NCAA gets rid of SAT scores for next year's freshman...Shouldn't all potential collegians already have taken the SAT?

There are always a few who keep taking it until they get through the clearinghouse. Every year we hear about a few athletes who have committed to a Big D1 program for some sport but then they quietly disappear into a JUCO during the summer.

Mostly true, but a lot of athletes that have struggled in school might not have gotten a good enough score in fall of senior year, so they get at least 1 more shot in spring to hit whatever score ncaa set otherwise they may have to sit out a year and/or go to community college.

rojo wrote:

Can someone explain this to me? I get that tests are cancelled this spring, but wouldn't a HS senior already have had plenty of time to take a test. Like most take it junior year. Then if you bomb you take it again as a senior.,

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ncaabk/coronavirus-pandemic-prompts-ncaa-to-relax-freshman-eligibility-standards-for-2020-21/ar-BB12N3y2?ocid=spartanntp

You need to hit the eligibility #s to be a qualifier. There's a sliding scale between GPA and ACT/SAT score and if you fall short you are a non-qualifier. Did you even read the article or did you just read the headline?

Many seniors in football and basketball are working to the last possible second to become a qualifier. Without test dates from March- June, they don't have the opportunity to meet the standards that the NCAA sets.

Do you really need this spelled out for you? A ton of kids need every chance they can get to make the minimum score to be eligible in D1. They may have taken it multiple times, but still needed one last shot this spring.

Robert, did you go to Princeton?

The above arguments explain this since standardized tests closed for those trying to scrape in at the end.

Universities these days want to sell seats as much as possible. It is not about the academics everywhere. I heard Princeton, so even the top places, seriously relaxed GRE requirements for their Ph.D. programmes. Stupid call. It is not just hard workers who make up the top ranked degrees. Top minds who also work hard do. Ph.D.s ought to have the brain power for flexible, valuable new ideas.

Inflation of this market causes this and tonnes of people with Ph.D.s working low level jobs unrelated to their degrees.

At this point, I think hard trade degrees (Software Engineering from Georgia Tech, Medical graduate degrees, top J.D.s) make sense; top class degrees (business from Princeton, Penn, ... ) are a start; and the rest is a racket to sometimes check a box.

Division 1 eligibility standards are ridiculously low. When you lower standards, you shouldn't be disappointed with results you get. Kids that should be at JUCO, that NEED juco, or that are perhaps not college material get admitted to otherwise quality universities because of sports. Then the athletic Dept has to spend a fortune on "academic help" to keep them afloat. These situations tax the system. The professors are unhappy. The quality of work is well below the average student. It leads to academic fraud because as a last ditch effort to stay in school.

College isn't for everyone and and sports shouldnt be a golden ticket. I'm all for opportunity, but the level of d1 initial eligibility is a joke. And those that struggle to make it are not yet prepared for 4 year schools.

Better yet, explain why the NCAA gets to decide who is admitted to college?

If a college admissions department requires SAT, but the NCAA doesn't, they get a pass?

The NCAA doesn't decide admission. There are plenty of schools with integrity and don't use being an NCAA qualifier as an auto admit.

No, you are silly. You have to get admitted to the school and get through the clearinghouse. 95% of schools have tougher standards than the NCAA so this won't impact too many kids other than D2.

higheredbubble wrote:

Universities these days want to sell seats as much as possible. It is not about the academics everywhere. I heard Princeton, so even the top places, seriously relaxed GRE requirements for their Ph.D. programmes. Stupid call. It is not just hard workers who make up the top ranked degrees. Top minds who also work hard do. Ph.D.s ought to have the brain power for flexible, valuable new ideas.

Inflation of this market causes this and tonnes of people with Ph.D.s working low level jobs unrelated to their degrees.

The relaxation of the GRE requirement isn't anything. Grad schools across the nation were stressed to do something like this (for reasons touted as "progressive"), but individual departments still have their own criteria (these are the ones making the decision on who gets in, the grad school accepting someone is a formality). It's hard to tell who will do well in grad school based on a GRE score, so usually departments look to see that people are over a certain percentile, and don't really distinguish thereafter. It still has some power and can serve as a red flag, but is weaker than the SAT in predicting success in undergrad.

Put another way, it's easy to prep for these things, so people's score's can be inflated. The bright ones do well already, so why worry about the scores if it works mainly in one direction - towards those who have the ability to prepare, or who are good at standardized tests.

PhD programs at top schools are usually fully-funded. They aren't "selling seats" to grad students (only to undergrads). There still is a big expansion of ST*M PhD programs which is a bit scary given its pyramidal structure. If I was to agree with you that relaxation of GRE requirements had an impact, it would be in the opposite direction - a guaranteed supply of cheap labor (just like open borders...)

What is a bit worrying is that it appears that with this expansion, grad school is becoming more like "work" than school. Course requirements have been weakened, some advisors run their labs like a factory, people talk about what "hours" they do, and many view it as more of a certification process than an education. This isn't the dominant paradigm, but I fear it will be soon.

