David: If football abilities come not to count at the Williams Admissions Office for more than you suggest they ought, then the Williams community should get ready for its football team to be at or below the quality of the current NESCAC cellar dwellers. Of course, if the rest of NESCAC does not change in approximate football quality, then this approach means for Williams not infrequent 0-8 football records and 40-60 point losses to Amherst (provided that Amherst eases up when its victories are no longer in doubt) plus a possible sea change in Williams’ self-image relative to its pursuit of excellence. Also it would result in a loss of certain students who tend disproportionately to have inherently the leadership qualities of aggressiveness, confidence and physical courage at a time when Williams is attempting to grow curricularly a leadership discipline. I suspect that this general principle would more or less similarly apply to certain other sports, such as men’s basketball, men’s ice hockey, wrestling, men’s lacrosse and baseball.

I am in favor of Williams having a football team and of that team playing similarly qualified teams. But there is no particular reason why the football (or hockey or lacrosse or . . .) need to compete against all/only NESCAC teams. I would rather have teams composed of athletes with similar academic abilities to the Williams students and competing against similarly skilled teams than Eph lunkheads competing against Amherst lunkheads.

So, for example, instead of playing Middlebury, the hockey team might play small schools, community colleges and even prep schools.

But the dispute today is not really about what the final policy would look like. Instead, we have had a 5 year experiment in significantly decreasing the number of lunkheads. Williams is not as dominant as it once was as a result. As far as I can tell, the trade-off has been a good one.

My proposal (and, I expect, Morty’s intent) is to go further down this path. Decrease again the weight given to athletics by a similar amount in the next five years as we have in the past 5. In fact, I would keep on doing this until Williams teams were, on average, .500 (or until the average academic credentials/performance of athletes was similar to that of non-athletes).

Williams is about academics first and other things (athletics, arts, service, whatever) second.

Well… it’s also based on the number of scoring teams per season. Men’s Cross Country missed nationals for the first time in 10 years, and they’ve always finished high enough to score for Director’s cup points. This is hardly a a source of the dropoff in “lunkheads.”

Women’s soccer also scored 0 by not making the postseason. The other falls teams scored on par with the past.

Something tells me Williams will be doing just fine by the year’s end.

I really don’t think there is much of a correlation between Sears Cup results and low band athletic admits. Every year, Williams gets the majority of its points from cross country, track and field, swimming and diving, and tennis, most of which don’t require huge admissions concessions, plus a few other teams playing well. It rarely gets any points from the sports that likely require the greatest admissions concessions, with the exception of basketball and soccer (the latter of which is as strong as ever): football (not eligible for postseason), hockey, baseball, lacrosse. Usually, men’s cross country gets lots of points, which did not happen this year, and usually 3-4 fall teams have stellar runs in the NCAA, this year it was only 2, not really a huge difference. After the winter season, I except Williams will be first or second again in the Sears Cup race: men’s and women’s swimming are both guaranteed high national finishes, and both track teams always perform well also, plus there is a solid chance that at least one basketball team will make the NCAA’s, which did not happen last year.

If you really want to track the difference in low-band admits, take the combined records of the team sports mentioned above over ten years period, I doubt there is much of a difference at all. Yes, football dominated Amherst for a spell, but that was more a function of Amherst having a coach who was sadly losing his faculties than anything else. Plus, Williams’ best coach of all time retired. Otherwise, football continues to beat almost everyone it plays most years except for Amherst and Trinity, who has always given the Ephs trouble. Men’s and women’s soccer continue to be strong most years. Hockey has never been much of a power. Lacrosse seems about even, and men’s basketball, while not as strong as the two championship-caliber teams, is close to even with the teams from 1999-2002, and will get stronger again in future years, most likely, and women’s basketball may be stronger.

I defer to Jeff and others on the topic of the Director’s Cup. Perhaps my pessimism is unwarranted.

But that leaves a different question. What is the deal with the decrease in sub-1200 admissions? There are about 20 fewer per class (and so 80 for the College as a whole) now than 7 years ago. I don’t see any evidence that these 80 students were from other categories (super-wealthy, URMs) that often get significant representation. Indeed, the number of URMs at the College has increased in this period.

