Athletics and Admissions in the Ivy League
Admission to an Ivy League school is a complex process, defined by a holistic review that considers a variety of factors important to admissions offices in constructing a class. This includes academic performance, leadership, outstanding abilities in a particular discipline like music or sports, the focus and uniqueness of the applicant’s academic interest, geography, and family connections to the university. Admissions offices want diverse classes full of outstanding students but above all they are seeking STAND OUTS in a variety of different disciplines. They’re not looking merely for the student with the best test score nor are they looking for the all-arounder who is pretty good at a lot of things. They seek national caliber excellence in a variety of different fields and disciplines.
It would be naive, therefore, to view the admissions process to an Ivy as solely based on GPA and test scores. Yes, those are critically important but these schools have far more applicants with near perfect transcripts and near perfect board scores than they have room to admit. Instead, they look for diversity in a number of contexts: academic interest, geographical origin, and life experience. In other words, they seek to build a diverse class of STAND OUTS.
In the idealized vision of this class-building exercise, a student’s first day as a freshman could mean attending a small discussion class that contains a future Nobel Laureate in Physics, a world-class cellist, a future Olympic medalist, a gifted artist, and a future attorney general. In whatever they do, the Ivy League schools (and their peers) seek excellence in their student body.
Amidst this process, there is one way for applicants to STAND OUT that has, by far, the greatest impact on admission: athletic ability. This often surprises people. Aren’t the Ivy League schools the top academic schools in the country? Sure, they are definitely amongst the best.
Then why are they prioritizing athletes over non-athletes?
That answer is more nuanced. A little history. The Ivy League, comprised of eight of the oldest and most prestigious institutions in the United States, actually came to exist in the 1950s as an athletic league (think Big 10, ACC, SEC, etc), to regulate what was perceived then (imagine what they’d think now!) as the excesses of college football. In the original Ivy Group agreement, there were two foundational principles: athletic scholarships were forbidden AND athletic ability could be taken into consideration for admission but recruited student-athletes had to be “similar” in academic achievement to the rest of the student body. In short, the Ivy League exists first and foremost as an athletic league. To be sure, it is an athletic league of high-achieving academic institutions that care about fielding these sports but who aim to do so in a way that makes sure that academics remains the priority for the student body.
A Regulated Process
Out of this original agreement, a framework evolved to define and regulate what makes a recruited athlete “similar” academically to the rest of the admitted student body. I’ve heard lots of folks grossly oversimplify this process by stating that any top athlete who is recruited by a coach can be admitted to an Ivy League school. That’s simply untrue - the academic quality of student-athletes in the Ivy League is indeed similar to the rest of the admitted class. These are outstanding students who STAND OUT in athletics.
But being similar does not mean exactly the same. Admissions officers are faced with the challenge of weighing the merits of applicants who are STAND OUT musicians or recruited student-athletes and later in the day deliberating over what to do with those who may have even stronger academic metrics but do not have a STAND OUT ability or interest. This can be very tough!
The highly regulated nature of the athletic admissions process helps the admissions office, coaches, and recruited athletes. Not just any athlete can be recruited and there are steps (such as academic pre-reads) in place to make sure the athletes being admitted meet a standard of academic excellence that Ivy League institutions demand.
Misconceptions
The recent Supreme Court decision that overturned the use of race and ethnicity in college admissions brought some fascinating information about Harvard’s admissions practices to light. One oft-quoted stat is that 86% of recruited athletes who apply to Harvard are admitted. Keep in mind that all of these recruited student-athletes went through a pre-read process and that the 86% figure does NOT include those who failed the pre-read. And 100% of those admitted athletes have had their full applications evaluated by admissions professionals who view them as having tremendous academic capacity.
While this may reassure people that these student-athletes have the academic bona fides to be successful at these demanding institutions, there is no other academic field or activity that benefits from a process that is so carefully managed by admissions offices and the Ivy League itself. No academic major has this type of regulated recruiting/admissions process and although musical and artistic skill is highly valued in many admissions offices, there’s no pre-read process to ensure compliance and standardization in those areas across the Ivy League. Because of the highly regulated nature of the athletic admissions process, it can make it challenging and gut-wrenching for admissions officers who may be admitting a recruited athlete from one high school and be unable to admit a student with higher academic metrics from the same high school who doesn’t boast a similar, national-caliber STAND OUT signature ability on their application.
Make no mistake: these athletes with pre-reads who are supported by the coaches are terrific in their sports. The Ivy League has consistently produced NCAA champions, Olympic medalists, and athletes who play at the highest level of professional sports. By any objective measure, their talent and hard work make them STAND OUTS in their field. I coached at Cornell for 20 years: my runners earned multiple Elite 89 and 90 awards (given to the athletes at their sport’s NCAA Championship Finals with the highest GPA), Marshall and Goldwater Scholarships, Phi Beta Kappa, and several CoSIDA Academic All-American honors. I once had a cross country team finish in the top 15 at the Division I NCAA Championships where 5 of the 7 runners had a GPA over 4.0. These truly were outstanding students who also STOOD OUT as gifted in their chosen sport.
Reflections
As a long-time former admissions officer, I still have sympathy for the tough choices my colleagues have to make. And as a former coach, I’ve seen first-hand the amazing contributions that recruited student-athletes make in the classroom and on the field to their institution’s community. Now with my advising and consulting company, my team of counselors and I at Arthur Smith Advising help students (both athletes and non-athletes) identify the ability, passion, and interests that will enable them to STAND OUT in admissions. Athletic admissions is one leg up but it is a small slice of the large applicant population and it is important for families to remember that there are other paths to seek.