A few talking points:

(1) How many times do we have to go over this? SATs measure wealth. We can pretend we’re enforcing academic standards by sifting applicants, tips, etc. using them, but their real effectiveness is diminishing rapidly.

(2) I must not be understanding something. According to the Sports Information website, the Williams baseball team beat several teams in the NESCAC playoffs as recently as 2004? Doesn’t that mean it’s been at most two years (2005, 2006) since a Williams team won a NESCAC playoff game in an “American” sport? How does one count to three?

ps. who is ‘Jeannie’?

Why should Williams seek NESCAC’s (or any NESCAC member’s) approval for doing damn well as it unilaterally pleases? Compete for admission of the students that one wants - balancing the various admission factors as one independently sees fit - and let the chips fall where they may.

I don’t see that this would accomplish very much. The dominant power, overall, in the sports Barnard is talking about over the last five years is Trinity: crushing everyone in football, best overall in baseball, and strong in ice hockey and hoops as well. The thing is, Trinity’s SAT’s are significantly below Williams/Amherst, on average, so under the proposal, if Williams can go to 1250, Trinity can still go down to 1050. But as long as Williams is a perennial contender in football, basketball, and baseball, as it seems to be almost every year (baseball did make the top four in nescac this year, and football finished 6-2 and is one of the favorites for the league title next year), I don’t see this as a big problem. If other NESCAC schools want to dip that far down into the admissions pool, it is only going to hurt them in the long run.

I think that the best thing Williams can do is make this information as public as possible. Particularly for Amherst, where faculty are probably more hostile towards athletics than at Williams. If it is really true that Amherst, but not Williams, will take guys below 1250 for high-profile sports and that Amherst, despite a smaller student body and fewer sports overall, is taking more low-band admits, believe me, the faculty there will give the President an inordinate amount of grief. Especially a President so focused on expanding opportunities for low-income students — hard to do that when 75 out of 420 frosh are high-priority athletic admits. In any event, that is the big concern — perhaps some NESCAC schools have advantages over Williams in being able to dip down a little higher, but Williams also has an advantage in that very few students select another NESCAC school (except for Amherst admits) when provided an opportunity to attend Williams. As long as Amherst doesn’t have a big recruiting advantage, Williams should still fare pretty well.

I will say this: if true, Barnard’s information does a long way towards dispelling HWC et. al.’s complaints about Williams being overly accomodating towards athletes — hard to really complain when Williams has, by far, the toughest standards in the league for athletic admits.

I don’t think that having an index is feasable with the acedemic disparities that exist in the league. The bottom tip who is allowed into Williams would most likely get in with no help to Trinity. The reason it works in the Ivy league is that all of the schools are relatively close acedemically.

Also, I would not go so far as to say that Trinty has been the dominate force for the last 5 years. You could argue 3 years but I’d say 2 at the most at least football-wise. Before that Williams was the dominate force. All of these things are cyclical anyway and with Trinity’s football coach gone to Stonybrook I think they will come down a bit anyway.

“Of course, the main reason those schools don’t require SAT scores is so they can admit players who wouldn’t otherwise academically qualify.”

Yeah, I’m sure that Bowdoin had that in mind in the 60s (and Middlebury in the 80s) when they went SAT optional. Making SATs optional is a reflection of an institution’s belief that how a student scores on an imperfect test should not determine their ability to succeed in college.

Dave Barnard needs to stop whining about how his team doesn’t win. I can’t believe this is coming from a coach at the school with the most successful DIII sports program for the better part of the last decade.

Five more talking points:

a)Amherst has consistently had higher 25th percentile, 50th percentile, and 75th percentile SATs than Williams in recent years. And, more socio-economic diversity. And, more ethnic diversity.

b) The pot is calling the kettle black on athletic enrollment. 151 of Williams freshmen this year were tagged by the Athletic department as being likely four-year varsity players — i.e. 151 of the freshmen came through the recruiting track. Now, these include below average, average, and above average academic qualifications. None the less, I’m sure that people at Amherst look at the NESCAC guidelines and the number of recruited athletes at Williams and make similar complaints.

c) Despite having a smaller student body, Amherst has a significantly smaller percentage of its students playing varsity sports.

d) Would it really be the end of the world if a Williams athletic team did not make the NESCAC championships? I believe they have plenty of teams that do.

e) I with there were more voices in support of keeping Williams the #1 academic school in the NESCAC.

Big points for the The Princess Bride reference, David.

I’m very confused. I always thought, and a quick internet search confirmed, that Williams is not allowed, via nescac rules, to participate in any football postseason. Now, that may be a bad rule, but doesn’t it mean that one of Barnard’s five sports that he uses as an example is bound via rules, not recruiting limitations, not to win a postseason game? If so, this letter seems intellectually dishonest (and as assistant coach of football, shouldn’t he realize that?). i hope i’m wrong, for the credibility of the author.

NESCAC rules are made, and ought, to be broken!

A few replies. First, it is ridiculous to suggest that anyone is indifferent to Williams’ status as the top academic liberal arts school. As far as I can see, by basically any measure of academic excellence over the last few years, (popularity with applicants, US News ranking, grad school results, graduates winning prominent fellowships, tutorial offerings and enrollment), Williams is at worst tied with Amherst, Swarthmore and Pomona at the very top of liberal arts schools, and is the best it has ever been in its history. Considering the enormous financial commitment the school is making or has made to the academic arena (new library and office spaces, new theater, new science center, financial aid to internationals, lowering debt burden), hard to suggest that institutional priorities are out of whack. Particularly when athletic recruiting has clearly been more limited in recent years (the reforms Barnard complains of), and athletic facilities are far, far worse than any of Williams’ prime competitors (some to an embarassing degree).

