Huh? You just make these anecdotal statements that borderline on the absurd for me. I’m sorry. Let’s just say you and I have totally different experiences in this arena.
The last part of your statement I agree with. And, obviously isn’t the topic of this exchange.
My kids debated. It was time consuming.
But it was never an either/or with athletics- they were Club Team/JV material, not high end athletics. So I can’t compare.
I will say- however- that the insistence that high end athletics is the MOST rigorous of all EC’s requiring the most sacrifice from the families, etc. is one reason why college athletes are a target-- both on CC and the real world. We’re supposed to drink the Kool Aid that somehow kicking a ball across the field or dunking it into a basket on a court requires the same intellectual rigor as a political debate, composing a concerto, being Concert Master of a regional orchestra or publishing a novel? And that therefore the finger on the scale during admissions is warranted? For an institution of higher learning???
Still don’t buy it. If the athlete parents on here want to take about the team work, positive values, obeying the authority of coach, or some other types of qualities that high end athletics builds, go for it. But don’t compare the kid on the basketball team to a virtuoso cello player (who likely has been practicing for hours a day since he or she was four- starting with violin and then graduating to a larger instrument, and likely playing several by HS) in terms of time sacrificed. I know HS basketball players who were recruited for college. Yes, they worked hard. But their god-given height (and genetics) often had more to do with their prowess than anything they developed on their own, and the families investment in birthing an athlete paid off in the community accolades and “fame” that accrued, not to mention college scholarships. I have yet to see my local paper cover youth symphony and local HS composers in the way it idolizes HS sports.
No one is comparing the intellectual challenge or contribution of an athlete vs a violinist. What’s being compared is the level one has to commit to and reach to be recruited at this level. It’s one thing to play an instrument that brings one joy as a way of unwinding. It’s totally another to compete against others just as talented and committed, trying to achieve the same goals. I guess it’s easy to be dismissive of it, if one hasn’t experienced it. I would say the schools obviously value these type of students. I would think to be a world class musician would require the same level of commitment and would be equally advantageous in admissions to these schools.
@ShanFerg3 #238 I don’t think that’s typical for average competitors. I don’t have a high level debater either, so I can’t give numbers, but at the highest levels, that seems possible. Even at our local tournaments (which happen to be large), there are out-of-state school buses and the instructions include hotel recommendations.
Perhaps we can say that time commitment often, but not always, relates to the level of expertise/competition in an activity. It may be harder to compare some activities that have a lighter season and much heavier competition season, as with more traditional sports (and I’d include robotics there too - substantial in-season commitment, weekdays and all-weekend including Sundays, but lighter outside the season). Debate seems never ending, as much or as little as one desires, unless of course the competitor is seeking to achieve at a high level.
If you are going to say that athletics don’t belong in an academic environment, you have to include music performance(not theory/composition) in the same category.
Very well said! Excellent perspective IMO.
Kids that are the top of the heap for sports, music, dance, and academic competitions are all putting in countless of hours of work and travel. They are also practicing in the off season.
If you are the best of the best, any of these ECs are going to help with college admission. IMO it’s crazy to be arguing about who is putting in the most hours and putting down one over the other.
Hope I didn’t come across as putting down anyone. I actually agree with your statement.
Could not agree more!! Those putting down debate or athletics by their own admission don’t know anything about high level competition in those areas!
Achieving at a high level – including working really hard to support your family – takes grit and perseverance and that, along with the specific skill, I believe is what the schools are valuing.
Anecdotal experiences are better than nothing, but number of samples is often too small to be representative samples of the ~8000 athletes on the roster at Ivy League colleges. Averages may be notably different.
One of the only more representative samples I am aware if is the Harvard lawsuit. It lists specific academic index and other stats for athletes. During the multi-year lawsuit sample, the average admitted athlete AI was 213.5/240 compared to 227.8/240 for all admitted students. This puts the Harvard athlete AI at almost dead on the -1 standard deviation limit specified under the Ivy League athletic conference rules. Specific numbers are below:
Admitted Students: Academic Index
Unhooked Asian – Average AI = 235.6, Average ACT ~= 35+
Unhooked White – Average AI = 232.3, Average ACT ~= 34+
All Students – Average AI = 227.8, Average ACT = 33.1
URMs – Average AI = 223.7, Average ACT~ = 32*+
Athletes – Average AI = 213.5, Average ACT ~= 30-31?
