Sat 16 Feb 2008
From College Confidential:
I spend a lot of time around Williams as a local and an interested applicant. Here’s what I’ve heard from admission information sessions (i’ve attended three this summer…since they all provide somewhat different details)
It doesn’t to help be a legacy anymore. Last year…they only took legacies that were going to be admitted anyway. Part of the problem is that they have significantly more legacies applying than ever before. So unless your parents will be donating a building…
This is consistent with my analysis. Unsophisticated applicants sometimes take heart from the fact that the admission rate for legacies is much higher than that for non-legacies. This (true) statistic results, I think, from the Admissions Office giving a “heads up” to legacy applicants about their chances. Williams will tell a legacy with no hooks and 1300 SATs not to bother to apply. A non-legacy with the same statistics and, therefore, zero chance, will be allowed, even encouraged, to send in an application.
February 16th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Oh, bullspit.
They only take anyone who is “going to be admitted anyway”. That’s the point. There are two or three or four or five fully qualified applicants who could have been taken for each slot. The advantage a qualified legacy has is that he or she gets the slot and some other qualified kid doesn’t. That is no small advantage.
I have no problem with that. To deny that being a legacy is a major admissions advantage at Williams (or any other liberal arts college) is silly.
February 16th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
If it doesn’t help to be a legacy anymore, why does Williams College state on its Common Data Set filing that alumni relationship is one of the things considered?
I’ve never known Williams to misrepresent itself in any way, shape, or form on its Common Data Set filings.
February 16th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
hwc,
I don’t think that we disagree about the facts.
1) Some categories of students at Williams (e.g., football starters, African American students) have high school academic credentials (SAT scores and grades) that are significantly lower than those for other students. I would say that these students have a “major” advantage, but feel free to suggest a different word.
2) Other categories of students (e.g., non-stars on track and swimming, legacies) have high school academic credentials that are largely indistinguishable from the other students at Williams. That is, the average SAT score of legacies at Williams is the same as that of non-legacies. The average high school rank of runners and swimmers is the same as non-athletes. (If you disagree with these as empirical claims, please say so.) I would say that, at best, these categories of students win the tie-break. That is, if choosing between equally qualified applicants, the admissions office will (perhaps) give the nod to these categories. I consider this “small to non-existent” admissions advantage. Feel free to suggest a different term. But, whatever phrase you prefer should be coherent with the one you suggest for football players. Different groups receive different preferences and the language we use should reflect that.
3) How big is the advantage given to legacies? It all depends on your point of view. If you are one of the applicants for whom being a legacy is the difference between being accepted and rejected then, obviously, the advantage given to legacies is infinite as far as you are concerned. If you want to call that a “major admissions advantage,” then fine. But what phrase will you use for the advantage for football players and African American applicants?
4) I think that a better way to measure advantage is to see how different the admissions results would be if you turned off the advantage. For example, there are 65 or so legacies in the class of 2011. How many would have been admitted anyway if there were no legacy advantage? Probably at least 30 and closer to 50. Of course, the tie-break advantage means the world to those students who get in because of it. But many/most legacies at Williams would be admitted even if they were not legacies.
Now, do the same exercise for football players. There are about 18 football players in each class. How many would have been admitted if there were no edge for football players? A handful at most. The same applies to African American students.
Again, the point is not that these policies are good or bad. I actually suspect that you and I agree about what admissions should be more than we disagree. The point of this comment is to establish what the current policy is.
February 16th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
dkane:
You and I are approaching this from diametrically opposed conceptual frameworks. You are approaching admissions from the framework of a given set of empirical measures (test scores, etc.) and those who get accepted below this range are getting a boost.
I don’t look at admissions that way. It is clear that, for the most part, the stats of the applicants at Williams are quite similar to the stats of the enrolled class at Williams. In other words, take out the 10% misguided applications and everyone who applies could be accepted. The stats become largely meaningless.
To me, the whole game is which stack does your app end up in? If you get lucky, you end up in a short stack. For example, the pile of applications from African Americans or from 300 pound football players is pretty small at Williams. So those are favorable stacks. The pile of applicants from affluent white families whose parents went to hoity-toit colleges like Williams is a mile high. Most applicants with the characteristics of legacies (lily white, suburban, yadda yadda) start out in a very unfavorable stack — a dime a dozen. Being a legacy moves an applicant from one of the most disadvantageous stacks to a much more advantageous stack with a real leg up over the thousands of cookie cutter apps from white bread kids from places like Newton or Scarsdale or Shaker Heights.
February 16th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
hwc: When I was admitted to Williams, I lived about 5 miles from Shaker Heights. Do you think that worked against me?
February 16th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
frank:
No, not unless you were from the other side of the tracks.
When you were accepted to Williams, there weren’t separate stacks of applications yet. Maybe a few Jews (but just a few), but no black, no Latino people, and, good god, certainly no women.
The two admissions eras are really not comparable in any way.
February 16th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
If I wasn’t from the other side of the tracks, then I was pretty close.
February 18th, 2008 at 7:21 am
As hwc says, being a legacy has definite advantages, but not in the way David thinks about the situation.