Next, as for diversity, back up your naked assertions. Williams, I believe, has been fairly equal (perhaps even ahead) in terms of black and hispanic matriculants with Amherst, and way above every school in NESCAC save Wesleyan, in recent years. In fact, one recent class (perhaps 08 or 09) Williams had double the percentage of black frosh as compared to Amherst. Amherst has a lot more Asian students, but I don’t think that a statistical overrepresentation of a minority group that isn’t exactly hurting in terms of admissions success constitutes some sort of diversity advantage. Also, Williams has had made enormous strides in terms of economic diversity in recent years, with nearly 50 percent of incoming students now on financial aid, and policies clearly geared towards attracting more low-income applicants in the future (need blind for internationals, reduced loan burdens, Questbridge partnership). Considering Williams’ location, I’m not sure how much more diverse it can expect to be than 28-29 percent domestic minorities (without, like most schools, a huge overrepresentation of asian students) and 6 percent internationals.

Third, athletics. In prior posts, your main concern seems to be the problems caused by the “low band” admits. Now, when it seems that Williams has made positive strides in terms of admissions standards for problem sports (although, to be fair, more work remains to be done in terms of campus behavior standards), you focus on the sheer number of varsity athletes on campus. Well, the bulk of those athletes are on the rosters of sports like crew, cross-country, track and field, and swimming and diving — not exactly notorious for causing problems in terms of campus social life or in the classroom. But yeah, I guess we should cut down on those sports and stop people like Lindsay Payne from coming to Williams. Really hurting the school’s rep. Look at rosters — Williams doesn’t have more football, or basketball, or lacrosse players than Amherst — actually, if anything the converse is true. The difference is, Williams has MORE varsity sports than Amherst, some with quite large rosters (crew in particular), and ENORMOUS rosters in a few sports that don’t feature, by anyone’s estimation, any borderline admittees, in particular track and field / cross country.

As long as Willimas provides (and it does) arguably the top liberal arts education in the country, why not maintain an identity that caters to the school’s traditional areas of excellence, and turning its rural setting into an asset rather than a liability: a place where folks excel equally in academics, arts, and athletics, all while being social and outgoing. It’s not like Williams is exactly hurting in terms of the number of campus art historians or a capella singers, or campus publications, or people making a positive contribution to other areas of life (I note that it was Williams undergrads, not Swat or Amherst kids, who started the Sudan divestment campaign). The type of kids who might be scared away from Williams because of more non-tipped varsity athletes than some of ite peers, I really don’t think we should sweat, just like Swarthmore I’m sure is not sweating the kids who are turned away by the lack of a football team — different strokes for different folks, ya know?

Other than eliminating the problems at the margin — truly sub-par academics or destructive behavior associated with a very small percentage of students — I just don’t see the need for any wholesale change when Williams has maintained the number one academic and athletic ranking among liberal arts colleges for three years running, and has the most applications and highest standards in its history, all while ramping up the percentage of minority and low-income students from the level those figures were at ten years ago.

I agree with you. Williams should embrace its priority on athletic excellence in its marketing. That and the work hard/party hard reputation touted in the guidebooks is clearly an effective pitch. Everytime I suggest marketing those, everybody gets all up in arms.

Sidebar: I would take exception with your characterization of Williams’ socio-economic diversity. It has a significantly lower percentage of students qualifying for financial aid than any of its top three or four immediate competitors. I would also suggest that Williams was not at the forefront of the Sudan genocide movement, but that’s neither here nor there.

The solution is for Williams to withdraw from the NESCAC.

the real solution is for Camp Trin Trin to be expelled from the NESCAC in order to end their mooching off our reflected prestige. I’d support the same manuever in the Ivy League vis-a-vis Cornell.

I don’t understand why Amherst and Williams secede from the NESCAC and try to join the Ivy League. I see absolutely no benefit for Williams to be tethered to the NESCAC.

I am a former Williams student athlete and former “low band” tip for two of the American male sports Coach Barnard discusses. Under the current admission standards I am not sure that I would have been admitted to Williams College. I loved my experience at Williams College and am proud to have attended. However, it concerns me to hear/see this troubling stereotype developing of Varsity athletes, and let’s be honest they’re talking mostly about football, basketball, hockey, lacrosse and baseball players. When discussing this issue people point to a lack of diversity by allowing athletes admission with “sub par” academic standards. I wouldn’t have gotten into Williams without athletics and for this I am grateful. Unlike the stereotype would suggest I was actually an above average student, involved in many campus groups and never once involved in any disturbances on campus. And I was definitely not in the minority. Yes I believe there are athletes admitted to Williams that cause problems both in the classroom and on Friday nights. But you cannot group all varsity athletes together under one umbrella of suspicion and doubt that they somehow detract from the Williams experience.

If Williams wants to create an academic utopia ensuring a number one in the US News ranking, kick out all of the athletes and call yourself Swarthmore. When you do, watch a large chunk of the annual giving go with it. In the years that I attended Williams reputation and ranking only grew in strength and we were also able to boast to have the most successful athletic program in the country. Look at all of the national press that Williams received as a result of being number 1 in both US News and the Director’s Cup ranking.

I think one of the things that attracts so many people, including myself, to Williams is because it has the best of everything and offers a well rounded experience to ALL who attend. To quote one of my mentors and a great man “You’ll never hear about 12,000 people get together to watch a kid take a math test”. Competitive athletic teams add more to Williams than you could possibly imagine. Not only for the players on the teams but it’s contagious throughout the community. If you don’t believe me, next November head to Weston field, or Chandler Gym or a field hockey game or any sporting event and tell me that without those events Williams wouldn’t have lost something that indeed makes it so special. Yes I was an athlete with lower test scores but I think I offered and contributed just as much to Williams College in my four years as someone with a 1550. This debate is putting a heavy strain on the Williams Community and if it continues at its current pace will ultimately ruin so many of the reasons I think the Purple Valley is such an amazing place to get an education, both on the field and off.