Now, at least 24 of the 80 are the result, I would guess, of the decrease in tips from 72 to 66. There may also have been some tightening up (see a forthcoming post) in terms of the tip process.

But if there were dozens of fewer impact athletes at Williams, I would have expected that, you know, the athletic teams would do less well. Am I missing something? Possible hypotheses.

1) Most of the decrease is URM-related. The College is able to keep up its URM numbers because the overall URM pool has grown in quality, perhaps partly because applicants are much more ready to check the appropriate box than they were in the past.

2) The College is doing better in getting the students that it really wants to get, including serious athletes. So, instead of 1150 SAT linebackers, the College is getting 1300 SAT linebackers.

3) The coaches were never that good at identifying talent, so it turns out that even rejecting dozens of the athletes that were most desirable does not affect team performance much.

Again, I think that the change in the SAT distribution — essentially swapping a bunch of less-than-600 for greater-than-700 students — is important. I think that it reflects an intended change in policy, a change that should have costs as well as benefits. But perhaps I am just seeing patterns where there are none.

Speculation is welcome.

David; You seem to have changed your premise away from “applicants who project to be varsity athletes at Williams should get no more credit at the Williams Admissions Office than applicants who project to be intra-mural athletes (but no better) at Williams do”. That premise is not designed to get Williams .500 or better football teams against a currently constituted NESCAC schedule - to put it mildly. Place Mount Greylock on the schedule! Williams ought to be able to win against them about half the time. Also The Little Sisters of the Poor for homecoming! Consistent wins over them ought to keep the alumni happy and their contributions rolling in. Additionally the student body (all 12 of them who are sufficiently interested to watch the game because their roommates are playing) then can chant “Sisters suck, Sisters suck”.

It is my understanding that football never contributes to the Directors’ Cup scores because football is not allowed to go to the championship since they would have to miss too much class. Thus, the decrease in tips could affect the points from other sports, but not from football, which remains 0 as always. Is this assessment accurate?

D. Kane:

I think you may be reading more into the increase in SAT scores. Sure, a cutback of six “tips” per year has a slight impact. However, the bigger factor is the demographic bulge that is pushing the application numbers through the roof at selective colleges. More applications equals more selectivity and, indeed, we’ve seen similar increases in median SATs across the board at top universities and colleges in the last five years.

Two additional factors probably contribute. First, Williams has spent heavily to increase its number of international students. It’s a safe bet that the new international students are not from the lower SAT ranges. Second, it’s Williams’ turn to be at the top of LAC rankings in USNEWS. In the late 1990s, when you took your “baseline”, Swarthmore and Amherst were swapping the #1 and #2 spots for several years in a row. Although they shouldn’t, these rankings do impact the number of applications and yield at the margins.

Diana: You are correct about Williams football being disabled from contributing to Director’s Cup scoring but incorrect about the real reason for this self-imposed disability.

Forget the Director’s Cup. With 2 of the 32 head coaches in the NFL being graduates, I would say that Wesleyen is now the football factory of the Little Three!

I haven’t deliberated on the question, but my surmisal is that no single college or university can claim as graduates more than two current NFL head football coaches. I leave the issue for research by those with strong Wesleyan affiliation. At any rate, break up Wesleyan!

I don’t have time to research this possibility, but the jump in SAT scores at schools is potentially/partly the result of increasing population. There has been some debate about why places like Williams and Harvard haven’t increased their size in the same proportion as the population–Williams doubled in size because it’s selection population also doubled to include women. Schools pull from the tails and as the population increases, the number of scores above a certain threshold must increase.

So, frank uible, what is the real reason? They would lose? Bad press? Do tell!

Management of alumni by the college administration.

1) I think that the reason that football can’t contribute to Directors’ Cup is that only sports which participate in their national championships can do so. Williams football does not participate in post-season play, so, by definition, it is not part of the Directors Cup. I am not sure why football does not participate (a NESCAC rule?) but this never seemed to be much of an issue (even with Farley), even when Williams was a powerhouse.

2) Richard’s comment on the increased size of the pool is plausible, I guess. Applications have gone up from 4,528 to 5,822. But I still take an Occam’s Razor approach on this. The College told us that they were changing the policy. We see statistical evidence that the policy has changed. Therefore, the reason for the evidence is the change in policy.