The pre-application interview can give students a realistic assessment of where they stand, and allow them access to an extremely knowledgeable admissions professional who can suggest other colleges that might be a better fit, if appropriate. Except with the very strongest and very weakest candidates, this won’t produce a sparkling clear “read” but it will give indications (i.e., “I’d like to see SATs that were in the X-Y range” means it’s certainly not a good sign if the applicant’s scores are significantly below X, and clearly suggests the merits of a retake and perhaps some test coaching). It can produce a lot more transparency than the applicant is likely to get anywhere with which he or she doesn’t have an alumni or other special connection. For the applicant who is unlikely to get into Williams, the counseling about better fits can be invaluable.
Even more importantly, having legacy status essentially serves to shift the burden of proof. If a legacy applicant is denied admission, Admission has to be clear why. Every well-qualified legacy whose application hits Stetson Court amidst a flood of other highly-qualified applications can know that his or her application will be very carefully read and there will be a sort of informal institutional double-check before he or she is deferred or wait-listed. (Having a very careful read can be a large advantage. Admissions officers try to read every folder very carefully, but they are only human. I’ve often sat on committees that had to choose amongst huge volumes of applications for this or that and I can attest that attentions flag, small factors can be blown out of proportion, and it is difficult to maintain consistent standards amidst a task that calls for weighing multiple dissimilar factors.) Put very crudely, Admission has to decide against a legacy applicant to whom it does not offer admission (harder), while it just has to fail to decide for applicants lacking a preference to whom it does not offer places (much easier).
I know that Admission handles legacies very carefully because I have heard of a number of alumni who received calls from Admission to warn them that the letter that was in the mail to their child was not an acceptance. Not all legacy parents whose children are receiving deferrals or wait listing get these calls, but it seems a common practice where applicants had the legacy interview and came out of it knowing they were in the “maybe” pile and applied anyway, and particularly so where a sibling is a current Williams student.
As to why such a high percentage of legacy applicants is admitted:
- the legacy interviews and alumni parents’ general familiarity with Williams admissions stats discourage a lot of unqualified or less-than-highly-qualified legacies from applying;
- many of the legacies who do apply are often highly-qualified, but, while their equally highly-qualified peers may look for the Ivies and other brand names or Big State U, these kids know about liberal arts colleges because one or more of their close relatives attended Williams; had this not been the case, they, too, might have looked more towards the better known (or lower tuition) schools;
- legacy children may be more likely than their high school peers to have interests that clearly fit well with Williams; outdoorsy alumni who love the New England mountains, value a liberal arts education, and so forth are likely to raise their children with similar interests and values;
- the legacy children are also likely to know a lot more about Williams than the average applicant (particularly one who is applying to a dozen schools as seems to be the fashion these days); it’s probably a lot easier to prepare a wonderful, targeted application to a college you’ve visited for reunions, heard warm stories about since you were in an Eph onesie and hugging a stuffed purple cow, and have a depth of knowledge about than it is to a college where you did tour #17 out 25 over spring break and find one website looks like another; result: these kids’ applications undoubtedly make them look like especially good fits — Williams Admission always says it is looking for applicants who will take advantage of what Williams has to offer, so I would think that applicants who know in depth what Williams has to offer would be greatly advantaged in trying to make a convincing case for themselves; and
- many of the legacies, being the children of active, outdoorsy parents, are also very fine athletes, which gives them another boost (even if it is “only” that an assistant coach makes certain that all of the parts of the applicant’s application are in and properly filed on time and the assistant coach vouches for what a good fit the applicant would be and otherwise points out the applicant’s strengths to the team’s liaison in the Admission Office).
February 18th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
I know the Williams admissions question is both controversial and old and tired. So somewhat reluctantly, I am going to add some aspects of my point of view. I admit that I am an older alum and one whose children have been through the college admissions process. Unfortunately for me, none have gone (or even applied) to Williams although they grew up in the home of a once-faithful and involved Williams grad. As Williams has changed, so have I, and I am afraid I am not always in total agreement with where Williams has come out.
Reading the EphBlog, it is clear that Williams gives preference to athletes and minorities and other “kinds” of candidates it wishes to over-represent in the student body. It clearly does not weigh academic and intellectual potential equally for all candidates and it currently gives the smallest of preferences to legacy candidates, and then only when the legacy would otherwise be an admit (thus not a preference at all) or where all else is roughly equal, and sometimes not even then (because other biases of the admissions process can work against the legacy). Notwithstanding the fact that the tidy endowment which it uses to persuade many of its preferential admits was funded almost entirely by the parents and grandparents of its legacy candidates. But that’s another story.
Admissions criteria other than demonstrated academic performance and likelihood of success in life (however defined) are justified in the name of what appears to be Williams’ overarching admissions goal—yes, to create an intellectually capable community of the highest order, but one that is populated with athletes and other students who are “diverse” and who may not materially enhance but do not materially diminish the learning environment at the College.
It is also pretty clear that the definition of “diverse”, while undoubtedly well-understood in the Admissions Office, is not clearly spelled out for applicants or alumni. But it is pretty obvious by inference. I am going to address the “athletic” component of diversity in this blog. My thesis is that it may well be time to think about ending the admissions break for athletes. I don’t for a moment advocate not admitting athletes at all—I would simply require that they compete for admission on the basis of the same criteria as all other non-athlete applicants.