Kane, I’m still confused. To be worth of description as “thoughtful” and “well-researched” shouldn’t Barnard the piece avoid misrepresenting the football team’s post-season possibilities? Or am I mistaken????

rory: If one applies a standard of high quality to the various writing here, then virtually all the offerings fail. Your points against Barnard and Kane are irrelevant, immaterial, ad hominem, apparently irritable and certainly irritating, but, if promptly relinquished, in this instance those shortcomings will be overlooked.

I second Graham’s post. I certainly wouldn’t have been at Williams if it weren’t the well-rounded school that it is. Spoken as a definitely not varsity athlete (though the Heritage softballt eam hasn’t lost a game since i took over at short 2 years ago)

Frank, rein that language in. Show me something ad hominem about Rory’s question. I don’t see any demand for “high” quality in his very fair point that Branard seems to be citing as evidence something that is not, and something that is so patently not evidence that it suggests dishonesty to do so.

Do you dispute that this carelessness is the case — that Rory is incorrect, or that Rory is correct but Barnard’s mistake was easy for a coach to make? If you believe either of these things, they are perhaps arguable, but argue them.

If instead you agree that Barnard made the mistake that Rory indicated, and it does not raise warning flags in your mind, I have to doubt that you read Barnard’s piece critically at all. By critically, I mean someone looking to be convinced or not convinced by a reasonable argument.

I do not see what point Rory made against Kane. I do, however, see something in Kane’s words that I am positive Rory was responding to when he took issue with some of Barnard’s evidence: namely, that Kane praised the research and thought in Barnard’s piece. In this way, David was the first to apply a high standard to Barnard’s writing, not Rory.

For others, I apologize if it not apparant what “questionable evidence” I, Rory, and Frank have been discussing. Rory raised it in his first comment; I will clarify if requested.

The issue of academics versus athletics at liberal arts college are extremeley complex, and I waver on a daily basis.

I don’t believe that Williams is the perfect model, and I don’t believe that Swarthmore is the perfect model either. Admitting 66 tips compromises the intellectual vitality of the institution; however, the “winning” atmosphere at Williams serves as a source of school pride, and that school pride manifests itself in both the giving rate and the size of gifts at Williams.
From my year, the athletes are faring much better than the geeks (from a financial standpoint). Many have already secured vice-president positions at top I-banking firms.

These jocks will likely be the ones who help Williams maintain its outstanding financial position, providing geeks like me with an opportunity to attend a phenomenal institution in a breathtaking physical environment.

If I were an administrator at a Swarthmore (for example), I would be concerned that an enormous flux of students into academia could have detrimental effects on future school finances. Even the professors at the top institutions have difficulty earning salaries comparable to fledgling law grads. Again, I’m speculating here!!

That said, I really think that Williams should withdraw from the NESCAC. How would you feel if Williams were to compete in the Ivy League???

Apologies for the delay.

1) I have fixed various typos and links in the post.

2) The first comment (with a useless link to an off topic Slate article) barely merits reply. If you don’t see how SATs predict academic success at Williams and elsewhere, then you need to read more. Start with Jen Doleac’s thesis and then move on to Lindsey Taylor’s. If all else fails, ask Morty. He’ll explain it to you.

2) HWC is 95% correct on the points he makes on EphBlog but, every once in a while, he lets his, uh, enthusiasm for improved academics at Williams color his description of the facts. HWC writes:

151 of Williams freshmen this year were tagged by the Athletic department as being likely four-year varsity players — i.e. 151 of the freshmen came through the recruiting track. Now, these include below average, average, and above average academic qualifications.

Now, this is literally true, I believe, but it gives a misleading picture. Footnote 4 of the Report states:

The “A” attribute tag is applied to any admitted student who has been identified by a coach as being an “impact athlete” capable of playing four years of a varsity sport. The attribute is assigned by the Admissions office after the applicant has been admitted. About 130 students per year are designated as A attributes. The admissions office formally assigns the status, but usually to people brought to its attention by coaches. About 15 of our AAs per year have academic reader ratings of 1 or 2. The rest are tips (72 in the past), protects (32 or so), legacies, or are admitted in some other category.

It does not matter if 130 or 150 or some other number have an A tag. Who cares if someone has an A tag if she was also valedictorian at Exeter and perfect test scores? She is probably plenty smart as well. In fact, over 100 members of each class must get an A tag since, by definition, there are over 400 varsity athletes at Williams. Even in HWC’s preferred admission scheme (where Williams, like MIT, gives out close to zero points for athletic ability), someone still plays on varsity.

What matters is the average academic qualification of athletes at Williams. By every piece of evidence that we have seen, these qualifications are much higher now then they were when the Report came out. Now, HWC may wish they were higher. Let’s shoot for a football team with average SATs of 1450! Yet it does no good to deny that there have been significant changes in the last 5 years.

3) HWC writes:

Despite having a smaller student body, Amherst has a significantly smaller percentage of its students playing varsity sports.

This is true but reflects badly on Amherst. The reason that Williams has more athletes as a percentage is not that our soccer teams are bigger. Instead, it is because certain teams at Williams (track? swimming?) have many more members. Good for them! And for their coaches! Almost all these athletes (especially the “extra” ones that only do an event or two and don’t contribute many points) have above average academic qualifications. In an ideal world, Williams would find a spot on some varsity team for everyone who wanted to play.

4) For the record I disagree with Barnard about athletic preferences. I would rather have a football team that was 4-4 with average SATs of 1400 than one that was 8-0 with average SATs of 1200.

5) I do not know what Rory’s problem is. Barnard was not trying to mislead anyone. Why would he? Almost everyone who cares to read a piece on a proposed Academic Index for NESCAC will know that there is no football play-off. Can’t Barnard assume some background knowledge on the part of his readers? Moreover, what he wrote is literally true.

It has been 3 years since Williams College was won a NESCAC championship or even a NESCAC playoff game in a men’s American team sport (football, basketball, baseball, hockey and lacrosse).

