Flags and Tags: Athletic Recruiting at the Ivy League Schools
Since all the Ivy League schools are part of the same athletic league and all use the Al for sports purposes, a similar process is used for athletic recruiting.* As mentioned earlier, except for football, which is Division I-AA, the Ivy League varsity teams are Division I, as opposed to smaller colleges, such as Amherst or Williams, which are Division III. The recruiting of athletes is definitely allowed; however, paying for them is most definitely not. None of the Ivy League schools are allowed to give athletic scholarships.
Why is the AI so important for athletics? First of all, it was invented precisely because of athletics, and second, for athletic purposes, there is an AI cutoff for Ivy League athletes (it is the same for all the Ivies)—approximately 169.† A student with an AI in this low range would have to have a particularly low rank (third decile or below) or very low scores, or perhaps both. An Al of 169 is not very impressive when you consider that Dartmouth's average AI is around 212. If a college wants to take an athlete who is below the minimum Al, it must present that candidate's file to an all Ivy meeting and provide an explanation that must be approved by the Ivy League deans of admissions.
The major “money teams” (that is, football, men's basketball, and ice hockey—so called because tickets cost money and the teams bring in tremendous amounts of money through alumni donations) must keep an average AI that is no less than one standard deviation away from that college's average Al Therefore, the University of Pennsylvania (because of its size, diversity, and slightly less selective admissions) can accept lower AI athletes in these sports that can most of the other Ivies, which is probably why they field so many powerhouse teams. Have you ever wondered why you'll see a really brilliant student sitting on the bench but not seeing much playing time? Basically, that student's AI is balancing out some of the lower students on the team, who may be better players. The other teams are not bound by Ivy regulations to be within one standard deviation of the average AI, but each individual college can enforce its own in-house regulations to maintain high-quality student athletes.
Football is in a category by itself, since it requires many more recruits than any other team. It has different “bands” (or ranges of AI athletes it can accept), which are related to the individual college's average Al. The rules are very complicated and very regimented, but the basic result is that lower Al colleges can usually take some lower AI athletes as long as they stay within the Ivy League football regulations.
Let me explain how the recruiting process works from the admissions side of things. I'll use the Dartmouth office as an example, but the process is very similar at all the Ivies. Coaches spend many months each year traveling around the country, reading local newspapers, sending out letters, and trying to find the best athletes in their particular sport. For some sports, there are designations that can be used, such as all-American, or high-visibility teams, such as competitive summer baseball leagues, which are good grounds for recruiting. Coaches make contact with students and try to get a sense of whether their Al would put them within the reach of an Ivy League school.
If these athletes haven't taken the appropriate standardized tests, coaches might encourage them to do so in the hopes that they might qualify for Ivy admission. If these students have an AI of 140 or so, they stand absolutely no chance of admission at any Ivy, no matter how great they are as athletes. Coaches face the extremely difficult task of finding top athletes whose academics put them into an acceptable range. In some sports, this is nearly impossible. Take squash, for example. Thanks to national ratings, a coach can easily find out who the top twenty men and twenty women high school squash players are, but of these forty people, maybe only six will have AIs anywhere near Ivy level, so every college ends up fighting over the eligible players.
Starting with early decision or early action in the fall, coaches will compile lists for their sports to aid their athletic liaison in the admissions office. I served as an athletic liaison for from six to eight different sports, both men's and women's, so I am intimately familiar with the process. Each team has a target number of admits, which would vary for each college and for each sport. These numbers are top secret, even between coaches. Obviously, a sport like football would have a higher target number, whereas a sport with fewer players, like basketball, would have a lower target number. Money sports, like football, basketball, and ice hockey, are higher priority than nonmoney sports, like swimming and field hockey.
Plus, each college has its particular history with each sport. Squash has traditionally been a strong area for Harvard and Yale, so it has a higher priority than it does for a college like Dartmouth. Princeton has had one of the top women's softball teams in the country for several years, so I would imagine that it has a higher priority than some of Princeton's other sports. At Dartmouth, the women's lacrosse team was recently ranked as high as number three in the country, so because of its winning record and strong coaching, it has become a high-priority sport.