As with any institution, education optimizes not for effectiveness, but to reproduce/maintain itself as well as it can. Making education more of a machine seems to be a good way to do this.

higheredbubble wrote:

Robert, did you go to Princeton?

Universities these days want to sell seats as much as possible. It is not about the academics everywhere. I heard Princeton, so even the top places, seriously relaxed GRE requirements for their Ph.D. programmes. Stupid call. It is not just hard workers who make up the top ranked degrees. Top minds who also work hard do. Ph.D.s ought to have the brain power for flexible, valuable new ideas.

Princeton waives tuition and pays their phd students a salary. What possible motivation could they have for letting in as many people as possible?

The rest of the world doesn't have any equivalent of the gre and views the test as an excuse for admission committees to be lazy and funnel even more money into the massive post graduate testing industry, which doesn't exist outside of the US. Hell, a meta study conducted by researchers paid by ets only concluded that 1% of the variance in student research productivity could be predicted by the gre, so even a biased report concluded that it's useless.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Better yet, explain why the NCAA gets to decide who is admitted to college?

If a college admissions department requires SAT, but the NCAA doesn't, they get a pass?

The NCAA applies to those receiving a grant-in-aid.

or they could just pay someone to take the test for them, like the poster twins of the college admissions scandal did

Sorry, why are you asking?

There’s going to be a 2020-2021 NCAA season?

How is that possible?

Wyoming only has 2 COVID deaths at this point (Apr 18). How do we go from that to having an NCAA season. A few States will be out of this by August, but certainly not all of them. New York for example is already at 873 deaths per million (very close to San Marino), so they should be out of this soon, but Wyoming is at 3 deaths per million and it will spread very slowly in that State. They have a very long way to go...

We had indoor this year with the flu. 35,000 people died and my son's D1 team all got it because their program does not allow them to get vaccinated. So we can have covid next year. So what?

.............. wrote:

Division 1 eligibility standards are ridiculously low. When you lower standards, you shouldn't be disappointed with results you get. Kids that should be at JUCO, that NEED juco, or that are perhaps not college material get admitted to otherwise quality universities because of sports. Then the athletic Dept has to spend a fortune on "academic help" to keep them afloat. These situations tax the system. The professors are unhappy. The quality of work is well below the average student. It leads to academic fraud because as a last ditch effort to stay in school.

College isn't for everyone and and sports shouldnt be a golden ticket. I'm all for opportunity, but the level of d1 initial eligibility is a joke. And those that struggle to make it are not yet prepared for 4 year schools.

Sounds like you’re advocating for smaller student bodies with a more homogeneous skill set. Sounds like you’re also saying those remaining students should have to pay more so the university has the same financial situation.

Who are the biggest donors after graduation? Isn’t it athletes? Don’t athletes/sports teams lead to higher donations from existing alumni due to a sense of attachment and pride? Doesn’t the athletic program create awareness for some schools that helps with job placement nationally for all their graduates (outside the school’s local geography)? Can’t it also help reduce the cost of acquisition for new students which lowers system wide cost?

The answers are yes, yes, yes, and yes. Don’t those benefits far outweigh the issues you’re suggesting? Pretty sure they do.

Now, That doesn’t excuse the excess and hypocrisy for tax exempt universities spending millions on coach salaries and facilities.

PS you seem to assume your personal academic success was a function of your hard work and athletes requiring more support are distasteful. News flash: your parents (luck Of the draw at birth) have a lot to do with your academic performance.

JUCOs have a purpose. Should I have a 7 figure corporate job just because I got a college degree? No, then meeting NCAA minimums that are well below a college's regular admission policy shouldn't grant you automatic entrance to a flagship school. So yes, the very lowest should be denied admission. They still have JUCO opportunities.

And full scholarship student athletes are on whole TERRIBLE donors. Walk-ons and small scholarship kids that paid for school are appreciative and do give back. Full scholarship athletes dont, on whole, value what was given them. They don't give back. In fact, they complain they should be getting a salary on top of the full ride.

NCAA initial eligibility standards were lowered due to the threat of litigation. Cureton et Al. Vs NCAA.

Diversity and opportunity are important, but there needs to be limits. And I personally think the current NCAA standard is too low. And we just lowered it again due to Corona virus.

Make no mistake, any senior in HS, that as of February of their senior year was not an NCAA D 1 qualifier is well below average as a student. The standards are already VERY low. To be a non qualifier you have to have both low grades and low test scores. If someone is banking on a last ditch bump in a test score it is because their 4 years of HS classes were also well below average.

Rojo always finds a way to come through when you think he’s already hit his stupidity threshold.

You were a NCAA division 1 coach and you don’t understand how the SATs and eligibility work. Did JK forget to tell you that while he wrote all the workouts for your team?

What. A. Joke.