Athletes currently get a significant break. How else do you field thirty some odd teams and win Sears Cup after Sears Cup. Perhaps not all athletes who are admitted get a break, but many definitely do. It is a given, in terms of Williams admissions policy, that accomplished student-athletes are entitled to an admissions preference.
Let’s take football. Each year the football team tears up the NESCAC and earns little ol’ under-appreciated Williams some rare notice in the national press and even on national TV. However, at least anecdotally, it appears undoubted that most of the football team would not be admitted as students to Williams College if their football qualifications were ignored. So why prefer football players? Let’s be clear about one thing: Certainly not because they are excellent potential college football players. Of course none will play professionally after college. That is a given. But, it is equally true that not one of Williams’ preferential football admits would even be projected to play regularly on any Ivy League team, let alone on one of a hundred or so Division 1A teams that are far better than the Ivies. Why do I so believe? Because I have been deeply involved in high school sports and have met and known scores of high school student athletes. I have yet to meet one who would voluntarily step down to play at the D3 level if he or she could get playing time on a D1 team. Good young athletes just don’t do that. So why does Williams give admissions preferences to admittedly mediocre athletes?
Out of curiosity I looked at the best times of Williams swimmers this year and compared them to all college swimmers. Hardly one Williams swimmer could even “make” a D1 swimming team. Almost none could ever win a race at the D1 level. Almost all of Williams’ swimmers’ times are not among the top 200 in the nation in their event and the bottom half of the Williams team must be far below even that. Let’s face it: Williams swimmers may work hard and practice 5 (or more!) hours a day and end up beating Amherst swimmers, but with rare exceptions (ok, with occasional exceptions), they are not the same kind of national caliber candidates its non-athlete student applicants are expected to be. They are simply the best of a lower tier of athletes that cannot compete at a truly excellent, national level. Yet this is where Williams aspires to compete academically and each year a large number of athletes are given places that their academic and intellectual achievement and potential do not independently justify. And neither do their swimming credentials! This is true of each sport at Williams where there is an objective standard of achievement—a timed event. Swimming, cross-country running and skiing and track are the obvious examples. So are sports with national junior rankings like golf and tennis.
However, the same result is probably true in “untimed” and “unranked” sports like lacrosse and hockey. I believe it can be safely said that not one of the members of the Williams men’s hockey team would be at Williams if he could play on any–ANY–of the roughly 60 Division 1 men’s college hockey teams. Since there are about 25 men on a roster that means that there are about 1500 Division 1 college hockey players in the US who are deemed by the recruiters (whose livelihoods depend on their knowing what they are doing) to be better than even the best Williams player. Yet the Williams admissions office gives a preference to a player ranked (at best) No. 1501 over a candidate with not only better academic credentials but in all likelihood other credentials indicating future success in life. The same I am sure could be said about most of the athletes on the Williams lacrosse team, the baseball team and the basketball team. In sports like lacrosse the potential player pool is so small by national standards, that one has to wonder whether the kind of accomplishment that makes a player attractive to a D3 school is even noteworthy in the larger sense.
I am less familiar with women athletes, but I would be very surprised if any women softball players who are recruited by a Division 1 school would elect instead to play at Williams and I would be very surprised if any academically-qualified woman middle-distance runner with a time good enough to make the team at Stanford or Duke, or Georgetown or Vanderbilt, or Carolina or Virginia, would choose instead to come to Williams (not to mention the effect of athletic scholarships and the absence of merit scholarships). The result is—by definition—a second tier athlete who may well be admitted to Williams over a woman who is a clearly superior applicant in all other ways. I imagine that “potential player pool” issues for some women’s sports are even greater than on the men’s side. How many field hockey players or skiers or squash players are there in each national high school graduating class compared to women with 1500 SAT scores?
It is clearly not athletic “excellence” that is tipping the scales for these candidates, both men and women. And it is not academic excellence since by definition there are candidates with better grades, better scores and better teacher recommendations who are being rejected in favor of the athlete when the preference is applied. What is it then?
I believe the Williams admissions office, and by extension the faculty, administration and trustees, without explicitly saying so when admissions questions are raised, must believe that “small” athletic success in high school—a captaincy, a coach’s strong recommendation, local or league athletic honors and the like—even when they don’t add up to any kind of truly excellent athletic skill are more valuable to the college—on the margin—than higher grades and boards and a more demonstrable commitment to academics. And I will entertain the possibility that they may well be right. It may be that the qualities and results of “small” success in high school sports: a commitment to extensive training and time management, learning the value of teamwork and leadership, achieving success on the field or court, and dealing with injury, loss and other failure and adversity are important ingredients in making a “better” whole person who in the long run will reflect better on the college, however it chooses to measure its success. And thus the athlete may deserve to be preferred, in some cases, over candidates with skills and potential more largely seen and developed off the playing field. But only, I would suggest, if these criteria are clearly articulated and screened for, and not simply assumed to be present in the candidate who best qualifies athletically for a spot on the line-backing corps.