Although there is no NESCAC play-off for football, there is a championship, which Trinity won this year. Rory should not be so quick to see something as “intellectually dishonest.” Barnard may be many things, but he is not that. Barnard is claiming, obviously, that these sports have at least either play-off games or championships. Some (all but football?) have both.

Why not assume the best of intentions among those Ephs we argue with? I (try to!) always assume the best of Rory.

A few comments. Regarding Williams and Amherst withdrawing from the NESCAC and joining the Ivey league. Coming from someone who knows a great deal about the process of recruiting at these schools, if you think the system is bad now. Ivey league schools consider their athletic teams a much higher priority than to NESCAC schools. Not only that, but they organize and structure financial aid packages in a sort of bidding war for top football prospects. Regardless of what they say in any reports, I know it happens because it happened to me and many people I know.

Also, in order to compete with those schools you would in fact need to admit at least 25 low band kids per year just for the football team alone.

Coach Barnard is not trying to mislead anyone by those comments to make his point any stronger. Everyone knows that football doesn’t have a post season, the comment that this makes Barnard’s point invalid is asinine.

Also I object to the assumed correlation of low SAT scores to somehow diluting the academic integrity of Williams. If you are just worried about US News rankings and lowering the average scores for our school stop being shallow. Just because a student has below average test scores coming out of high school doesn’t mean he will give below average effort or performance. In 2001 we were still the top rated school in the country and had much more forgiving standards for athletes, we also won the Sears Cup, what in the world was wrong with that? You preach diversity and then try to streamline the student population by getting rid of athletes with low but respectable test scores. Granted it’s not ethnic or socio-economic diversity but it’s important nonetheless. We’re not letting kids in with 1000’s though many NESCAC schools are (see Trinity).

Williams should lead the fight for league wide athletic acceptance standards. Those who don’t buy in, well, see you later enjoy getting spanked in the Patriot League that nobody cares about.

i ask a question, i expect frank to make a joke about it, that’s not new (if anything, it’s a sign my comment was worthy of response, i’m always flattered a little). However, calling my question asinine was new and, i believe, foolish.

David, I’ll take a quick aside with your comment. The phrase “or even” implies that both the championship and playoff option are available to each sport. When making such a letter public, the burden of clarity should not be on the reader to be sure I have the background knowledge (further, considering he points out a position paper on ephblog, he knows this is going to get out here. And this is a very public forum, so we’re not all engaged in athletics), but on the author to be sure s/he is completely clear and not misleading. Intellectually dishonest is probably too harsh, in all likelihood, he’s so into sports at Williams (as he shoud be!), he didn’t even realize others might find the wording misleading or confusing. But I stand by my claim that it misrepresents the “problem” of athletic failure to win.

I, as a williams student and alum, cared only about three games in the five sports Barnard lists: the football game against Amherst, and the final four and championship for the basketball team my senior year (in the long, long ago of 2003…). As such, I don’t know things like playoffs vs. championships, all I knew is that there is no postseason (I thought) for nescac football (which I only knew because there were some complaints about that when I was in school). As I stated in my first post, I was “confused” by his statement, I only got heated when no one explained it to me.

I still believe the letter as written is misleading, though I won’t accuse Barnard of intent. I will say Kane is quick to call things well-researched and written, as the sentence about winning championships “or even” playoff games implies that playoff games are a possibility. For an alum who takes a marginal interest in sports and could be pursuaded by a letter like this, such an implication is an important piece of the letter.

I’ll admit, i was looking for something to disagree with, as the idea that a three year drought in winning a championship or playoff in five sports as a sign the conference is out of whack seems to be playing a game of athletic chicken little (”the nescac is falling! the nescac is falling!”). For example, in 2003 THE BASKETBALL TEAM WON THE NCAA TOURNAMENT and in 2004 won the NESCAC. So, not only is his evidence that proves that there is a problem that requires an academic cut-off misleadingly presented, it’s also factually incorrect.

His argument for an athletic admissions criterion across nescac deserves consideration, it does not need faulty evidence. And, considering this is the blogosphere, isn’t nitpicking (and this is hardly nitpicking) what we’re supposed to do?

1) As long as we can agree that Barnard had no ill intent, I am satisfied. If an honest reader, like Rory, was confused than the claim was confusing, by definition. I still think that the claim is true as written. The “or even” does not imply that all the teams were eligible for play-off games. It only means that at least some were.

2) Upon reflection, I agree with Rory that the three year claim is either wrong or highly misleading, The men did win NESCAC in 2004. I will contact Barnard on this point.

3) Note that the excellent results of men’s basketball in 2003/2004 are highly unlikely to be repeated again. Many (but not all) of the players who made that happen got into Williams under the old admissions system. Such applicants today would be rejected.

The NESCAC needs an academic index to police the rogue schools that deviate from the NESCAC Mission Statement. Check out the the ALL-Academic teams from the past 6 years.

http://www.nescac.com/Conference/mission.htm
http://www.nescac.com/Honors/allacademic.htm

You can see that some of the NESCAC schools are significantly lagging in the number of athletes qualifying for All-Academic status while Williams is continually one of the top 3 in this area. I think our standards for academic and athletic excellence are the highest in the country. It is just a shame that not all the NESCAC colleges follow our lead and chose athletic excellence at the expense of academics.

Regarding the comment preferring a 4-4 team with 1400 SATs to an 8-0 team with 1200 SATs, this is just stupid. Why stop at athletics? Why not hold students whose talents are in the Arts to a higher standard and for that matter minorities and foreign students? Williams needs to be more inclusive of well-rounded applicants who can excel in many areas instead of focusing on “one-trick ponies” who are excellent at math or english. There is a reason that people who chose to excel in extra curricular activities like sports and the arts are often held to a somewhat lower standard academically. They give up hours everyday that could be spent studying and then have to try to cram it in whenever they can. I am sure that many of the so-called low band athletes would get into Williams on their own if they gave up athletics and chose to only study like many of the students presently at or applying to Williams. Life outside the Purple Bubble is very diverse. Increasing academic standards for athletes, artists, musicians, actors, minorities, and foreign students will only lead to a predominantly white, middle to upper class, northeast dwelling community. These graduates would be in for a rude awakening.

