Will I fit in?

[Ariadne2014]

<p>

^^I think what this illustrates is that you have a propensity for making sweeping statements on subjects about which you know nothing (and based on extremely superficial readings of otherwise marvellous books.) This is what Threesdad was suggesting when he posted that perhaps - just perhaps - you may look upon this thread in a different light after four years of college.

</p>

<p>What sweeping statements that I know nothing about? YOUR comment is a “sweeping statement”!</p>

<p>In most of my posts, I am offering my strong opinion against athletic recruitment and am observing that Vassar seems to be recruiting a lot of athletes to attract guys (as evidenced by the athletics section of Vassar’s website, the large number of posts from athletes on this board, and the admissions patterns I have observed). </p>

<p>How is my comment that I recall reading in “The Gatekeepers” that members of the admissions committee at Wesleyan discussed at length the admission of more athletes in 1999, long after Dr. Tatum had graduated, indicative of a superficial reading of a “marvellous” book?</p>

<p>Although I responded, I found it very difficult to take Threesdad’s comment too seriously. If it had not been so shabbily written, I probably would have found it insulting and condescending.</p>

[Ariadne2014]

<p>Oldmom, that’s great about your friend, and I wish her luck. But if you dislike the role of athletics, either on campus or in the admissions process, where have you been? Why haven’t you been backing me up? Do think an admissions process that favors athletes is fair?</p>

<p>The OP got his answer already.</p>

[circuitrider]

<p>

How is my comment that I recall reading in “The Gatekeepers” that members of the admissions committee at Wesleyan discussed at length the admission of more athletes in 1999, long after Dr. Tatum had graduated, indicative of a superficial reading of a “marvellous” book?

</p>

<p>I don’t know what you read in “Gatekeepers” that would lead you to believe that Wesleyan only started recruiting athletes “in a major way” in 1999, but it does raise the question of whether you have as much trouble with everything you read. If you had taken the trouble (even in the short space since you embarked on this subject), to actually Google Dr. Tatum’s cv you’d have realized that she graduated Wesleyan in 1977. You can’t possibility know what Wesleyan was like in 1977, so just stop digging yourself deeper.</p>

[zobroward]

<p>it may be a large adjustment. </p>

<p>[EXCLUSIVE:</a> Shocking discovery in hoax bias incident at Vassar College | The Daily Caller](<a href=“EXCLUSIVE: Shocking discovery in hoax bias incident at Vassar College | The Daily Caller”>EXCLUSIVE: Shocking discovery in hoax bias incident at Vassar College | The Daily Caller)</p>

[Ariadne2014]

<p>“Ten Things We Learned About Wesleyan From Reading the Gatekeepers":</p>

<p>

Wesleyan really wants more science students and more athletes . . .former Dean of Admissions and current Vice President for University Relations Barbara-Jan Wilson . . . apparently went to great lengths to improve communication between the admissions officers and coaches."

</p>

<p>Look at it here: [Ten</a> Things We Learned About Wesleyan from Reading ?The Gatekeepers? in High School | Wesleying](<a href=“http://wesleying.org/2013/04/09/ten-things-we-learned-about-wesleyan-from-reading-the-gatekeepers-in-high-school/]Ten”>http://wesleying.org/2013/04/09/ten-things-we-learned-about-wesleyan-from-reading-the-gatekeepers-in-high-school/)</p>

<p>Of course I wasn’t around in 1977, but my parents were. They grew up in different east coast states and went to similar types of public high schools that graduated lots of top students. (They love to point out high school classmates in high levels of government, in academia, in medicine, and in the arts.) None of their high school friends participated in high school sports except one friend who was on the tennis team. They told me that back then, the smart kids were not involved in high school sports. (I am sure it must have been different at prep schools.) They graduated from high schools with lots of kids who went to places like Wesleyan, Vassar, UPenn, and Haverford, and none were athletes. One friend used to talk about lacrosse being the one big sport at Johns Hopkins. When his son started the college application process, he was shocked to find out that Hopkins actively recruits for lots of sports these days, not only lacrosse. </p>

<p>If you were born in 1970, as your stats indicate, you did not attend Wesleyan in the late 1970s when Dr. Tatum was a student either. As I said, I don’t see what difference it makes when Dr. Tatum graduated from Wesleyan. I don’t care how she got from point A (student at Wesleyan) to point B (president of Spelman). I only care that she is now the president of Spelman and is changing the athletic program. I am sure lots of people think she is a great role model for young African Americans, but I think she is a great role model for college presidents.</p>

<p>Here are some random quotes I found online I found online:</p>

<p>USA Today

The median Division 1 athletic program, including those without football, is losing about $10 million annually, according to NCAA figures.
At programs like Spelman, the losses are less severe but expenses are rising rapidly. For Division III schools with football programs, expenses from athletics have nearly doubled since 2004 to $2.9 million for the median school. At schools without football, such as Spelman, costs have more than doubled to about $1.4 million annually.