Once the admissions officers get the coaches’ list of recruits, the systems workers take small round purple tags (hence my chapter title, “Flags and Tags”) and stick them right on the front of the master card, entering the appropriate sport code into the computer.* Once the folders are tagged, they are usually sent directly to the athletic liaison, who may also want to consult with the regional reader, especially if he is not familiar with the highanchool an athlete attends.
How much of a factor is the purple tag? In some cases, it will be an enormous factor, and in some cases, it won't make any difference. It depends on how important the sport is, how high an athlete is ranked on the coach's list, how low the Al is, and how well the officers think the student would be able to handle the rigors of an Ivy League program.
There are many athletes with relatively high AIs, but because they are taking only track 2 programs (that is, college prep or below), their AIs are inflated and do not reflect their academic ability. There are also many athletes with slightly lower AIs who have taken an entirely Advanced Placement course load and therefore are more ready to face the challenge of classwork at an Ivy League school. Many times, low AI athletes are accepted because they come from modest backgrounds (one or both parents did not attend college and/or are blue-collar workers) and have done well in high school, even if their scores are not very high. Clearly, if the coaches rate an athlete number one or number two, that athlete is given a higher priority than if he was ranked lower on the list. It should come as no surprise that the top picks for most of the major sports tend to be very low Al students compared to the rest of the pool.
Not all the Ivies are as discriminating as Dartmouth is with its athletic recruits. I say that because at Dartmouth the coaches tend to criticize the admissions office for rejecting many athletes who are ultimately accepted by Harvard or Yale but not by Dartmouth. I would attribute this stringent admissions policy to the director himself. The director felt that as numbers went up and the average AI of the pool werit up, the caliber of the athletes should go up as well. He also believed that Dartmouth should accept no student who could not handle the workload. While you would think his policy would be wholeheartedly embraced by other directors, this is sadly not the case.
Many Ivy directors are big sports fans and would take almost any athlete who qualified in terms of a minimum AI, especially for sports they were fond of, regardless of the athlete's true academic ability. At Dartmouth, all the members of athletic teams maintain average AIs well over the required “less than one standard deviation away from the average AI.” In addition, Dartmouth's varsity athletes have a higher overall graduation rate in four years than do its nonathletes, even if only by two or three percentage points. Dartmouth will not accept any athlete it feels will not be able to handle the workload—period.
Can coaches make promises of admission to prospective players? Technically, no, but in some cases they do, even though they ultimately are not the ones empowered to make the final decision. Sometimes students falsely interpret a coach's optimism as a guarantee for admission. What coaches do know is where they have placed you on their recruiting list, so they can make a rough guess as to whether or not you will be admitted, but the athletic liaison has to present the case to the director of admissions before the athlete can be accepted.
What if a coach tells you what number you are on the list? I would be distrustful. Even if he is not lying, he submits several lists, one every three weeks or so; therefore, the numbers can change quite a bit. Once a coach gets feedback from the admissions office that his number-one recruit is too low and will not get in, he might drop that player and place someone else in the number-one slot. Thus, even if the coach said you were number one, that could change at any point. Also, if a coach talks to a student and finds out that the student really isn't interested in attending, he will in all likelihood drop this athlete from the list so as not to waste the number-one or number-two slot on a long shot.
Every time liaisons get a list, they read the files, take into account comments by other officers who may look at the file (often they will ask for the input of the regional officer), and give early feedback to the coaches in the form of “likely,” “unlikely,” or “possible.” Coaches take this feedback, talk to players, adjust their lists, and submit new ones. The process is long and tiresome, both for the coaches and the athletes. Most coaches are extremely honest, but you always hear of abuses of trust where coaches make false promises to students, or where families hear what they want to hear and draw erroneous conclusions. At Dartmouth at least, the process is fair, if a bit harsh, on particular sports teams, which usually don't get anywhere near their full list admitted.