The suggestion that Williams and Amherst leave the NESCAC and join the Ivy League is so laughable that I have a hard time believing that it is made in sincerity. (If it is a joke and I am missing the punchline, disregard this comment.)

The NESCAC is Division III while the Ivy League is Div. I. This is a HUGE difference in almost every way–recruiting and admissions process and protocol, strength (and length!) of schedule, etc. Playing DIII allows for many varsity athletes to compete in more than one sport (and many do), at the DI level this is much harder to do.

Many of the athletes I know at Williams (including myself) CHOSE to play at the DIII level rather than DI–not because we weren’t good enough to play DI, but because playing DIII allowed us more freedom and options to do other things besides sports.

And jokes as we all know… are no laughing matter.

Piggybacking on RyPay’s point, what makes an exceptional artistic or musical student with an academic rating of 3 or 4 different from an exceptional athletic student?

If we’re going to cut down on athletic tips, then to be fair, let’s also cut down on drama/art/music tips as well. Last I checked, there were a lot more people at football games than at on-campus concerts, student art exhibitions, or dramatic performances.

I’m not saying these people don’t bring value to the school, but I fail to see how tipping in favor of them can be distinguished from athletic tips outside of “personal preference”.

(I’m still waiting for a statute of Ephraim Williams carved from elephant dung and submerged in urine. Art — ask for less!)

Loweel writes:

[W]hat makes an exceptional artistic or musical student with an academic rating of 3 or 4 different from an exceptional athletic student?

The artists don’t get in! How many times do we have to go through this? The only 4s that are admitted in large numbers are tips and URMs. Period. There may be a handful of artists/musicians that get in with 3s, but, overwhelmingly, there are more than enough applicants in these categories among the 1s and 2s. Williams does not give more preference to say, an applicant with great art credentials than it does to an applicant with great science credentials.

The number of applicants who would have been rejected were it not for art/music is very small. The number of applicants who would have been rejected were it not for tip or URM status is in the neighborhood of 100.

RyPay writes:

Regarding the comment preferring a 4-4 team with 1400 SATs to an 8-0 team with 1200 SATs, this is just stupid. Why stop at athletics? Why not hold students whose talents are in the Arts to a higher standard and for that matter minorities and foreign students?

Well, stupid is as stupid does. Foreign students are held to a much higher standard. The average SATs of, say, all the students that sing a Capella or participate in theatre or play in the symphony is as high or higher than the student body as a whole. They do not receive a meaningful break in admissions because they are well-represented among the Academic Rank 1s and 2s.

For many of us, the ideal would be similar to the NESCAC policy on student-athletes: they should be “representative’ of the student body as a whole. The same is true for actors, artists, musicians, science majors, singers, legacies, prep school graduates and many other campus groupings. That is, compare the SAT/grade distribution of each sub-group to the campus as a whole and the distributions look the same, more or less. Students who participate in these activities or have these characteristics are “representative” of the student body as a whole.

The same has not been true of tips in the past. That appears to be changing. Will it ever be true of URMs? My guess is Yes, but not anytime soon.

In response to “Dave Barnard needs to stop whining about how his team doesn’t win. I can’t believe this is coming from a coach at the school with the most successful DIII sports program for the better part of the last decade.”

In what sports? Check out which teams scored for Williams in the Sears Cup standings the past 10 years. How many major team sports are scoring for Williams? Track, swimming, golf, tennis & cross country are individual sports that provide almost all the scoring for Williams over that time span. Besides the athletes, does the student body care how these teams do? Soccer, basketball, hockey, football, lacrosse, and baseball drew the largest crowds and were strongly supported on campus by the student body. However, other schools have caught up to or passed Williams in these team sports which is really what “The Blade” pointed out (he never once mentions individual sports). How can Williams be considered one of the most successful when their most visible sports, which happen to be all team sports, are getting worse?

David, How many Acappella and theater teams are there on campus? The fact that Williams carries numerous athletic teams with large rosters will lead to a disparity regarding the number of 3s and 4s admitted. As for foreign students, how many have heard of Williams and actually apply? Compare this to Harvard, Princeton, and Yale and you will see there is no comparison. Williams isn’t the global brand name that students and alumni make it out to be. Outside of the Northeast, you would be hard-pressed to find people that have heard of Williams in THE UNITED STATES nevermind abroad. I am sure many of the students abroad that apply to Williams would fit they mold of an upper class, New England prep school student if they lived in the US only with the added bonus of foreign citizenship for the admissions board. As for now, I believe they are held to similar standards for admission as athletes but just not in quantity. When Williams becames a global name and more International Students apply, then we can revisit this argument as to how many international students get in on their international status as compared to athletes.

In response to MikeyD223 who wrote:

“From my year, the athletes are faring much better than the geeks (from a financial standpoint). Many have already secured vice-president positions at top I-banking firms.”

Actually, this claim is BLATANTLY false. The group that fairs the absolute best (relative to its size) in the i-Banking recrouting are not athltes, but international students. There are couple of reasons for this:

The only firms that will sponsor an international student at Williams for a US work visa after graduation are investment banks, because they are the only firms with resources and willingness to go through that lenghty and expensive process. Thus, internationals students overwhelimgly apply for iBanking jobs.

Furthermore, International students have higher SATs than the US students (and MUCH higher SATs than tips) due to the shameful quota that williams has for the internationals, which makes it so hard for them to get to Williams in the first place. Many of them are also very active in student government and such.