Even then I can’t help fearing this is the wrong result. And if not the wrong result, a result that is insufficiently proven to be the “right” result. I meet many graduates of Williams (and schools like Williams with similar biases) in my work place and it is all too evident when a product comes through that isn’t capable of the standard of excellence that I would expect from graduates of the nation’s best colleges. I am not for a second questioning the value of athletics or the intrinsic merit in participation in college athletics. I am simply wondering out loud, as we move further towards a more and more transparent meritocracy in all our nation’s affairs, if the admissions criteria for one of our nation’s leading liberal arts colleges shouldn’t be about overall excellence and potential and not include a preference for athletes who are merely capable of playing on its teams. Williams can still have teams. They should simply be composed of that number of student-athletes who are the very best Williams can attract and who want to continue their athletic careers in a way which is secondary to their academic commitment. If a student-athlete can compete on the “collegiate” tennis tour and still contribute academically, more power to her.
As Williams uses more and more of the income from the gifts of its loyal alumni over centuries to pay most of the cost of a Williams education for most of its students, I think an unambiguous standard of excellence is the least it owes to those who have gone before and given.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
To Questioning alum:
It is hard to know what to make of your very long, very certain, comment regarding the quality, or lack thereof, in the Williams Admissions process. But having recently experienced it with my frosh, I can assure you that Williams is a very difficult school in which to gain admission.
Whether the student fits your “diverse” definition, your “athletic component”, your “legacy candidate” (etc.), the Williams “standard of excellence” is far from ambiguous.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Re “They should simply be composed of that number of student-athletes who are the very best Williams can attract and who want to continue their athletic careers in a way which is secondary to their academic commitment.”
See the following letter to the editor (”Student athlete appreciates College’s academic focus”) from a CC co-president-elect/athlete/etc. (Jan.16, 2008 edition of the Record)
http://www.williamsrecord.com/wr/?view=article§ion=opinion&id=9469
And re “How many field hockey players or skiers or squash players are there in each national high school graduating class compared to women with 1500 SAT scores?” — what makes you think that none of the swimmers, runners, or other “players” haven’t scored 1500 on their SATs?
February 18th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
(grammatical error in my last sentence above — should have said “what makes you think that none of the swimmers, runners, or other players have scored 1500 on their SATs?”)
February 19th, 2008 at 1:17 am
Questioning Alum:
That was one of the most thoughtful essays on Div III athletic recruiting I’ve read. Kudos.
You have raised concerns that go right to the core issues threatening to blow up Div III athletics, issues that are forcing colleges to chose sides between academics and recruiting.
A related issue that you didn’t raise is that DIV III recruiting is almost exclusively white and higher socio-economic strata. Therefore, athletic recruiting undercuts the stated goal of elite colleges to increase both ethnic and socio-economic diversity.
February 19th, 2008 at 6:15 am
The air is so thick with misinformation and foolishness that one doesn’t know where to begin - so this one won’t.
February 19th, 2008 at 8:48 am
I agree with aparent and Frank. I don’t know the academic stats of all that many current Williams students but, where I do know a student athlete’s stats, the SATs are above 1500 (and in fact the testing across the board is nearly perfect for the students whose stats I know). These are students who compete in track and field, rowing, and swimming. I would imagine that Will Bruce of ice hockey and a number of other All-Academic types I don’t know personally have stats like that as well.
And, although I don’t know how common it is, I know current Williams students who were top junior-level players nationally, were recruited by big D 1 programs and Ivies, and who chose Williams for the chance to be scholar-athletes, still playing at a challenging level but having time for academics and maybe one other non-athletic interest, rather than having their sports overwhelm their academics and their lives.
I don’t have hard statistics but I believe that, when applied to Williams and to Williams scholar-athletes across the board (rather than focusing on the high-profile sports), the “facts” on which Questioning Alum bases his or her essay are often incorrect.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Frank,
I am taking my cue from you and ’slowly’ backing away from this one.
The idea that Williams is filled with students of sub-standard excellence? And that Athletics and Diversity are the reason for this?
Silly, silly argument …based on…zilch.
Aparent, Larry, hang in there.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
To hwc: thank you. I believe you are the only commenter who carefully read my note.
To the others: None of you have refuted my arguments regarding the unacceptability of preferences for athletes with facts.
I am not saying that some athletes don’t have qualifying academic records and high potential for success in life and should be admitted. They should. In fact I am very much pro-athlete in terms of valuing very highly the life skills that many athletes develop before college. I do not believe admissions decisions should be based purely on grades and boards. I believe Williams errs, for example, in not interviewing as many candidates as it can–both on and off campus. So that it can assess other qualities which can lead to success in life than grades and boards.
What I cannot any longer understand or support, however, is a system which “prefers” a number of candidates each year who are not superior athletes and, by definition, would not be admitted if not recruited. Again, if an athlete brings a package of skills to the table which the admissions committee assesses by the same standards applied to non-athlete candidates to be superior, I would admit the superior candidate who happens also to be an athlete. But if the athlete is otherwise inferior to non-recruited athlete candidates, but can fill a spot on a D3 field hockey team (for example) which is inferior to dozens of other teams in the country (ie almost all D1 teams), then I say the time is past condoning the admission of the inferior candidate.