</p>

<p>Inside Higher Ed:

Spelman has always had a physical education requirement, but it’s redesigning the curriculum to focus more on fitness and activities career women are likely to continue with as adults: more running, less archery; more yoga, less badminton.

</p>

<p>New York Times

“All of us have to look at everything we are doing — what’s the value being added to the university and at what cost?” Dr. Tatum said.</p>

<p>When Dr. Tatum hears from her fellow presidents about her cuts to the athletic program,"the problem is, the conversations usually begin with them saying, “That took some guts.”

</p>

<p>I wonder what Vassar’s president, Wesleyan’s president, and all the other college presidents really think of their schools’ bloated athletic programs and the preference athletes are given in admissions. How do they defend their expensive athletic programs in the face of rising tuition and increasing competitiveness for admission?</p>

[circuitrider]

<p>

“Wesleyan…apparently went to great lengths to improve communication between the admissions officers and coaches.”

</p>

<p>Ariadne, improving the recruitment process doesn’t mean Wesleyan was inventing brand new sports teams. Wesleyan was a founding member of the NCAA; it’s been playing football on the same greensward (“the oldest playing field in continuous use in America”) for over one hundred years; they’ve been playing Amherst and Williams in round robin play for at least as long; it was an all-male college as late as 1970. It stands to reason that in 1977 Beverly Tatum would have experienced a Wesleyan with a very vigorous intercollegiate athletic program.</p>

<p>But, of course, someone would have to know something about the history of higher education in America, how it relates to the growth of spectator sports in the period following the Civil War, as well as the role Title IX would eventually play in actually expanding the number of sports teams on the formerly all-male colleges of the 1970s to properly interpret the little sliver of text from which you have jumped to your very false conclusion.</p>

<p>

Of course I wasn’t around in 1977, but my parents were. They grew up in different east coast states and went to similar types of public high schools that graduated lots of top students. (They love to point out high school classmates in high levels of government, in academia, in medicine, and in the arts.) None of their high school friends participated in high school sports except one friend who was on the tennis team.

</p>

<p>Well, of course. None of your parents friends were athletes. And, they were personal friends with every applicant to Wesleyan. That’s what I call proof.</p>

<p>

I wonder what Vassar’s president, Wesleyan’s president, and all the other college presidents really think of their schools’ bloated athletic programs and the preference athletes are given in admissions. How do they defend their expensive athletic programs in the face of rising tuition and increasing competitiveness for admission?

</p>

<p>Ariadne, this stopped being about Vassar a long time ago. You don’t like Vassar? Don’t go to it. I rather doubt you’ve endeared yourself to any adcom examining your reasoning process here.</p>

[Ariadne2014]

<p>Circuitrider, you turned this into a post about Wesleyan. It wasn’t important to me where Dr. Tatum spent her undergrad years. You made a big deal out of it. I only cared about the good work she has done at Spelman. Is Wesleyan your alma mater? Is that what this is all about? Did you play sports at Wesleyan?</p>

<p>How could you? You forgot the HUGE HUGE ugly part about Ivy League athletics being used to limit the acceptances of those short, dark pesky Jewish boys who though they had a right to go to a place like Yale or Harvard based on academic strength. (The nerve of them!) (Please, I am only being sarcastic.) I think Vassar now uses athletics as a way to show guys that it’s okay to be a guy at Vassar, and, of course, they have to give equal opportunity to female athletes. In the end, Vassar makes it particularly difficult to get admitted if you don’t have any sort of hook. While I understand some hooks, the athletic hook infuriates me.</p>

<p>I got sidetracked a few times by people like you. I was initially responding (with anger) to the OP’s status as an athletic recruit at a college that for all of last year was my first choice. Then, my GC told me last May that I would not get admitted without a hook. I reluctantly understood, but when I realized the extent of athletic recruitment at Vassar and how privileged the athletes are in the admissions process with recruitment weekends and coach support, yes, I became angry. Yeah, it probably goes on at Wellesley, too, but in a much more limited less public manner.</p>