Thus, every January when JPMorgan, Goldman, Lehman come to recruit at Williams, they are inundated with the resumes of international students who are “quant”/econ majors, who have high SATs/GPAs, and who had a leadership position in a student organization. They also get resumes from “jocks” whose main selling point is a place in some atletic team. (Overall, international students and athletes are the only two clearly distinguishable groups at Williams who apply for these jobs).

Now, who do you think fares better (i.e. who is more likely to get hired)?

I know that in the recruiting seasons in recent years, the international studets were the first to get hired for the top jobs, and only once they were out of the job marketplace, did the top firms move down the food chain on to hiring athletes.

In a nutshell: if you worry about the financial well-being of the college, admit more int’l students and less “low-band” athletes.

To make such a sweeping accusation like that is ridiculous. Where do you get your statistics from? Let me guess, shot in the dark, you are/were an international student? How did I know? Well in fact something you didn’t know about “jocks” is that we can also read minds and predict the future.

You wrote:

“I know that in the recruiting seasons in recent years, the international students were the first to get hired for the top jobs, and only once they were out of the job marketplace, did the top firms move down the food chain on to hiring athletes.”

Are you kidding me with this? Did you have some terrible experience when you were at school of a football player stealing your lunch money and now you finally feel comfortable venting your frustrations as you hide behind your computer?

Also, if we go back in the last 10 years and looked at the occupations of those who gave the most money to the school, you think we would find international students? You said yourself that there are such a limited number of them anyways.

Just so you know, if you are still in school, iBanking firms don’t just look at GPA and SAT scores. That is why they have the interview process. They want somebody who can be a leader, who is able to articulate themselves well, who has the whole package. Just because you are an international student and have high SAT’s doesn’t guarantee you an iBanking job.

And while we are on the subject, when did iBanking become the only way someone can become financially successful and thereby contribute to the annual giving of Williams College? I run my own business now two years out of school and I was an athlete with low SAT scores how does this happen according to your logic? I strongly disagree with your whole point and urge you to back it up with statistical evidence. And use spell check.

I grow increasingly weary of the constant fetishization of international students that goes on around here. As far as I can tell, the argument goes like this:

a) internationals have higher GPAs.
b) internationals are consequently more worthy.

This may be so precisely because of the selection pressures that are brought to bear. If we can select the top .001% of the international community, they damn well better be of high quality. I’d expect nothing less.

In any case: how deep is the international talent pool?

MikeyD223 is hysterical. I am crying right now. Coming in as a low band athlete does not mean the student continues comes to Williams and proceeds to do poorly. Anybody who gets to Williams and graduates in the bottom of their class is not going to get coveted I-Banking jobs. I work at one of the I-banks you mention. I can tell you that there are many internationals working here mainly in I-Banking Operations. As a whole, white American males dominate the landscape, top to bottom, in the sheer number of hires at I-Banks. Many of them athletes. These are also the men that occupy many upper-management positions as they are extremely competitive and understand the value of team work. I-Banking provides an extremely competitive, social environment similar to that of sports that allows them to feed their competitive drive. When you spend 70 to 100 hours a week working alongside your colleagues, management is most likely to higher someone with similar experiences and background. It’s just a fact.

Apologies to MikeyD223. Previous post was directed at the anonymous poster who is too scurrrd to show his identity.

Graham wrote:

“I run my own business now two years out of school and I was an athlete with low SAT scores how does this happen according to your logic?”

Actually Graham, by far the most successful business started by a Williams students in the last 10 years is xuqa.com started by three Williams international students (one Nigerian, and two Pakistanis). For more info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuqa

I guess that while you were at Williams, you could have learned a thing or two about entrepreneurship from the internationals.

Do non-tipped International applicants really have higher SATs than non-tipped, non-URM American applicants? Can you provide a source for this? For that matter, do you know that the rest of their application is comparable? My guess is that it wouldn’t be–internationally, pressures to participate in extracurriculars are far less than in the US.

Furthermore, do (non-tipped) International students have higher average GPAs at Williams than (non-tipped, non-URM) Americans? Can you provide a source for this?

Finally, the anonymous poster claims they participate in CC and in other leadership ways around campus more than US students. My experience around campus is that this isn’t the case. I wouldn’t say international students are less involved…but I also definitely wouldn’t say they’re more involved either.

AOL was pretty successful too. You may have heard of it. Maybe you should not brag about a company and then post a Wiki entry that is littered with scandals. It is also a ripoff of all the other sites that came before like myspace.com. It is nice to know that the most successful business by international students was unoriginal. I here Ebay is popular, maybe I should make a crappier version of that.

In the future, please do some actual research before you characterize your delirious opinions as fact.

You make absolutely no sense. Please stop whining and make a case that has some evidence. I never once said that I started the most successful company of any graduate in the last 10 years. Congratulations to those students who started xuqa.com.

What are you doing with your Williams degree currently? Obviously hiding behind an anonymous identity on a website making petty, unsubstantiated claims about athletes. Show us what you are doing with your life and detail your academic record with all of your campus involvement, please.

It all comes down to what kind of school you want to attend. You can kick all the athletes out and slowly homogenize the student population until you have your completely academic utopia (see Swarthmore) or you could stop whining and let Williams continue the unparalleled tradition of boasting the best of all worlds as it has for the last two centuries. Swarthmore has become a punch line since they created their witch-hunt for athletes as you all propose to do. What happened to their academic standing after that? Right to third place baby, WAHOOO! I am not saying that getting rid of athletes has a direct correlation to increased academic standing, but streamlining your student body to make everyone equal is unrealistic and stupid.

If you hate the way it is, maybe you should have gone to Swarthmore or some other stagnate institution where you can learn in peace without all of us athletes. But leave my college alone, and by the way I am bigger than you and know where you live.

All of the following are true, I think.