New coaches who are not accustomed to Ivy League standards submit low AI lists and are shocked to find that most of their athletes are rejected. Once they learn the ropes, they submit more realistic lists and build their teams player by player. Keep in mind that most teams have fairly short lists, between six and fifteen, so if you are near the bottom, the purple tag will not have a huge effect on your chances of admission. However, if you fulfill a big priority, like goalkeeper or pitcher, you might end up being a top recruit at several colleges, which would have a significant effect on your chances for admission.
It is interesting to note that recruited athletes comprise only 2.5 percent of the entire applicant pool at Dartmouth (287/11,400 in 1996), but they are accepted at a roughly 62 percent rate—much higher than the overall acceptance rate of 22 percent. Therefore, since Dartmouth has a comparatively small freshman class (usually around 1,100), recruited athletes for the approximately forty sports teams make up about 15 to 16 percent of the incoming class. Princeton, very similar in size to Dartmouth, historically admits 60 to 70 percent of its recruited athletes (1979-1994). Except for football, most coaches at Princeton are limited to ten or so on their lists, since Fred Hargadon has cut back the number of athletes in an effort to keep the academic standard high. Twenty-five percent of the freshman class at Princeton participate at the varsity level, although probably not all 25 percent were recruited athletes.
At a larger college, the actual number of recruited athletes might be higher, even if they make up a lesser percentage of the freshman class. Is it a bad thing to have such a high percentage of recruited athletes? I don't think so, except in a few isolated cases. Many of these athletes are strong enough to get in without the push of the purple tag. I remember the recent case of high AI twins who were ranked number one and number two in their high school (with roughly 220 Als) and were top field hockey recruits. Not only were they a huge boost to the team; they were easy admits because of their academic prowess. The truth is, only a few sports have “deadweight” athletes, meaning that they only deserve admission based on their athletic skills.
The lowest AI sports are football and ice hockey, by far. At least many of these applicants come from modest blue-collar backgrounds. Again, because of biases against well-off students, the recruited athlete who stands the lowest chance of admissions is a prep school athlete who has a C/B average, no work experience, and wealthy parents. This athlete will not get the sympathetic eye of the admissions committee.
A very basic and substantive difference with regard to athletes is that, unlike the process of reading other applications, when you try to find a weakness, you tend to look for strengths once you see the purple tag. Instead of asking yourself, What kind of impact would this student have, you ask yourself, Would he be able to keep up with a rigorous course load? The best thing for prospective recruited athletes to do is to take the most demanding course load possible so colleges know that they are looking at a serious student. The reason I support accepting low Al athletes, at least in a handful of cases, is the same reason I would give for supporting other applicants who are talented in one particular area: They have achieved Division I–level dîstinction in their sport through countless hours of dedication, practice, games, training, and so on. These hours can take their toll on academics. Most (but of course not all) serious athletes don't have the luxury of a lot of free time to prepare for standardized tests, to put that finishing touch on their research paper, or to get straight A's in high school. For anyone who has been a serious athlete, you know how much time goes into reaching a high enough level to be considered a viable candidate for a Division I college.
I am always amazed by the fact that Ivy League schools achieve national rankings in sports when they compete against colleges such as Stanford that are not restricted by AI cutoffs and that are allowed to give athletic scholarships. For example, Dartmouth always has several teams with a high national ranking, even though the competition includes all Division I colleges throughout the country, many of which can lure athletes with money. Dartmouth's ski teams, downhill and cross-country, are almost always in the top five nationwide and have had many Olympic medal winners over the years; women's lacrosse was number three in the country in 1996; men's and women's soccer are usually top twenty nationwide; men's lacrosse top twenty, et cetera. Remember, the Ivy League cannot give any athletic scholarships, so unless an athlete is very financially needy, he will get no money, whereas at a less competitive college, he might very well get a full scholarship because of his athletic prowess.