I have heard the argument in the past that a number of Williams athletes who could compete at the highest level opt not to and choose Williams because they are attracted to the academics or want to play two sports. I suppose this may still be true in a handful of cases, but I challenge any one of you disbelievers to ask any Williams athlete you know if he or she would have gone to Williams if he or she had been recruited by a D1 school. I will be very surprised if more than one tells you he or she would have accepted Williams if he or she could have gone D1. Even if their D1 opportunity was academically less attractive than Williams. (Possible exceptions may be applicable to squash and skiing since they actually compete at the highest national level.)
So again, tell me exactly why Williams should accept a swimmer who couldn’t win a single race at a D1 college and who wouldn’t get into Williams if he weren’t filling a spot in backstroke?
(By the way it is easy to compare times for Williams swimmers, for example, with the best collegiate swimmers in the country. Go to http://www.collegeswimming.com and then to nescac.com. Which reminds me. I am not singling out Williams to the exclusion of its sister schools. I think the admissions policies of Williams peers are equally indefensible and I suspect the admissions preferences for some athletes at Ivy schools may be even less defensible. I am also not taking a position on the admission of a truly exceptional, national calibre athlete who would otherwise not be admitted on standard criteria.)
February 19th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
To hwc: thank you. I believe you are the only commenter who carefully read my note.
To the others: None of you have refuted my arguments regarding the unacceptability of preferences for athletes with facts.
I am not saying that some athletes don’t have qualifying academic records and high potential for success in life and should be admitted. They should. In fact I am very much pro-athlete in terms of valuing very highly the life skills that many athletes develop before college. I do not believe admissions decisions should be based purely on grades and boards. I believe Williams errs, for example, in not interviewing as many candidates as it can–both on and off campus. So that it can assess other qualities which can lead to success in life than grades and boards.
What I cannot any longer understand or support, however, is a system which “prefers” a number of candidates each year who are not superior athletes and, by definition, would not be admitted if not recruited. Again, if an athlete brings a package of skills to the table which the admissions committee assesses by the same standards applied to non-athlete candidates to be superior, I would admit the superior candidate who happens also to be an athlete. But if the athlete is otherwise inferior to non-recruited athlete candidates, but can fill a spot on a D3 field hockey team (for example) which is inferior to dozens of other teams in the country (ie almost all D1 teams), then I say the time is past condoning the admission of the inferior candidate.
I have heard the argument in the past that a number of Williams athletes who could compete at the highest level opt not to and choose Williams because they are attracted to the academics or want to play two sports. I suppose this may still be true in a handful of cases, but I challenge any one of you disbelievers to ask any Williams athlete you know if he or she would have gone to Williams if he or she had been recruited by a D1 school. I will be very surprised if more than one tells you he or she would have accepted Williams if he or she could have gone D1. Even if their D1 opportunity was academically less attractive than Williams. (Possible exceptions may be applicable to squash and skiing since they actually compete at the highest national level.)
So again, tell me exactly why Williams should accept a swimmer who couldn’t win a single race at a D1 college and who wouldn’t get into Williams if he weren’t filling a spot in backstroke?
(By the way it is easy to compare times for Williams swimmers, for example, with the best collegiate swimmers in the country. Go to http://www.collegeswimming.com and then to nescac.com. Which reminds me. I am not singling out Williams to the exclusion of its sister schools. I think the admissions policies of Williams peers are equally indefensible and I suspect the admissions preferences for some athletes at Ivy schools may be even less defensible. I am also not taking a position on the admission of a truly exceptional, national calibre athlete who would otherwise not be admitted on standard criteria.)
February 19th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
“tell me exactly why Williams should accept a swimmer who couldn’t win a single race at a D1 college”
Reason #1: Williams swimmers compete at the D3 level — not D1. No scholarships, no Olympic qualifying times — yet times faster even than D2 (which does award scholarships, but at institutions that are arguably academically inferior).
Reason #2: see again student-athlete oped in the 1/16/08 edition of the Record (or read it for the first time for an “answer” from an actual Williams swimmer) http://www.williamsrecord.com/wr/?view=article§ion=opinion&id=9469
Healthy body = healthy mind. And how about a question for you? Why is working out so popular even among the non-athletes who perform at such a high intellectual level at Williams?
February 19th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
“tell me exactly why Williams should accept a swimmer who couldn’t win a single race at a D1 college”
Reason # 1: Swimmers at Williams compete at the D3 level, not D1. No scholarships, no Olympic qualifying times – yet faster even than times in D2 (which does offer scholarships, but at arguably academically inferior institutions).
Reason #2: see again (or read for the first time) the 1/16/08 Record oped from a student-athlete at http://www.williamsrecord.com/wr/?view=article§ion=opinion&id=9469 for an “answer” from an actual Williams swimmer.
Healthy body = healthy mind. And how about a question for you? How do you account for the popularity of working out even among the non-athletes at Williams who perform at a high level intellectually?
February 19th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
(To moderator: please delete my duplicate post above)
February 19th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
to Questioning alum:
You state: “None of you have refuted my arguments regarding the unacceptability of preference for athletes with facts.”
No offense, QA, I can tell your comment was based on a lot of thought, and I respect that…but there wasn’t much fact behind it.
And, this is such an old argument on this blog site. It goes on and on and is never based on anything but opinion. Which, I might add, seems silly to me because Williams Admissions, and the accepted students, (athletes notwithstanding) seem to be succeeding with the existing formula.
