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Post by timholycross on Mar 15, 2019 16:22:44 GMT -5
My take on the subject was that the tie-in with the sports teams was just to lower the bar for admissions and that the parents and coaches (and students if they were in on it) had no illusion that the kids would try out for the teams. I believe the fixer approached coaches who then accepted the bribe (for themselves or the program or both) and alerted the admissions office : "Hey, be on the lookout for an application from Joe Blow--he's a student I am recruiting for my team and I'd like special consideration for him because he is such an incredible athlete". The admissions office then lowered the bar for the student who was able to clear the bar, often with help from the SAT/ACT test taker, falsified bio, etc. It didn't matter to the parents if it was the crew team, soccer team, or whatever minor sport's coach would agree to the bribe. The admissions office folks probably do not follow up with coaches on whether student-athletes show up for tryouts--they're on to the next year's applicants. As I understand it, a coach alerts admissions that he/she has X number of 'slots' for new student athletes. I'm surprised that there were cases where the student was actually on a team. The usual m/o was that they were included in a coach's list of recruited athletes, were therefore given an advantage over other (kids going to school w/o athletics in mind) applicants; but in the end, didn't even try out.
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Post by rickii on Mar 15, 2019 16:34:34 GMT -5
As I understand it, a coach alerts admissions that he/she has X number of 'slots' for new student athletes. I'm surprised that there were cases where the student was actually on a team. The usual m/o was that they were included in a coach's list of recruited athletes, were therefore given an advantage over other (kids going to school w/o athletics in mind) applicants; but in the end, didn't even try out. I think the difference tim is prospective try-out types don't get requested admission 'slots' ( like reservations ). A coach would get questioned heavily on that I would think.
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Post by hcpride on Mar 15, 2019 17:11:42 GMT -5
Not so sure about that. Kid gets recruited for a sport they cannot play ? Read at least 1 case where the kid's athletic history was totally/largely phoney and that bio was of course published on that sports team roster. She had to see it as did her teammates....some of whom were from the same area ( high schools, club teams, tourneys ). It seems impossible that a teammate didn't notice/question her background/accomplishments, no ? In most cases the 30 or so kids did not even participate in the sport (soccer, tennis, crew, volleyball, sailing, water polo) at any time in their lives...forget ever being able to make the college team. This had nothing to do with athletes at all. And nothing to do with a coach trying to win. As other posters noted ( KY Crusader 75 , for example) it was a way to get a kid into school via the lower bar set for recruited athletes...the bribed coaches simply represented that the kid was one of his/her recruited athletes. (In some cases a faked resume/portfolio accompanies the application to admissions office). What some folks here are missing is that this was done via a college advisor who handled all the mundane tasks (including, no doubt, writing all the essays, guiding all the teacher recommendations, scheduling the board exams, and sending in all the scores and so forth and so on) parents and kids normally do. So the kid actually has almost nothing to do with the application. At all. So the kid very, very easily could have absolutely no idea what is going on. (If you aren't on top of this you simply would have no idea what the private college advisors handle for the high end kiddees.) This particular college advisor also ran an honest (in a relative sense) and very well known advisory service. Joe Montana and Phil Mickelson, BTW, were clients.
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Post by princetoncrusader on Mar 16, 2019 6:46:32 GMT -5
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Post by HC92 on Mar 16, 2019 6:59:03 GMT -5
College advisors are big business. We have family friends whose kids both got into colleges that would seemingly have been out of range given their high school academic records. Not Ivies or Patriots, but solid Catholic schools. I don’t think anything illegal happened as is alleged in the current scandal but the advisor is well known in my town and certainly guided these two prospective students through every step of the process to maximize their chances of acceptance at their desired schools. It is not cheap but apparently effective, at least in this case.
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Post by HC92 on Mar 16, 2019 7:03:42 GMT -5
As for the current scandal, as others have suggested, coaches at the Ivies get a certain number of slots where they can get in a handful of players each year assuming some minimum academic requirements. I imagine there are also non-slotted kids recruited whose numbers will offset the slotted kids. If a coach is willing to give up a couple of slots each year for a bag of cash, team performance may suffer but the coach will multiply his or her annual pay (tax-free, of course).
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Post by hchoops on Mar 16, 2019 7:26:39 GMT -5
Agree with most, but my guess is that each coach gets enough slots for kids that can play well enough to continue the record he was used to, even if it is a winning one.
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Post by HC92 on Mar 16, 2019 7:31:28 GMT -5
In the case of one prominent Ivy, I was told by a reliable source that the men’s soccer program currently gets 5 slots per year.
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Post by hchoops on Mar 16, 2019 8:00:15 GMT -5
So maybe 4 of those can play, one is a bribe. That should be enough to win combined with those who can get in on their own merits
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Post by longsuffering on Mar 16, 2019 10:20:53 GMT -5
In the case of one prominent Ivy, I was told by a reliable source that the men’s soccer program currently gets 5 slots per year.
