’d be more mainstream as opposed to being in the ad pages next to the pheromone ads.</p>
<p>There are simply some people who are not cut out to be athletes, and height’s not everything. I worked my tail off during junior high to become a basketball player. By sophomore year in high school, when I was on the high school JV team, I got into two games all year, one that was irretrievably lost and the other that was safely won. This was in spite of the fact that I was the tallest guy on the team, by four inches. I decided that perhaps that wasn’t what I was destined to do and declined to go out for basketball my junior year. The coach pleaded with me to change my mind - I have no idea as to why, unless it was to scare the other team during warm ups.</p>
<p>TheGFG, this thread isn’t about dissing athletes. I have no problem with elite colleges deciding to value / recruit for athletes. They can compose their student body however they want. If they want to tilt the balance towards all athletes, or all legacies, or all math geniuses, that’s their prerogative. I have personally never been of the belief that recruited athletes at top schools were somehow “inferior” academically and just skated in solely on the basis of their sport and were there just to make the “real” students feel better. The athletes I personally know at Yale, Stanford, Princeton, and Northwestern right now are fully on the ball academically. But I think that your belief that “anyone could be a recruited-level athlete” (i.e., it’s “developpable” versus being a legacy, which isn’t “developpable”) is insane. Either you have that mind-body coordination and ability to be an athlete, or you don’t. It’s as ludicrous as suggesting that I could start writing songs and become Paul McCartney, or pick up an instrument and become Yo Yo Ma.</p>
<p>^^^also, despite what others may be claiming, HEIGHT matters to coaches in a big way. They will take a less skilled athlete over the one with more skill if he is BIG. Most stats of ht and wt on athletic lineups are gross exaggerations for just this reason - at least with the MALE athletes.</p>