You also state:
“I will be very surprised if more than one (athlete) tells you, he or she would have accepted Williams if he or she could have gone D1.”
QA, I work with high school kids. There is a vast difference between D1 and D3 athletics. VAST! All student-athletes are very aware of this difference. They are seldom recruited at both levels. If they have the athletic potential for D1, (and I personally know of a few) then they face a very difficult decision. Go to D1 where they will need to focus every ounce of their energy on a highly competitive (and unlikely to lead to a sports career) endeavor, probably sacrificing their academic thrust…
or go to a D3 school where they can focus on their education as well. Given the rarity of these circumstances, I still know of athletes who could have gone to a D1 school and chose a D3 instead…BECAUSE of the academics.
To add to all this, if they opt for a D3 school like Williams, they have to qualify. They are rarely considered for recruitment unless their SATs and/or GPA are of a standard that shows they can handle the academic workload. Now, I suspect, from the unrelenting rants I have heard on EphBlog, that there may be a few exceptions when it comes to a couple of key sports. But even then, it must be such a small percentage.
So, given all that, it seems to me, that the majority of student-athletes who have chosen Williams, have done so, because of the wonderful academic program. And the idea that they are willing to juggle the same workload that every Williams student takes on, while committing many, many hours to a sport they love, (which also BTW, adds greatly to campus life) says even more about what kind of individuals they are.
They should be commended for that, instead of hearing over and over on EphBlog, that they are not up to snuff.
As far as the “diverse” students “who may not materially enhance” the college? I will leave that up to Rory to counter. And hopefully, if he comes on soon enough, I can, maybe, forego being tarred and feathered by hwc.
February 20th, 2008 at 2:14 am
“I will be very surprised if more than one tells you he or she would have accepted Williams if he or she could have gone D1.”
Be surprised then. Be very surprised. Again, as I said before,
“And, although I don’t know how common it is, I know current Williams students who were top junior-level players nationally, were recruited by big D 1 programs and Ivies, and who chose Williams for the chance to be scholar-athletes, still playing at a challenging level but having time for academics and maybe one other non-athletic interest, rather than having their sports overwhelm their academics and their lives.”
I also know Williams alumni who fit that description as well.
You and I may be working on very different models, though. Almost all of the Williams students and recent graduates I know well are females. They often are very competitive (in both senses of the word: both in abilities and in attitude), but also have a balanced view of the place they want sports to have in their lives. Their collegiate sports records undoubtedly would be (/have been) more distinguished if they (had) put in the kind of time D 1 athletes do; their academic records would be (/have been) far less distinguished than they are (were) — and no junior semester away, no foreign summer travel/work, no voluntary thesis or honors project, no community service or singing group or whatever else it is they love, all things they don’t (didn’t) want to give up.
And I don’t think a lot of admissions preferences are going to any one of the women’s teams. (It might be interesting to know the gender breakdown of the 33 tips, arguably the only athletes who are getting in with “lower standards.”.)
February 20th, 2008 at 3:06 am
And I should say that, although I don’t know many of the men well, I would think that many would have an attitude like that of the Williams female athletes I know.
Few people would disagree with your proposition that, crudely put, Williams shouldn’t be admitting academically inferior/unqualified, athletically uncompetitive athletes. It’s kind of a false target. For the Williams sports I know well, I don’t see academically subpar students being admitted preferentially.
What I quarrel with is your implicit assertion that many Williams athletes are subpar academically and in terms of board scores (certainly not the ones I know!). Every time preferences come up, athletes in general get tarred, including implicitly the vast numbers who were in the top 50% of the admitted students pool by SAT scores (and some of whom are at the top of the pool).
And you have made assumptions as well about their athletic abilities and their priorities in choosing schools. I don’t follow the men’s sports all that much, but on the women’ side I know that Williams has quite a few really smart students who are very good athletes (and could have competed in D 1 - I know some of the coaches who recruited them, and have been interested to learn of their respect for the Williams coaches and for these kids’ choices) who chose Williams because they put their academics first. I’ll bet the same is true for many of the men, if one looks at all the teams, across the board.
Upon reflection, I’m not qualified to argue this. I think you must be talking only about all, or the academically most inferior, of the 33 tips because I don’t see that other applicants are getting in with significantly lower academic statistics because of their athletics. Since tips don’t seem to play a part on the teams I know about, and the athletes I know best were at the top of their admitted classes, I’m just talking oranges to your apples and our conversation will always be a baffling disconnect. No more from me.
February 20th, 2008 at 4:03 am
After reading aparent’s link and Larry’s thoughtful comment, I feel I should add to my earlier comment.
There are exceptions to much of what I stated. And, I don’t have the answers. And none of us have all the facts.
But I truly don’t understand the ongoing argument. What is ‘broken’? Where is the proof? Are there lots of Williams student-athletes flunking out? Not succeeding? Would it be better if Williams didn’t try for diversity (of skills and interests) in the student mix?
Most of all, I am just so tired of the insinuations that the athletes, (and the diversity students) are “sub-standard”. It is just such nonsense. Williams needs and wants to admit students who will do well. And so far, there doesn’t seem to be any proof that they aren’t accomplishing that.