Rejected Students: Academic Index
Rejected Non-URM – Average AI = 219.5*
All Rejected Applicants – Average AI = 212.9*
*Calculated, assuming normal distribution
+Converted SAT to ACT
In a normal distribution, ~16% of the population is -1 SD or lower, so one might expect the average athlete ACT score to be ~16th percentile within the student body, or slightly lower than the reported 25th percentile score in the CDS. This might lead to an estimate of an average athlete ACT in the 30-31 range across the full 8 schools. This 30-31 ACT estimate is reasonably consistent with the Harvard sample in which the vast majority of athletes had an academic index that the reader guidelines describe as “Very good student with excellent grades” + “29 to 32 ACT.” Some individual Ivy athletes will be higher or lower than the average for a variety of reasons, but the bulk will fall close to the average.
However, other athletic conferences have completely different rules, so other selective colleges will often follow very different patterns. NESCAC schools complete in Div III. The more selective colleges are small LACs in which athletes make up a large portion of the student body. 30-40% of students are usually varsity athletes at NESCAC schools. These 2 factors contribute to athletics have a much weaker influence on admission among typical NESCAC athletes than at Ivy League athletes.
The place of athletics at Amherst report at https://www.amherst.edu/system/files/media/PlaceOfAthleticsAtAmherst_Secure_1.pdf lists some more specific numbers and details. It mentions that at the time of the report, Amherst had 67 athletic factor admits, which is ~14% of the entering class. These are key impact athletes who generally received a lower academic rating than other admits (worse than 1-2 academic). The 67 are split up as 14 for football and ~2 on other teams, as specified under NESCAC conference limits. Another ~16% of Amherst students are “coded” athletes who generally received a similar 1-2 academic rating as non-athlete admits, but were admitted at a much higher rate than non-athletes, suggesting a significant athletic admissions advantage. ~4% of Amherst students are walk-ons who receive limited to no athletic preference in admissions.
Stanford, Duke, and similar compete in Div I and are not bound by Ivy League conference restrictions. They may give athletic financial scholarships and may permit admits who are weaker academically than any of the above. Stanford has won the NACDA Directors Cup for best overall in Div I athletics during each of the past 25 years. During most years no other schools even come close. For example, last year the totals were as follows.
NACDA Directors Cup Totals: 2018-19
Stanford’s CDS indicates that 10% of entering students had ACTs in the 24-29 range and 1% had ACTs in the 18-23 range. I expect the bulk of this group were athletes. This is notably worse than Harvard’s CDS, which indicates that 4% had ACTs in the 24-29 range and <1% had ACTs in the 18-23 range. I expect this difference in portion with <30 ACTs largely relates to the different athletic conference rules at Stanford and Harvard.
Some other selective schools are also quite different that any of the above. For example, Caltech basketball once went on a 26 year conference losing streak that spanned over 300 games. Other Caltech teams also have had extraordinarily poor records. I expect that Caltech has much weaker athletic admissions advantage than any other selective college mentioned above, to the point where they are often not competitive at a Div III level.
Just want to be clear, who put down debate? I said, after it was pointed out that at the higher levels of debate the time commitment is immense, that if this is the case this is applicable. I asked for anyone related to debate to weigh in. We see tons of people associated with recruited sports here, I haven’t come across debate.
That being said, I agree wholeheartedly with your post.
An observation (possibly from my own ignorance), but high school debaters are not recruited by highly-selective colleges in the same way athletes are, i.e. no special process to pass through admissions, lesser stats, etc. So it makes sense that high level athletics are a focus in a discussion about admission to highly-selective colleges.
(An aside: as a matter of personal development, I’m thrilled with the skills practiced in debate, as they are directly useful in many intellectual fields of study and employment. Anyone know whether, say, U Chicago attracts a greater proportion of high school debaters than other colleges or participants of other activities?)