<p>How is Vassar going to identify me? </p>

<p>Would you please point out where I said that Wesleyan invented brand new sports teams back in the late 1990s?</p>

<p>I agree with you that we will never agree and it’s enough (though I hope you will answer my questions above). I think presidents will not be able to continue to raise tuition to support bloated sports programs, and they are going to be forced to make cuts. It just won’t happen soon enough for me to be able to benefit.</p>

[circuitrider]

<p>Ariadne, you were the first to mention Wesleyan; I merely said, that Dr. Tatum went to a co-ed college with an extensive sports program and for some strange reason you chose to turn it into a bone of contention. Why? I don’t know.</p>

<p>Well, maybe youve given us a clue. You claim you liked Vassar until you determined you had no chance of getting in. In reality, your chances are probably no worse than anyone else’s, but, if you want to blame cross-country runners, swimmers, and Ultimate Frisbee players for your dilemma, you go ahead. So far, you haven’t demonstrated any reason why a Vassar adcom (or, a Wesleyan or a Wellesley adcom, for that matter) should give your application a second look.</p>

[chris_mom]

<p>Just to counter what sounds a bit harsh to my ears in circuitrider’s last post - while I don’t agree with all that Ariadne says (and don’t think I disagree with circuitrider’s posts), she demonstrates critical thinking and skepticism that I hope would be of value to any adcom considering her application. She sounds to me like a high school student who is very anxious about the college application process - a process that carries with it the “unfairness” and randomness of much of life. Having two sons who are not in the least athletic who have attended Vassar, I can appreciate what feels like unfairness in preferences for males (from which my children obviously benefitted) and for athletes (which they did not). It is helpful to be philosophical about some of these things, and there are schools that we considered that probably don’t advantage applications from athletes, like Bennington or Bard, but which share many of the attributes we liked about Vassar. We did not have the benefit of competent guidance/college counseling, so I have a feeling Ariadne will end up just fine in this process. Hopefully no offense taken by anyone.</p>

[oldmom4896]

<p>Ivy League schools didn’t need athletics to turn down Jewish students. They did it overtly.
[Harvard’s</a> Jewish Problem | Jewish Virtual Library](<a href=“http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/harvard.html]Harvard’s”>Harvard's Jewish Problem)</p>

<p>And there are Jewish athletes! Plenty of them!</p>

[Mpieper]

<p>I think that without a hook, no one would get into a school as good as Vassar. Vassar has many ways to determine the unique hook of each person by giving an opportunity to show what they are best at whether it is playing an instrument, dancing, acting, singing, art or even their athletic ability. I think that if any person works hard enough their whole high school career or their whole life, it should be taken account into the admissions process. Like a person can have auditions at Vassar to show their musical or artistic talents, in the same way, if a person is talented athletically, I think it is only fair that it can help their admission process as it does with music and other areas. Vassar is committed to having a diverse group of students to increase discussion and learning on campus. If you are so against athletes, then are you against musicians, actors, dancers and artists having their hand work and talent pay off in the admissions process? It’s really not any different.</p>

[CrewDad]

<p>

They told me that back then, the smart kids were not involved in high school sports.

</p>

<p>Ariadne, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you didn’t intend to insult the intelligence and academic achievement of high school athletes.
Decades ago, I too attended a Northeast public high school. Many of my friends participated in a sport(s) and went on to attend top universities/colleges and graduate schools.
E.g., Harvard;Harvard/Harvard Med;Yale/Harvard Law;Dartmouth/Georgetown Law; Cornell; Princeton/UCLA Med;Cornell/Sloan(MIT)MBA/Ph.D; Vassar/U Illinois Med; Kenyon/Warton(Penn);Denison/Columbia Med;Tufts;Wellesley;Hamilton;Oberlin;Amherst… None were recruited.</p>

<p>Fast forward to where I now reside. In the last four or so years, members of the rowing team, representing various local high schools, were admitted to Wesleyan;Penn;Harvard;Yale;Williams;Swarthmore;
Vassar;Smith;Bowdoin;Carelton;Notre Dame;UVA… Again, none were recruited.</p>

[Ariadne2014]

<p>In reverse order of when messages were sent:</p>

<p>First, Crewdad:</p>

<p>I did not say it was true now, and I think my sentence implies that “back then”, it was different. Maybe it was different at your high school. My parents agree that times have changed. I will send you a private message. </p>