The Ivy League loses many great athletes to larger and less selective universities that can pay for the`ir athletes. Of course, that scholarship is usually tied to continuing success at the sport, so if the athlete developed an injury, in many cases he would lose that college's financial support. It's true that at an Ivy League school, you are not bound to play, although I and many coaches consider it a major breach of honor to use your athletic talents to get accepted if you do not intend to play. To me, this is the lowest form of underhanded dealing. Coaches have very short lists, and I don't think it's fair to take up one of these coveted spaces unless you really want to play. Because there are no athletic scholarships at the Ivies, you cannot have your financial aid taken away if your athletic performance is not up to par.
If you prefer not to commit, be up-front with the coach. The healthiest student-coach relations are based on honesty and integrity, not willful deceit. The coaches I have worked with have my utmost respect. It is an incredibly difficult job to come up with a realistic list of athletes who qualify for Ivy League admission and possess a certain academic spark, as well. Many times, coaches are disappointed when admissions offices turn down their athletes, even after an athlete has orally committed to accepting the offer of admission. Imagine finding out after all that hard work that the admissions office finds only four out of your nine athletes acceptable, and of those four accepts, you may get only two, since the others may choose a scholarship school or another Ivy League school.
In most cases, the athletes who get accepted are fine students who end up doing quite well. In rare cases, they really have to struggle with the academics, but thanks to intensive academic support and the discipline they have developed because of their dedication to athletics, they come through with shining colors.
“SQUEEZE PLAYS”
What happens if you are a top recruited athlete applying to several colleges, Ivy League and others, and one of those other colleges tells you over the phone that they will definitely accept you but that you must commit yourself to attending? This kind of offer sets into motion what is known as a [(squeeze play.”
Let's play out the scenario. Stanford University calls you January twenty-fifth (only twenty-five days or so after your application was handed in) and tells you that they will give you a full scholarship for four years and guaranteed admission if you agree in writing to attend. The problem is, you have also applied to Harvard, Brown, and Dartmouth, but you know that you will not hear from these colleges until mid-April.
What you need to do is immediately notify the coaches at the Ivies and fax them the offer from the first college, including the financial-aid package, if there is one. The coaches will then fill out an Ivy “squeeze play” form, have the athletic liaison immediately evaluate your file (probably sharing the folder with either the regional person or the admissions person in charge of coordinating the liaisons), and have the financial-aid office do an early read on the possible financial-aid package. One fact that bears repeating: the Ivies cannot compete financially with colleges that are not prohibited from awarding athletic scholarships. So your scholarship at Stanford might be based entirely on your athletic ability. Your estimated Ivy financial-aid package will be based entirely on need, so if you do not qualify for aid, you will not be granted any.
Once the various Ivies complete the squeeze play (a day or two later), they will be able to tell you whether you will be accepted. and roughly what your financial-aid package will look like. For the sake of argument, let's say that Dartmouth and Harvard say yes but Brown says no. Now you have an accurate picture of your various options and must decide which college you want to attend. The moment you tell Dartmouth that you choose to attend, you will receive an official letter (this does not violate any Ivy League athletic rules) saying that you are accepted into the class. You must also tell the other colleges that you are going to Dartmouth so that they can cross you off their lists and fill in your spot with another recruit.
The obvious advantage of doing a squeeze play is that you can have your final decision as early as January, rather than waiting until April. In terms of risk, there is not a huge one. If the Ivies are able to accept you, and you are a very high-priority athlete, they will do everything they can to accept you. If they can see that the other college that originated the squeeze is not competitive academically and that you do not look very promising on the academic front, they might say no on your squeeze, but in all likelihood, that is probably what would have happened had you waited until April. If they see that a strong academic institution like Stanford admitted you, they will most probably decide to admit you as long as you are over the minimum AI cutoff:* In short, a squeeze play will not get you more money, but it will get you a prompt decision and, if you are admitted, a guaranteed acceptance.
Now that we have looked at how athletic recruiting works, let's examine the other areas where “flags and tags” carry weight in the admissions process.