It is because American society overvalues athletics compared to other endeavors, and some universities see athletic performance as a way to bolster alumni support. Note that equally prestigious universities in other countries, such as Oxford and Cambridge, do not do so.
My cello-playing-youth-symphony-going DS20, also happens to be a competitive swimmer. His swimming is not at D1 level, but he knows many kids from his clubs who are and the difference between athletes and music in regard to college admission process is pretty significant: I would say colleges “value” athletic prowess a lot more than music talents. And I agree with @roycroftmom, coaches have a lot more pull (even at elite D3 schools and esp at IVYs) than music directors of the same schools. Music is a nice EC, good athletic ability is a hook.
At my DD’s independent school it looks like there was a backlash against the “college cheating scandal” in terms of who was accepted in the ED round. Many qualified high achieving students, who are legacy and rich were deferred. Yet most of the high achieving, less connected, less wealthy students were accepted to the sub 5% admit colleges. We’ll see what happens in regular decision.
At very selective non-conservatory schools that have serious orchestras, very talented musicians do get flagged in the admissions process. You better believe that schools want to make sure that talent is there in the incoming class, it doesn’t happen by coincidence. Applicants submit performance supplements or get in touch with the music department and if there is interest by the school, that application can get flagged. It’s not exactly the same as an athletic recruit, but can make the difference between a qualified applicant getting denied and qualified applicant who can also contribute to the orchestra getting admitted.
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Makes sense
It’s remarkable how analogous fencing is to debate. Back when our family was 100% immersed in the that world, I would often act as a referee at fencing tournaments. When refereeing fencing bouts you need to call out each action leading up to the point (touch), saying things such as:
Attack from the right arrives. Touch right.
Attack is “no”. Counter attack arrives. Touch left.
Attack from the left is parried. Riposte is off target.
Simultaneous attacks, both off target.
As a joke, I would sometimes use fencing referee terminology to mediate casual debates/arguments among fencers, their parents, and coaches.
It was amazingly effective and a lot of fun. Just imagine critiquing a political debate with a succinct: “Attack off target, counter attack arrives” or “Attack is parried, riposte arrives”.
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There are many factors. One is the the sports focused culture in the United States. Far more people in the United States watch sporting events on TV or in person that watch children’s music concerts. Parents often encourage their kids to play sports at a young age, especially boys, more so that they do for music. By some estimates, the majority of high school students play a sport, and kids sports is a ~$20 billion industry. It’s quite common for parents in the United States to be as or more concerned about a their children’s athletic performance in their sport(s) than their academic performance in their classes. Athletes are often admired by other students as well. Top secondary school athletes are often considered popular and regularly discussed among persons at their HS and neighborhood, as well is in related media.
This pattern continues at the college level. In ~40/50 states the highest paid public employee is not a college president, governor, or other top ranked employee. It’s either a football coach or basketball coach. In the majority of states, the top paid public college coach has a 7-figure salary. A similar pattern occurs at highly selective colleges that have decent Div I football or basketball programs. For example, Northwestern and Stanford’s football coaches have listed salary of ~$5 million. The schools obviously place a great deal of focus on popular sports and by some measures appear to emphasize them over academics. At many colleges, top athletes in popular sports are completely unqualified academically, which can be seen in the graduation rate. As I recall, in the year prior to winning the basketball tournament, UConn (men’s team) players had a ~10% graduation rate, with some informal reports about players being illiterate.
Another is that colleges compete in athletics, with many persons closely tracking score and performance. The Ivy League was not set up as way to group colleges together that have top academic performance or top music performance. The Ivy League is an athletic conference, with intercollegiate athletic competitions between the member colleges. They don’t have intercollegiate music competitions to the same extent, with scores showing which colleges are consistently winning and losing music competitions. Most community/alumni/students/… aren’t going to notice if the Harvard band’s trumpet section has a bad year, in the same way they’d notice if Harvard football has a bad year. If a member of the Ivy League doesn’t relax admission standards for athlete to the same extent as other conference members, that school will be at a disadvantage in the intercollegiate competitions, which may have a variety of negative consequences.
Another factor is students can major in music and focus on music during their classes, but they cannot major in their sport. This encourages students who hope to pursue a career to focus on colleges that have the best music programs, which generally are not HYPSM… type highly selective colleges. Many of the best musicians that want to pursue a career in music choose music conservatories. Some music conservatories are quite selective and offer scholarships. For example, Curtis typically has a 4-5% admit rate and gives all admits a full scholarship. By similar reasoning the best players in sports in which players hope to go pro often do not favor Ivy League colleges, especially men’s football and basketball. For example, Ivy League colleges rarely get the top ranked HS football recruits, even among the minority that are academically qualified.
If you are referring specifically to women’s fencing or similar non-revenue sports that aren’t as popular with general public, I think there is a lot more variation. It’s my understanding that less than 50 colleges compete in women’s fencing at the NCAA level. I’m sure some of those less than 50 are far more concerned about their conference performance or national ranking than others. Among Ivy League colleges, I think their unique history, culture, and community are key factors. Ivy League colleges have a disproportionately large number of students/families from wealthy, private school type backgrounds where such sports are more popular, and has had this distribution for generations. A significant portion of the Harvard community won’t be satisfied if Harvard isn’t competitive athletically and consistently loses to Yale, Princeton, Penn, and … in the dozens of the less popular sports. While I expect much fewer would be upset if Yale, Princeton, Penn, and … had a better non-athletic-related band than Harvard. However, I think changing athletic recruiting rules across the whole conference at once is far more likely to be accepted.