February 20th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Frosh mom,
I find the idea that diversity improves the Williams community so obviously true as to not need to defend it against each and every pot shot it takes from those uncomfortable to see the status quo of Williams changed. Anyone unable to see that needs a lot more than my criticism on a blog. How to properly strengthen that diversity and the community is a topic for rich debate.
February 20th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Well put Rory.
Now, if only everyone could see that diversity is more than just racial and cultural; that having a mix of all kinds of students is not just the right thing to do, it also makes for a healthier, more dynamic campus…and world.
February 20th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
froshmom:
By making athletic recruiting the top priority (as evidenced by percentages of varsity athletes in each freshman class), Williams undermines its efforts to enroll a diverse class and reinforces a campus culture that the administration claims to view as problematic (based on the reports on athletics, diversity, and alcohol).
What happens is that the “white” segment of the enrollment tends to be uniform and homogeneous since the 40% of students who play varsity athletics come almost exclusively from the 64% of the students who are white. This explains the perception that the dominant social culture at the school is white, wealthy, and jock.
February 20th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
(The college tally is that 1/3 of the students are involved in varsity athletics /announcements to the campus give the percentage as 34%. It may be 40% at other smaller LACs.)
February 20th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
For the most recent year’s figures reported by Williams to the federal OPE:
39.3% of male Williams students were on at least one varsity sports team on the day of each team’s first contest of the year.
31.8% of female students were on at least one varsity sports team.
This does not include any of the JV teams. It does not include attrition of recruited athletes due to injury, study abroad semesters, etc.
February 20th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
“most recent year’s figures”
What year is that?
(39.3 + 31.8 /2 = roughly 35.55% as of some year in the past)
February 20th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Reporting Year:
7/1/2006-6/30/2007
February 20th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
hwc:
If you take a look at the Campus 2011 Facebook, I think you might be encouraged by what ‘appears’ to be a very diverse class.
As far as the “problematic campus culture”? In all my discussions with other parents of college freshmen, the drinking seems to be an issue everywhere. In fact, it seems to be a little less so at Williams. (Drugs are a whole other problem, especially on larger, urban campuses.)
When I have time, I am going to search for something I read when I was on campus last. It was a little story about ‘out of control’ drunken students, acting shamefully …only the incident took place many decades ago.
I think the problems are not new ones…slightly different, maybe, but age-old.
And maybe Admissions knows something we don’t know…that possibly the positive effects of an active athletic culture, (the diversion and engagement provided to such a small, out of the way campus like W) outweighs the negative.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
I don’t need to look at Facebook. Colleges publish their diversity stats. Williams is reasonably diverse racially, 36% non-white and/or international. That’s not top of the heap, but it’s more than respectable diversity.
I won’t bore you with the statistics. By all surveyed measures, Williams is most definitley not “a little less so”. In fact, it is well above national averages in terms of drunkeness.
BTW, urban colleges tend to have lower rates of drinking and drug use than rural colleges.
Nesbit and the professionals in the admissions office get Morty the class Morty wants.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Okay, tarring and feathering accomplished. UNCLE!
You win in the stats and facts department.
What do you do, anyway…to know so much about it? Campus security, is my guess.
Look hwc, thanks for the discussion. I’m just kidding about the tarring and feathering. All I can say is, the negative picture you paint, is not my perception, nor that of my frosh. And my discussions with other parents, are to me, a better measure than statistics and reports.
February 20th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Again: I do not suggest that any Williams student is “deficient” or “subpar” in any absolute sense. I would even say that any student who is engaged and contributing on campus is benefitting Williams. Including any such student who is a tipped athlete. To you parents: I am also sure your kids are wonderful kids and Williams is fortunate to have them. OK?
Here’s another attempt to at least make you understand my point.
Williams is one of the finest colleges in the country. It attracts an applicant pool which contains many more qualified students than can be admitted.
Why, under such circumstances would it admit the 1501st best hockey player in the country or a football player who is not talented enough to earn one of the 10,000 spots on division 1 football teams when it would not admit such candidate if it were not trying to fill a roster and not lose games. Please understand: if it would admit the candidate notwithstanding its need for a linebacker, I have no quarrel.
Yes Williams is already filled with wonderful kids–including your sons and daughters. More than most colleges. But I don’t think a college that is dedicated to excellence should make admissions decisions for any reason other than perceived excellence.
If Williams and its peer institutions stopped making admissions decisions to fill teams and considered objective quality alone (including all relevant criteria) I think Williams would be a better place. Not that it is a bad place today. It would simply be a better place. It could give Harvard a run for its money. Especially if Harvard continues to admit basketball players who wouldn’t have a chance of getting into Harvard if Harvard didn’t have a basketball team.
Look, over the past 45 years enlightened admissions departments at leading colleges have eliminated or reduced preferences for prep school kids, for men, for other private school kids, for alumni children, for “well rounded kids”, for whites, for Christians, for northeasterners, all because they simply cannot be justified in terms of the institutions succeeding in their core missions. I do not believe “preferences” for athletes can be justified either in an important national institution whose purpose is to admit and educate the very “best” students who apply. MIT and Caltech don’t tip athletes. Oxford and Cambridge don’t tip athletes. I don’t think any university in the world outside the United States tips athletes.
If you really think about it, why should Williams?