<p>Over the past few years at my high school, the recruited athletes have included a mix of students said to be qualified academically who had a chance of being admitted on their own and others who never would have been admitted if they had not been recruited athletes. This has been true for Ivies as well as other schools. Last year, after one academically qualified student who is a friend was recruited to play for a top Ivy, I wished him well but told him that I did not think it was fair that he found out before everyone else. He told me that other top students in the class were happy that he was recruited, because he was removed from the competition and would not be competing with them in the regular admissions round by filing apps at a large bunch of other top schools. </p>

<p>Now, Mpieper:
No one has told me that I can audition at Vassar. As far as I know, I can send a recording as a supplement, but that’s not the same as the benefits accrued to athletes who are admitted before the admissions office even starts to review the early decision applications.</p>

<p>Now, oldMom:</p>

<p>You are correct, but the Ivies also sought ways to justify their actions, and I’ve read elsewhere that a supposed lack of athletic prowess was one of them. I once saw a list of Jewish athletes, and I agree with you that there have been plenty of Jewish athletes. However, poor immigrants did not have the opportunity to develop their athletic skills at Exeter or Andover, and favoring students with athletic prowess was probably one way to limit the number of Jews. I do not know if it is true, but my English teacher insists that the SATs were originally developed so that the Ivies could have a test for which Jewish students could not study. </p>

<p>Last, Chris’mom:</p>

<p>Thank you, Chris’mom! I showed my family some of the posts last night, and my grandmother told me that circuitrider is not a kid anymore and needs to grow up. He/she should have been the adult in the conversation yesterday. My father said exactly what you said. He said if he were sitting on Vassar’s admissions committee, he would want to know who I am, not so he could reject me, but so he could claim Vassar was up to the challenge of taking me in, opinions and all. He also said that circuitrider is trying to goad me into revealing more personal information in the hopes that I reveal enough information that Vassar figures out who I am and then rejects me. Though he thinks that would backfire on circuitrider, he implored me not to reveal anything more about myself.</p>

<p>Wellesley, just outside of Boston, makes a big effort to deal with the downsides of being all women. If Vassar’s ratio of females to males was 70:30, I would not want to attend. Achieving a gender balance in the admissions process is necessary. I just question the way Vassar is going about doing it. Vassar wants to be viewed as a place for jocks, hipsters, and any other type of person they want to accept, and I am skeptical.</p>

<p>Thanks guys for the much more grownup conversation today, but I don’t want to spend my holiday weekend on CC. I want to have some fun, start studying for finals, and work a little more on my remaining apps.</p>

[braveone]

<p>Ariadne2014: You say “I do not know if it is true, but my English teacher insists that the SATs were originally developed so that the Ivies could have a test for which Jewish students could not study.”</p>

<p>Actually, after Harvard (and Yale and Princeton) adopted the CEEB tests, precursor to the SAT, Jewish admissions started increasing dramatically. See Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker article at [Getting</a> In : The New Yorker](<a href=“Getting In | The New Yorker”>Getting In | The New Yorker) on how “holistic” admissions started in the US: as a way to counteract the increasing admission of Jews to elite colleges based on pure academics. This end-run around test scores then became institutionalized: the holistic approach we universally see (and love and hate) today.</p>

[CodyChesnutt]

<p>There will always be differences of opinion about the value of athletics and athleticism. I believe athletics - and team sports, in particular - inculcate mental and physical toughness as well as values of teamwork, cooperation, self sacrifice, and perseverance that are not easily learned in a classroom. Vassar and other elite colleges like the Ivies apparently share this opinion, as they continue to attach value to athletics in selecting their classes. As private institutions, this is their prerogative.</p>

<p>Those like Ariadne, who have had their “fill of athletes and their sense [of] self-importance in high school”, can vote with their feet. Don’t apply to Vassar or any other institution whose embrace of athletics offends you.</p>

[circuitrider]

<p>

He also said that circuitrider is trying to goad me into revealing more personal information in the hopes that I reveal enough information that Vassar figures out who I am and then rejects me. Though he thinks that would backfire on circuitrider, he implored me not to reveal anything more about myself.