@evergreen5 the tools gleaned in debate are indeed useful and impressive. Sometimes my daughter gets carried away and I have to tell her everything isn’t a debate. Especially when she’s arguing from an obviously losing position lol
I keep referring back to the Harvard lawsuit because that is one of the public analyses that reviews such questions. Harvard rates all applicants on a 1-5 scale in both ECs and athletics. Athletics is not treated as just another EC. Instead Harvard chooses to make have a whole ratings category for athletics that is separate from other ECs and has a very different influence on admissions decisions. Arcidiacono calculated the relative admissions advantage for recruited athlete to top non-athlete EC as follows. I also listed some other hooks/ratings as a comparison .
Recruited athlete advantage appears to be on a completely different level from other ECs, other hooks, or anything else that was analyzed in the lawsuit. The author notes this effect saying, “Additional time and analysis has underscored the extent to which recruited athletes are truly outliers, even within the special recruiting categories. For example, the probability of getting admitted with an academic rating of 4 is minuscule for non-athletes (.076%) and nearly a thousand times greater for athletes (70.46%).”
Regression Coefficients: Harvard Lawsuit, Full “Expanded” Sample
1 Athletic – Recruited athlete. Only 0.8% of Harvard applicants received this rating – 2600x admissions advantage
1 EC --" Possible national-level achievement or professional experience. A potential major contributor at Harvard. Truly unusual achievement." Only ~0.2% of Harvard applicants received this rating – 18x admissions advantage
Double Legacy – 12x admissions advantage
Dean’s Special Interest List – 10x admissions advantage
Legacy – 6x admissions advantage
Child of Faculty/Staff – 5x admissions advantage
Applies Early – 4x admissions advantage
SES Disadvantaged – 3x admissions advantage
Very interesting! Thank you for sharing.
“The first student had a 3.9 weighted and an ACT score of 32. The second had a 4.0 weighted and an ACT score of 31.”
Agree, athletes for non-revenue sports are told they need a 32, now admittedly my experience is mainly with Asians and I know that for revenue sports, you don’t need a 32 and URMs don’t need a 32 as well.
“If you are the best of the best, any of these ECs are going to help with college admission.”
They may help but athletes get the most help in admission, the Harvard data proves that conclusively. No way a violinist, even world class, is getting in with an academic rating of 3 or 4. Nobody even the musical director has the pull of a coach, which is why Singer went after them in his “side door” strategy, he knew that was the most vulnerable (corruptible as well) part of college admissions.
@Data10 I’m curious how Harvard’s ranking of athleticism works with the ADA. I know many high achieving students who cannot participate in sports due to disabilities.
Harvard has a special ratings category for physically disabled applicants, as well as for applicants who have other time commitments, as quoted below. More importantly, the athletics rating primarily acts as a boost for applicants who receive a 1-2 rating, which roughly correlates with being able to contribute to a varsity team at Harvard. There is far less influence for the vast majority of HS athletes who do not play at this contribute to Harvard team level. For this group, I expect HS athletics offers little if any benefit over other types of ECs.
2023 Harvard Admissions Reader Guidelines
5 Athletic Rating --" Substantial commitment outside of conventional extracurricular activities such as family obligations or term-time work (should be included with other e/c to boost the rating or left as a “5” if it is more representative of the student’s commitment)." – Associated with a 2x admission advantage over non-athletes
6 Athletic Rating – “Physical condition or other special circumstances prevent significant activity.” – Too small sample size for analysis
“I would think to be a world class musician would require the same level of commitment and would be equally advantageous in admissions to these schools.”
You might think it but you would be wrong. Kids who are going the athletic scholarship route are ending up in colleges which might offer their world class musician classmates a $1500/year scholarship for a specific instrument, or for playing in the college orchestra. And not a dime more. Kids who are going Ivy (as Data has nicely analyzed) aren’t even in the same admissions pool as the musicians (who are in the pool with the science kids, the dance kids, the writers and poets, etc.) A math professor at Harvard has less “pull” in admissions than a coach- whether for a revenue sport or not.
The athletic scholarships, the stipends, the special tutors and training facilities-- there is nothing comparable for the musicians.
I’m not criticizing the student athletes- they didn’t create the system, they are just playing the hand they’ve been dealt. But don’t claim that the US college system is an equal playing field (ha ha ha) for high level student athletes and high level student sculptors and musicians and everyone else. Anyone who reads a newspaper and sees the perks and money thrown at college athletes knows differently. The Harvard lawsuit just put the admissions numbers for athletes (an open secret) out in the public domain.
Interesting. Why do you think this is?