1) We aim for an atmosphere of civility on EphBlog, even on contentious issues. Try saying your post out loud as if we were all in the room together. If it sounds too harsh, you might consider rewriting it. (I forget this lesson too much myself.)

2) Although anonymous posters are welcome, it would be helpful if you could pick a name of some sort so that people might respond to you directly. Also, do not be surprised if strong opinions expressed anonymously are mocked or ignored. The more honest that you are about your identity, the more seriously people will take your views.

3) Instead of thinking/talking in terms of just “investment banking,” it is probably more helpful to use “finance.” Many of the most successful Ephs of the last few decades have gone into finance — everything from venture capital, to private equity, to banking, to hedge funds. Investment banking is just a subset of this larger world, and not the most remunerative one.

4) No one that I know of has done a close study of how Ephs fair in the job market nor of what attributes correlate with large alumni giving. Good thesis topics both! (Abigail Whitbeck ‘05 may have done something with alumni giving, but her thesis is no where to be found.)

5) In broad terms, both RyPay and the unnamed commentator are correct in their statements. Lots of international students and lots of athletes go into finance from Williams. Lots of both types of students also do not, both because they have no interest and because they have trouble landing a job. It is very hard to make statements about which students are “more” successful without better data about how many succeed, how many try and how many would have tried if their (preceived) chances had been better.

Where’s the princess bride reference?

There are no unconditional, invariable and eternal truths on the internet. It is perilous to behave as if there were.

Too bad, I was hoping for some playful allusions.

Anyways, if we switched into the Ivy League, then Holt and Dan Austin would have some real competition.

So many questions!

How many Acappella and theater teams are there on campus?

Lots, right? I thought that something like 100 (?) students were in active singing groups. Add together all the students who are active (many hours a week) in singing, dancing and music and you probably have a number similar in magnitude to the number of tips on campus.

As for foreign students, how many have heard of Williams and actually apply?

Hundreds, although I can’t find a recent citation.

[H]ow deep is the international talent pool?

Very. And getting deeper every year. Knowledgable people have claimed that, if Admissions office could not observe citizenship, Williams would be at least 1/3 international.

Do non-tipped International applicants really have higher SATs than non-tipped, non-URM American applicants? Can you provide a source for this? For that matter, do you know that the rest of their application is comparable?

Furthermore, do (non-tipped) International students have higher average GPAs at Williams than (non-tipped, non-URM) Americans? Can you provide a source for this?

Please check the links that I provided above. International enrollees have better credentials and, unsurprisingly, do better academically. Check the Phi Beta Kappa listings.

Where’s the princess bride reference?

My comment 2) in the original post. On a personal note, the first movie that my wife and I went to was The Princess Bride at Images, 18 years ago. She knew that I would love it.

David-

I looked through the links but I couldn’t find any information regarding SATs of international applicants or SATs of non-tipped, non-URM US applicants. Could you possibly link directly to that information?

I also could not find any information regarding the general credentials of international students. As we all know, high school SATs and GPAs are only a small part of the overall picture…without knowing what sorts of EC activities international applicants are participating in, it’s really impossible to compare this pool to the pool of American applicants. Do you have information regarding the average academic rating of internationals? How about the average extracurricular ratings? How about the typical number and distributions of attribute flags they receive from the admissions office? Without these data, comparisons aren’t particularly meaningful.

Finally, I don’t find the links you posted regarding International student’s supposedly superior performance while at Williams particularly convincing. As Diana pointed out, International students are more likely to be d3 majors than US students, and consequently are more likely to be PBK. Furthermore, groups of 4 or 6 Internationals (out of 26 or 76 or whatever total PBK) are not a large enough group to be statistically meaningful. From what I saw it seems like the class of 2005 does not have more international PBK than would be expected. It would be foolish to make assumptions about the strength of the international students at Williams simply based on the fact that one year (or even two or three), 3 more international students were PBK than would be “expected.”

If we’re trying to measure “performance” at Williams, I believe PBK is a rather poor way of doing it. We should really be looking at the entire grade distribution, and comparing like-students to like-students. In other words, we should be comparing internationals with non-URM, non-tipped, non-legacy USA students…which if I’m not wrong make up less than half of the class. Based on the data we have, we should consequently expect to see International students relatively evenly distributed among the top 40-50% of the class, falling a little more heavily at the extremes (because as previously discussed, d3 majors tend to get grades more towards the extremes). From an International class NOT affected by admissions bias, we should expect to see international students ranging from slightly below average, to PBK, with a slightly higher than average proportion falling under PBK (15-20%, rather than the 12% otherwise expected). I would bet that if you look at a 5-year average of grade distributions at Williams, you’d find results very similar to this.

All of this said, I think that even grades are not a complete indicator of “performance” at Williams. While I think that there is something commendable about being the class Valedectorian, or being recognized PBK, I wouldn’t say that these students “performed” better than, say, the Lindsay Paynes of Williams. I am personally far more impressed by the students at Williams who are extracurricularly active while maintaining good GPAs, than by those who have the absolute highest GPAs at Williams. I find it ludicrous to judge someone who graduates from Williams with a 4.1 GPA who participates in few-to-none EC and rarely leaves the library a more “succesful” student than one who graduates from Williams with a 3.7 GPA, is the principal violinist of Berkshire symphony, and is extremely active in both Lehman and CC.

Am I trying to argue that International students are less likely to play in Berkshire Symphony, or serve on Lehman, and consequently are less “succesful” students? No! I don’t have the data on this. However, I would bet a significant amount of money that when ALL of the factors judging the relative “success” of a student are accounted for, International students do NOT outperform national students at Williams (I think that the groups’ respective performances are probably pretty equivalent).

What I am trying to argue is that it is silly to make as many assumptions on International Students’ applications and performance at Williams as you do based on the little amount of incomplete data you possess.