@TheGreyKing I agree with your point:
To back it up, researchers in Israel did a study about ten years ago to see if there was bias in how judges awarded parole. The largest influence turned out to be something completely unexpected - the length of time since the Judge had taken a break. And the differences in parole rates were very significant. To quote from the article in the Guardian:
"The research, which examined judicial rulings by Israeli judges who presided over parole hearings in criminal cases, found that judges gave more lenient decisions at the start of the day and immediately after a scheduled break in court proceedings such as lunch. Jonathan Levav, associate professor of business at Columbia University, who co-authored the paper, said: “You are anywhere between two and six times as likely to be released if you’re one of the first three prisoners considered versus the last three prisoners considered.”
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/apr/11/judges-lenient-break
So maybe the best way to refer to the college admissions process is as a weighted lottery - you get more chances if you demonstrate fit, knowledge of the school, tell a story with your interests, etc. but you still have to hope your application doesn’t come up for review at 4:15 on a Friday after the AO’s have been staring at applications non-stop for 8 weeks straight.
Moderator’s Note:
Please refrain from debate over debate and fencing, etc. I removed a number of posts that were pejorative.
The thread was started to help students understand how admit rates aren’t very clear indicators on what happens in the general application pool.
The study on Israeli judges has been criticized in multiple published articles. The degree of the decrease (65% favorable at start of day → 0% favorable at end) suggests that the order of cases was not random and the judges (or someone in system) intentionally chose cases that were more likely to be favorable towards the start of the day. One possible reason is they wanted to have time to complete to the cases that could go either way, without being interrupted. It’s a stretch to assume college admissions readers in a different country are the same.
While there are certain random elements of the process, I expect the vast majority of the decision is not based on those random elements. I don’t think “weighted lottery” is a good description. An applicant who is unhooked and not well qualified likely has a 0% chance of admission, regardless of the time of day his application is read. Similarly I expect some applicants have an excellent chance of admission, regardless of the time of day their application is read.
I’ve never seen a study that reviewed time of day applications are read, probably because few would expect it to be an important factor. As such, I cannot provide specific numbers. However, one time element that has been well reviewed and often does suggest a significant advantage is applying ED/SCEA/REA/EA instead of RD. Every study I’ve ever seen that reviewed this found applying early offered a significant advantage at many (not all) highly selective colleges. Some reviews have found that this advantage remains after controlling for hook status and application strength, including the Harvard analysis.
Harvard applicants who had the same hook status and received the same ratings in academic, ECs, personal, LORs, … were notably more likely to be admitted if they applied early. The standard error of this applying early advantage was much smaller than the standard error of most other hooks, suggesting less variation in degree of boost. Among unhooked applicants (baselines sample), the analysis found applicants who applied early were 4.2x more likely to be admitted than other applicants with the same admissions readers ratings, same AI stat, same region/neighborhood, same planned concentration and same dozens of other controls. Based on the relative difference in admit rate between early and regular, I expect most highly selective colleges will show a smaller benefit to applying early than Harvard, but I’d expect that benefit to still be significant at most (not all) highly selective colleges.
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If our universities admit students the way the US elites do, my kids would not have a prayer of getting into the program with a 6.5% admission rate that they graduated from.
These institutions are king-makers. What admission policy they employ will impact who our movers and shakers will be.
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You are fortunate to have far more transparent, rational and affordable universities.
@Data10 Thanks for the info on the Parole study - I guess I can’t take anything at face value these days, even Ivy league research.
You bring up a very good related point about the Harvard SCEA results - if I remember some of your posts on other forums correctly, Harvard claimed for years that there was no advantage to applying early, but then the data showed otherwise. Either they intentionally misled applicants (I personally don’t believe this of Harvard) or it was a case of unconscious bias that they were unaware of (makes more sense to me). If that bias is based on things like time of day or personality of reader as opposed to applicant qualification/characteristics, then that unconscious bias acts like randomness. Unless of course someone figures out how to get their application review assigned to a particularly sympathetic reader at an advantageous time in the process. Maybe that will be Rick Singer’s next gig:)
The amount of investment in athletic programs (coaches/student-athletes/facilities) has been a controversial topic for a few years.
The new University of Chicago President William Rainey Harper felt the University of Chicago’s name recognition was well below its northeastern contemporaries.
Against a lot of pushback from faculty, President Harper decided to make football his centerpiece. The highest paid faculty member was his new head football coach who happened to be Amos Alonzo Stagg an All-American football player from Yale.
It worked. The very innovative Coach Stagg, brought tremendous success to the University of Chicago on the gridiron, became a founding member and #1 football team in the Big 10 Conference, and launched the University of Chicago’s brand nationally.
The year was 1892.
What I find especially intriguing is that nearby Lake Forest College was also invited to be a founding member of the Big 10/Western Conference. The Lake Forest Foresters attended the 19th century meeting but declined the offer to join the Big 10 to focus on academics. Henceforth, the Western Conference was known as the Big 9 until another institution was later offered a seat to round out the Big 10. That college jumped on the invite - the University of Michigan Wolverines.
Great story @bloomfield88
Fast forward, and Lake Forest didn’t end up particularly strong in academics either despite making it their focus. Ouch.