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Post by longsuffering on Mar 16, 2019 10:27:59 GMT -5
Could one of those slots go to a good soccer player who is a well rounded kid but only ranked in the middle of his HS class academically and was also recruited for soccer, but rejected by Admissions at Holy Cross?
If so it illustrates how slot-less HC has been competing with one hand tied behind it's back.
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Post by gks on Mar 16, 2019 10:50:49 GMT -5
Could one of those slots go to a good soccer player who is a well rounded kid but only ranked in the middle of his HS class academically and was also recruited for soccer, but rejected by Admissions at Holy Cross? If so it illustrates how slot-less HC has been competing with one hand tied behind it's back. Yes and yes. Holy Cross is probably the only school that doesn't have slots. Just another brick in the wall that is HC athletic woes.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Mar 16, 2019 10:54:55 GMT -5
Could one of those slots go to a good soccer player who is a well rounded kid but only ranked in the middle of his HS class academically and was also recruited for soccer, but rejected by Admissions at Holy Cross? If so it illustrates how slot-less HC has been competing with one hand tied behind it's back. I don't believe the "slots" can go to really poor academic performers due to the Ivy League's academic index which sets a floor for all athletes. Of course, each Ivy's AI floor is higher than HC's AI floor.
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Post by gks on Mar 16, 2019 11:38:19 GMT -5
If the Ivy coackes want a kids barring he is an academic disaster he's in. And yes they will be below the average student.
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Post by princetoncrusader on Mar 16, 2019 11:50:23 GMT -5
I was astonished to learn from a Princeton alum that the lightweight football team had 20 slots per year. That break was eliminated which contributed to the poor performance of the program, which was eliminated a few years ago.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Mar 16, 2019 16:57:56 GMT -5
Holy Cross has the equivalent of slots. Most of the slots were used by student athletes who were admitted under Early Decision. Nearly half the class entering this fall was admitted under Early Decision.
Assuming the PL follows the same AI framework as the Ivies (and there is no reason to think that it doesn't), the average of all recruited athletes must fall within one standard deviation of the HC school-wide AI. I don't know how one would calculate conformance with the within one standard deviation without having slots.
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Post by alum on Mar 16, 2019 17:26:01 GMT -5
There was a scandal at Penn a number of years ago because certain recruits had their applications marked with a star indicating special consideration to be given for admission. The practice was ended. I read about this in a Penn publication provided to me by a Penn grad friend, now since deceased. He was embarrassed and annoyed at his school. The fact remains that the Ivies have much higher standards of admission than does HC. In fact , I remember a football coach at Brown making this exact same point about admissions at HC. We're only fooling ourselves if we believe otherwise about admitting scholar-athletes. LoveHC Ivies have larger student bodies so it is easier to admit athletes without throwing off the class wide academic profile. I know a male soccer player who attended an Ivy. He started all four years. He was around 25th in a public high school class of 275. I am told he had under 1400. Applied ED and was admitted and there was never any doubt about it. He was more than capable academically but without soccer, he wasn’t likely admitted. i knew he was going to be good watching him at a rec basketball practice in third grade. He was perfectly coordinated at age 9.
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Post by HC92 on Mar 16, 2019 18:30:52 GMT -5
Could one of those slots go to a good soccer player who is a well rounded kid but only ranked in the middle of his HS class academically and was also recruited for soccer, but rejected by Admissions at Holy Cross? If so it illustrates how slot-less HC has been competing with one hand tied behind it's back. I don't believe the "slots" can go to really poor academic performers due to the Ivy League's academic index which sets a floor for all athletes. Of course, each Ivy's AI floor is higher than HC's AI floor. This document seems to lay out the Ivy system pretty well. Bottom line is that the Ivies have a campus AI of 210-220 but athletes with an individual AI as low as 171 can be admitted as long as they are properly offset by a bunch of smart kids who may or may not ever play in a game. www.mka.org/uploaded/college_counseling/Publications/AI_Guidelines_Worksheet.pdf
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Mar 16, 2019 19:01:35 GMT -5
The yachting, fencing, and squash teams are the safest sports at HYP: they will live on forever.
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Post by hcpride on Mar 16, 2019 19:19:11 GMT -5
Knew a heavily recruited (by the Ivies) high school girls lax player.
She noticed how young the teams were at some of the schools and was curious enough to pull aside a player and ask. The older kid told her that since it was so time consuming, and there is essentially no career playing women's lax ,and (perhaps most importantly) no schollie to lose when dropping (and no cut in financial aid either) that it was fairly routine for the upper-class players (eyeballing grad school or focusing more on their career/major) to ditch the sport. Funny enough this particular girl (very smart - NMSF - but probably would not have been accepted as a non-recruit IMHO) followed that same pattern en-route to medical school.
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Post by rickii on Mar 18, 2019 11:24:31 GMT -5
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