</p>

<p>Sorry, if I hurt your feelings, but this merely illustrates what I’ve been saying all along: that for whatever reason, you’ve successfully managed to make yourself the issue here. I very deliberately did NOT ask you about your stats precisely because I did NOT want to give you that platform. A number of us have suggested that it would perhaps have been better had you started your own thread then, some of us could feel free to choose between the two. But, congratulations. Your persistence has been rewarded. </p>

<p>As for who should be the adult in these situations - that’s a tough question. I approach these boards, especially the interesting ones, like the Vassar board, the Wesleyan board, the Williams and Middlebury boards - essentially, the boards with active resident regulars - always with the expectation that I am going to be meeting other adults, people with a common love for the quintessential, residential American college campus - with all its flaws. I’m not looking for a hateful experience.</p>

[atidrep]

<p>If I might throw in my two cents, part of the underlying problem with this conversation is the implicit competition to get into the “good” schools, the “best” schools. It makes everyone so crazy. More interesting is to think about finding the right school for YOU, the professor/s YOU really want to study with, a location that appeals to you. My daughter did not want a college with jocks lurking around so she went to Bard after having sat in on a poetry class at Wes filled with lacrosse players looking for an easy A. She’s having an extraordinary experience, much more rigorous than I had at Williams honestly. But it’s just the right school for HER. The kids there do arts the way kids at Williams do sports. My son, however, a swimmer, likes Vassar. He could go to a D1 school but he prefers a low-key athletic environment and a chance to explore all sides of who he is creatively, athletically and academically. Interestingly, the coach told him she wanted him–but only if he already had the grades and scores to get in without any boost from her. I want to give everyone here a chill pill. Read books, think, write, read some more books, and discover your true passion. The “best colleges” can’t do that for you. Only you can do that for you, and once you are really doing that, all of this will seem a little silly.</p>

[MandMom]

<p>I hope I don’t regret posting as some of these responses have gotten a little “nasty” and I only want to be helpful and not offend anyone but my daughter’s high school friend was accepted recently to Yale. She had been scouted by the school for soccer. She is a first semester junior in high school and obviously a talented soccer player. As for her academics , she is in line with most of the high achievers in our high school, including my daughter, however no one from our high school to my knowledge has ever been accepted to Yale. In my son’s class the valedictorian applied ED and was rejected. To be accepted to an Ivy in JUNIOR year for the sole purpose of playing soccer does seem to support the theory that athletes are sometimes given preferential treatment in the college acceptance process.</p>

[Amandarin]

<p>^ many groups are given special treatment in the college admissions process. </p>

<p>In my class there was a talented scientist to be, who won many awards, and was accepted somewhere his junior year because they sought him out.</p>

<p>If you don’t want a school with sports, don’t go to a school with sports - ta da!</p>

<p>Also the sweeping statements about jocks are so annoying … Sure there are athletes who can barely form a sentence, but there are PLENTY of athletes who are incredibly intelligent and get into high ranked schools on their own merits - watch who you judge.</p>

[Ariadne2014]

<p>It would have been helpful if Amandarin had mentioned the type of school to which the science student was accepted during junior year. Which science awards did this student win? </p>

<p>Thanks to braveone for posting Malcolm Gladwell’s article. I forwarded it to my English teacher, my parents, and a few friends. Very interesting analysis.</p>

<p>However, this is the US, not Canada. Saying that an American high school senior who does not like that athletes are given special treatment at Vassar should simply go elsewhere is not the answer. Many of the elite colleges are accepting more Pell Grant students, because they feel a moral obligation to help. Vassar does not view itself as detached from the rest of the country, or the college would not feel an obligation to “recruit” such students, who often would not attend Vassar without programs to reach out to them. But if you argue in favor of Vassar’s policy of accepting underprivileged students because it’s the right thing to do (as I do), you are saying that Vassar has certain moral obligations to society. Don’t those moral obligations include being fair about selecting the rest of their students? Are holistic admissions just a euphemism for doing whatever they please, even if it means showing such extreme favoritism to athletes that they have a special early admissions and recruitment process just for them?</p>

<p>What does it mean for an athlete to be “in range”? Are average test scores good enough?</p>

<p>The argument Cody makes about team sports being valuable is old and tired. It fails when you consider that colleges also recruit for sports like tennis and long distance running. What do team sports teach students about working as members of a team that participating in orchestra, theater, or journalism in high school do not? Any time a group of students come together to create something larger than each individual participant, students obtain the same valuable experience about group work that athletes like to claim only they are posses.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance to any posters (like MandMom) who support me in future posts, if they post, but this whole experience got me too agitated and takes up too much time.</p>