Can Ivy League coaches influence admissions?

Read "The Game of Life" Bowen & Shulman, 2001, Princeton University Press. Regardless of whether you agree with the authors' conclusions, it offers an accurate and incredibly thorough analysis of Ivy League admissions for athletes. Some discussion of other elite schools (D-III elites, Michigan, Duke) as well.

esefsef wrote:

I'm also a high-school junior thinking of trying to run at an Ivy; one of the biggest setbacks, however, has been my age.

Figure out a way to turn this to a selling point to coaches. "I may be younger than my peers, but I know I can get even more competitive with the right training. I believe your coaching methods will help me untap that potential!" or something like that (talk it over with people to figure out the best way to work it out). Use the age as an advantage. If you're persuasive enough, the coach will be willing to offer you a spot on the squad. Learning how to do this will help you in the job market once you graduate college as well.

hsmiler16 wrote:

Do you think they take into account the difficulty/prestigiousness of the high school? I'm in a really good high school that doesn't grade super easily.

Yes, but keep in mind that, at the very top academic colleges, they're still looking for the very best students from any given high school. Here are MIT's stats for the latest applicant group (incoming September 2009):

Percentage of Those Ranked who were:

Applicants Admits Admit rate

in Top 5% 5,109 788 15%

in Top 6-10% 1,230 65 5%

in Top 11-20% 854 29 3%

below top 20% 554 0 0%

So, although the top student at Stuyvesant High School or the Bronx High School of Science may have an edge over the top student at a middling high school, a student who is not at or near the top of his or her high school class will have almost no chance of admission, regardless of how good or tough the high school is.

One Q wrote:

If I'm an athlete with a good 5K time, will MIT or Princeton ignore the fact that I have a typical Jewish last name and evaluate my application the same as if I were a Gentile ?

No, you need to have the tip re-attached, xerox it and submit it with your application. Good luck.

Avacado, take a look at the numbers you posted. Clearly you did not attend MIT.

I cannot believe what some of you guys are saying about SAT scores. 600s is enough to get into Princeton as long as you can run a few seconds under 9:30???? I scored 700 for math and reading, went to a good liberal arts college (WAY less competitive than a place like Princeton), and most of my friends scored a lot higher.

cambridge wrote:

Avacado, take a look at the numbers you posted. Clearly you did not attend MIT.

Perhaps you're confused by the formatting, which was altered when my message was posted. The stats show, for example, that there were 5,109 applicants in the top 5% of their high school class, and 788 of those (15%) were offered admission. Very few applicants below the top 5% of their graduating class were offered admission. I should note that class rank is not provided by many high schools; close to half of all applicants to MIT do not have high school class rankings.

Yeah, many competitive high schools do not have class rankings. Mine did not, and a girl got in to MIT who was below the 50th %-ile in our grade (they must need female art majors). But my highschool was a special case. If you go to a competitive high school, the admissions officers probably have heard of you.

what else wrote:

Is Ed "Too Tall" Jones too tall?

Does a one pound bag of flour make a mighty big biscuit?

Perhaps I am confused by the fact that those are exclusive categories (that is, an individual case cannot occur in more than one category,) and the percentages add up to over 110%.

I turned 16 the summer before my junior year. For most of my peers this is the average age. Did you recently turn 16 in 2010? If so, then yeah you're a few months younger than many people your age... but I think you might be reading into this age thing too much.

I only went to Cornell, not MIT, but I still think I can help clear this up for you:

- Students in the top 5% of their high school class were admitted to MIT at a rate of 15% (788 of 5109 =~ 15%).

- Students in the top 10%, but not in the top 5%, of their high school classes were admitted to MIT at a rate of 5% (65 of 1230 =~ 5%).

- Students in the top 20%, but not in the top 10%, of their high school classes were admitted to MIT at a rate of 3% (29 of 854 =~ 3%).

- No students ranked outside of the top 20% of their high school class were admitted to MIT (0 of 554 = 0%).

FWIW, 95% of entering students at Cornell's College of Engineering were in the top 10% of their high school classes and our 25%-75% SAT range is practically identical to MIT's. Plus, we generally kick @ss at HEPS (track). Go Big Read :)

that's because it's the percentage of people who applied and were admitted. Thus the admit rate.

Admissions is an art and not a science. The University of California, the primary source for scientists and engineers at DoD / DoE / NASA National Laboratories, loses about 1/3 of students in the first two years by the junior class. The UC System makes up the enrollment primarily from the 110 California Community College system.

well wrote:

I turned 16 the summer before my junior year. For most of my peers this is the average age. Did you recently turn 16 in 2010? If so, then yeah you're a few months younger than many people your age... but I think you might be reading into this age thing too much.

I turned 16 at the end of 09. According to my parents this was the normal age for kids back when they were in school. Times have changed. I have a kid in my class who is already 18. Now, he is older than almost everyone, but you get the idea. Parents try to get their kids ahead athletically, so they continue to enter their kids into pre-school later and later. In my area there is a private school that is notorious for furthering this age disparity between people like myself and the older guys by requiring every student who joins the school (it's a 3rd-8th grade school) to be held back a year.

If you recently graduated high-school then I'm surprised. Wherever you went to school is a lot different from where I am.

No two separate statements. If you are a high level recruit 600s can be good enough to get you into an ivy league school. And if you run sub 9:30 as a junior coaches will consider recruiting you (allow you to come in on an official visit and guarantee you a spot on the team) and possibly at a less competitive ivy help with your application if you show improvement the fall of your senior year. I am a miler and not quite as certain about 3200m times. I would say probably more in the 9:20s low range as a junior would gain you interest from some of the ivys

So you turned 16 at the end of 09. You are just a few months less than the average age for your age. There are always a few extreme cases of kids who are older but the average will always hold true. And yes, I graduated high school two years ago...

Don't use your age as a crutch. If you try to market yourself to a coach like this you'll just be laughed at.

I could be mistaken on this but i believe Fernandez and Derrick were both 17 their senior year and they both still ran pretty fast in high school.

Absolutley.

Just like FB coaches in the Ivy league.

2003, New Haven Register exposed 4 players on the Yale FB team with sat scores below 980.

I know first hand that three running buddies that coach high school, have athletes that got into Dartmouth, Cornell and Columbia with average grades, but very good times in the 800m and up.

They did not hide the fact that the coach "flagged" the student.

Hey they got in. That's what mattered.