February 20th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Questioning Alum:
Tipping athletes is a de facto way of tipping white, male, prep school applicants to a degree that would not be “politically correct” if openly acknowledged. It’s a way of keeping the dominant campus culture true to the traditions of school while inviting diverse students to feel “welcome” in the Williams community.
February 21st, 2008 at 12:48 am
hwc:
Now I am thoroughly confused. I was under the impression that it was the “neanderthals” that were the bain of Williams, not the “white, wealthy, prep school” tips. Or are they one and the same?
Just trying to get it all straight…so I can warn my frosh to watch out for these animals.
February 21st, 2008 at 1:34 am
“MIT and Caltech don’t tip athletes.”
Again, you’re wrong.
And if Williams were not to consider athletic participation in its admission decisions, why then should it bother considering artistic, musical, theatrical, etc., participation in those decisions?
“tipping white, male, prep school applicants”
You’ve conveniently omitted the large female and public school components of the Williams student body in this inane assertion.
Face it, QA and hwc, you both can’t stand the fact that athletes (which you and your offspring are not) are at least as deserving of places at institutions like Williams as are non-athletes (like you and your children) who may likewise bring value to their college communities by their varied and spirited participation in them.
And because this conversation is being dominated by the misinformation of two hard-headed individuals with obvious axes to grind, I’m taking my cue from frank and Larry George and bowing out. In parting, I’d like to remind QA and hwc that the Williams of today is not the college either of you attended, lo these many years ago.
February 21st, 2008 at 1:48 am
I go back and forth on that question. I’m probably not a good person to judge because I bailed from campus life after two years, so my only real contact with the college for my final two years was academic.
Overall, I probably come down on the side that argues nothing has changed. I think it’s the same school.
February 21st, 2008 at 7:43 am
I am staying out of the substance of this, as promised. I’m still reading, however, and I’m wondering whether I’m reading posts from “Mini” and another alumnus poster (”IDAd”? I’m too pressed for time o look it up) from College Confidential.
February 21st, 2008 at 9:22 am
aparent:
Yee-ha! Now that’s what I call moxie! And it is to be admired.
Very well put indeed. Deserves to be on the “quote wall’ in some form or other.
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:20 am
Dear aparent:
Your inability to understand my argument is remarkable. You are free to agree or disagree but you should really try to understand it. But– its only a blog and its ok if you don’t understand it.
But your ad hominem disparagement of me as a non-athlete whose views are therefore not valid is inaccurate and really outrageous in a forum of ideas associated with a great liberal arts college.
You said: “Face it, QA … [you] can’t stand the fact that athletes (which you and your offspring are not) are at least as deserving of places at institutions like Williams as are non-athletes (like you and your children) who may likewise bring value to their college communities by their varied and spirited participation in them.”
Would you change your characterization of my views if you knew that I played varsity squash at Williams, that my daughter captained the field hockey team at a major New England prep school, that one of my sons played varsity golf at another prep school and another son was captain of hockey and lacrosse at his school, both All New England in hockey and All American in lacrosse, went on to an Ivy League school where he played both lacrosse and hockey and ended up All-Ivy in hockey and captain of the team. So I think your innacurate and gratuitous comments about me and my children are seriously out of bounds.
As I have said in both my posts, and as my and my children’s athletic accomplishments should demonstrate, I value athletics and athletes. Go back and read what I wrote. I value the life skills athletes develop and I would include the qualities of accomplished athletes (like evidence of perserverance and leadership, for example)in an ideal admissions policy. I would admit athletes who meet objective admissions criteria fairly applied to all candidates.
What I would not do is “prefer” a mediocre athlete over a superior candidate simply to fill a place on a Division 3 team. That simply overvalues the incremental importance of filling teams at the expense of the overall quality of the admitted class.
None of the somewhat hysterical reactions to my posts refute the logic of this simple proposition.
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:52 am
the concepts of “superior candidates” and “objective qualities” and “mediocre athletes” have not been well enough defined to make it worthwhile.
What type of candidate is williams losing that is doing harm to the college’s mission? What measure would properly identify said student? It is on you, as the one who wants change, to identify that in much more detail.
In other words–why not athletic ability as a piece of the admissions puzzle?
February 23rd, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Questioning Alum, I think your fundamental premise is wrong. I am confident that there are a LOT of athletes at Williams who could compete at the D-I level (at least at the Ivy / Patriot league level). Year in and year out, they prove it by beating (or competing evenly with) many Div-I teams in many sports, including track, swimming and diving, cross country, and tennis, just check the results. Williams has produced more professional soccer players in the past ten years than, I would gather, at least half of Division I programs out there. I’ve read (and posted) story after story of prospective athletes who were considering Div I schools and instead chose Williams. I’m not saying football guys at Williams could play for Oklahoma, but MANY of the tipped athletes could compete fairly early on for low-level Div I programs in quite a variety of sports, especially the individual sports. And of course, your same arugment applies to lots of Div I shools. No ivy school could compete in sports like football or basketball with Div I powers, so why should they bother to lower their standards for athletes in those sports at all? You seem to suggest that there are only two ways about it: get teh very best athletes or the very best students. How about a middle ground, folks who are in the top five percent of 18 year olds in both academics AND athletics? Because every tipped athlete at Williams, I guarantee, qualifies easily as such, which is pretty damn impressive.