Now, it could be that, after telling us that the policy would change, the College did not in fact change anything. The statistics just changed because of increased applications and the resulting stronger pool.

I still trust that the College did what it said it was going to do. Call me naive.

That is changing only 6 admits out of something close to 1,000, yet you use a change of 4% (roughly 40 students out of 1,000 admits). Without doing much research, Mr. Dunn’s analysis seems quite satisfactory, while the athletic admit strucure changing makes too small an impact.

One of the reasons 6 admits in athletics *might* have a bigger impact in day to day perception amongst students that actually *attend* is that those 6 are quite likely to attend Williams. Not all athletics “tips” do enroll, but if coaches didn’t regularly convince their tips to come year after year, they probably wouldn’t be too succesful.

A number of factors are probably at work in changing the 5% below 600, and another 5% change in those above 700. Stronger admission pools due to our ranking, better recruitment of talented students with backgrounds that previously came paired with lower verbal SATS, 6 fewer “tips” per class, etc.

Regarding two Wesleyan grads being NFL coaches, Bill Belichick applied to Williams (as well as other schools) and didn’t get in after graduating from high school. Consequently, he took a post year at Philips Academy in Andover and then applied to and got into Wesleyan.

Well, the Record article on ED sheds a lot more light:

http://www.williamsrecord.com/wr/?view=article&section=news&id=7520

Interesting that there are 44 tips (2/3 of the total) yet the ED SAT is still up to 1424, higher than last year. So clearly SAT’s are continuing to go up, and probably will be even higher overall in RD with only 22 tips left. Also, if you add up the numbers in the article:

44 tips plus 39 legacies plus 47 minority students plus 12 intenationals plus 10 Questbridge scholars plus 29 outstanding music abilities plus 16 art / theater abilities, plus 24 first generation college admits equals essentially the entire admitted pool (I excluded the interest in getting a phd as I imagine that could be any of them). Probably a fair amount of overlap in some of these categories, as most Questbridge kids are probably first generation and minorities, for instance, and certainly some of the tips are minorities, legacies, or talented musicians. Still, the lesson is clear: if you are not an athletic superstar, a musical/artisic star, have overcome some adversity, will add to international diversity, a legacy, or a true academic superstar, ED is likely not going to go your way.

I hope that a good chunk of RD is reserved for well-rounded kids who aren’t necessarily a star athlete, a star musician, a legacy, the top math student in the country, or have had to overcome all sorts of adversity (to be fair, that would have been my application profile) but will be passionate about Williams and contribute to campus life in a whole variety of ways, rather than just one. I think (and I have some insight into Harvard admissions process from sources) that in some ways that is what makes Williams stand out from Harvard, etc.: there are lots of kids here who are into sports, and hiking, and theater, and academics, and social life, all in equal measure, rather than being full of one-dimensional superstars who put all their energy into excelling at only one particular arena (the top math kid, the top squash player, spelling bee champ, etc.), and perhaps are less, umm, socially adept as a result. I think there should be room for boht at Williams, but on the balance, I’d rather see the well-rounded stars than the “best in the country at [x]” types.

One admissions change I would instill, and yes this would certainly lower application numbers but not from kids likely to attend in the end, is to create an additional essay, uniquely tailored to Williams, that tries to shed some light on what makes an applicant interesting beyond their resume. Either that, or make admissions interviews evaluative for borderline candidates.

I believe football does not go to the post season because it would directly interfere with finals.

Jeff:

I see no reason to believe that the top hockey recruit from St. Pauls who goes to Harvard would be any more “socially inept” that the third best hockey player from St. Pauls who goes to Williams.

Or that Natalie Portman would be any more “socially inept” at Harvard than the top actress enrolling at Williams in a given year.

Or that Yo Yo Ma would be any more socially inept at Harvard than Williams top cello player.

BTW, I have no idea why Williams does not require a “Why Williams?” or any other specific Williams essay. Of all the schools my daughter applied to, Williams was the only one that did not ask, in some way, to present a specific, well-researched, fit between her interests and specific attributes of the school.

I suspect it is because the majority of these essays tend to be pretty superficial. But, if a school is looking for a specific type of student to fit a well-defined campus culture, these essays can separate the wheat from the chaff.