I agree with current Eph. This is one of the reasons I was intense in my last few posts with regard to annonymous, making wild claims with no data to back it up. My time at Williams being a two sport athlete was difficult. Ask the Valedectorian to go to class all day, then practice from 3:30 to 6:30, try to eat dinner, then have films, meetings and workouts to deal with and somehow make it to Schow and get enough sleep to do it all again the next day.

They way I see it, Williams athletes in season take 5 classes and the fifth is as or more intense than any class at Williams. I know an easy retort to this would be that it is a sport and has no intellectual value therefore holds less importance. But who are you to say that your extra 5 hours a day studying the human genome is any more valuable than the leadership and teamwork skills that I learned at practice?

If we were to stich lives for a month in season I would bet you’d be singing a different tune. My point is athletes deal with a lot more than people think. Yes it is a game that we love to play but why should that discount its validity as a vital part of the Williams experience? You try living my life for a month and see if you can keep up your 4.1 GPA. Regardless of what you say I am proud of my above average GPA while in school which according to many I shouldn’t have been able to manager as a low-band admit.

Great points Current Eph as I did not see any relevant info in David’s links either. The point about the majority of International Students taking d3 courses is also thought provoking. Thanks Diana.

David,

I am pretty sure that singing in the shower or dancing at First Fridays after a few beverages doesn’t count. So I don’t believe that the number of Arts majors is comparable to the number of athletes.

1)As for foreign students, how many have
heard of Williams and actually apply?

Hundreds, although I can’t find a recent
citation.

2)[H]ow deep is the international talent
pool?

Very. And getting deeper every year.
Knowledgable people have claimed that, if
Admissions office could not observe
citizenship, Williams would be at least 1/3
international.

With over 6 billion people abroad, you would think more than hundreds have heard of Williams.

For arguments sake, let’s say that the US pop is 300 million and everywhere else is 6 billion. Let’s assume that the amount of college aged students is the same proportion. You mean to argue that internationals are smarter even though they outnumber Americans by 20 to 1 and would only be 1/3 of the Williams class? This is a rhetorical question.

Go Ephs!!

Williams is an institution that prides itself on its rare combination of academic AND athletic excellence. From what I have been reading, some people simply don’t understand this. Why stop at athletics? Next thing you know there will be a push to ban alcohol, chocolate, and minorities.

A couple of points:

First, if Coach Barnard is correct about the SAT scores of Williams students, even our “pulls,” both in absolute terms and vis a vis the rest of the conference, then I am going to claim victory in the argument we had a few weeks back.

Second, Dave writes: “2) The first comment (with a useless link to an off topic Slate article) barely merits reply. If you don’t see how SATs predict academic success at Williams and elsewhere, then you need to read more. Start with Jen Doleac’s thesis and then move on to Lindsey Taylor’s. If all else fails, ask Morty. He’ll explain it to you.”

I’d strongly suggest that if you are going to condescend to someone rather than to engage with them, you ought to have your condescension be ironclad. the fact is, most studies have not shown a direct correlation between SAT scores and academic successes, and what correlation there is has been shown to derive from demographics of the students high school and town of residence. It is great that we can cite as ironclad evidence a couple of Williams theses (!!!) I’d suggest looking at Princeton university professor Jesse Rothstein’s 2003 article in the Journal of Econometrics. Derek Bok and William Choy, past presidents of Harvard and Princeton respectively, concluded in their book “The Shape of the River” that for minorities the SAT is not the best predictor. As Lani guinier has pointed out, girls score 50 points less on average than boys do on the math portion of the SAT, yet perform comparably well in math classes at college. Muhlenburg College did a study a few years back in which it followed the performances of its students who had 1200 SATs and those who has 1000 — guess what? No discernible difference, ergo, no predictive value for the SAT.

I have been unable to find Morty’s countervailing scholarship to the contrary. Furthermore, what studies are out there are not relevant to my point: Debate the issue. Don’t simply dismiss someone by saying they need to “read more” and that their assertion about socioeconomics barely warrants a response, especially when PhD’s who have decided to study such things (and who presumably read a whole lot more than you about these things, access to Williams senior theses or not) have sided with those you seem so set to dismiss.

dcat

Derek, what do you mean by “direct correlation”? The phrase is meaningless! The examples you point out show no causation, not no correlation.

A correlation, by definition, cannot be disproven merely by the experiences of Muhlenburg College at one point over a 200 pt. range of scores, or the ways in which Lani Guinier fudges the data and the sample to ignore the fact that the sample of men and women is not constant across math classes, as even at Williams, there are substantially fewer women in the harder and upper level math courses than men.

You may need to revisit your STAT 101.

I think you misread Derek’s point as trying to make an ironclad comment of its own rather than simply re-open a particular debate. He’s saying that dismissing the first comment out of hand is foolish, as there are studies that support both claims that SAT scores have value and that they don’t.

You might need to revisit Textual Interpretation 101. Or whatever.

to continue the trend of people defending groups that have somehow been brought into this back and forth, there are a lot of art and music students. Considering sports are not a major but an extracurricular activity, then people in Sankofa, NBC, Combo Za, an a cappella group etc. should be deemed “art and music” type students.

Also, I find the argument that being in a sport is equivalent to a class somewhat tenuous. I do not deny that sports are a particularly intense extracurricular (i did play lax in high school), but classes are the only requirement in the college, not extracurriculars. As such, in Williams’ eyes, classes have a particular importance, regardless of how much time one does or does not spend on classes, that is the only ritual one must experience while at williams.

And, further, who are you to say that your five hours at a sport are more meaningful than my five hours dancing, or my friend’s five hours on CC, etc. Classes are more important, they are the basic building block of the college. They might not be more important for your personal growth (and, i’d argue, in most cases, are definitely not), but they are the central piece of the puzzle in the college’s eyes.

Did you just answer my question with the same exact question?

Williams has an athletic requirement to graduate whether it is playing on a varsity team or participating in weight training, yoga, etc… I don’t remember the exact number of credits though.