Seeking Advice: Play up with grade for High School Years?

[Unregistered]

So can we basically figure that the soccer might make roughly a 200 point difference? Is it safe to say that means a child has to be somewhere north of 2000 on their SAT's to even consider one of the top half Ivy or Nescac schools? The next question is what is the soccer profile of the level of player the coaches at those schools are going to be looking for to give that 200 point concession to? Any player sitting on the bench player of a quality team? A starter but not a high profile player? An all-star level player? A youth national team player? How good does the player have to be for a coach at one of these highly ranked academic colleges to start considering whether to throw their support behind them with admissions?

The stronger the player the lower the criteria can be dropped. If your kid is going to be player #17 they better have great grades and you better have saved your pennies

[Unregistered]

Not so much. Knowing how to read helps, though. The 2040 figure for Tufts comes from kids who had an interest in the school. If you look a little closer you'll see averages for students who actually enrolled, and the average right there on your linked page comes to 2158. I'm sure you made the same error for Harvard.

Does it actually matter? Wasn't the point simply to quantify just how much assistance soccer is going to give? The last poster had it correct, a kid has to have a pretty significant academic resume in addition to having a fairly significant soccer resume if they are going to target the elite academic colleges.

[Unregistered]

The stronger the player the lower the criteria can be dropped. If your kid is going to be player #17 they better have great grades and you better have saved your pennies

Is #17 even going to get any consideration at all at one of those types of schools? My bet is you can be no worse than a mid line up starter (#4-#6) on a good team if you are looking for support at one of those types of schools.

[Unregistered]

All the schools will drop their standards for certain needs. It is called slotting. The process was described to me in detail by an admissions officer for a NESCAC school. Doesn't matter whether it is soccer, fencing, or the flugelhorn but these schools look at much more than just SATS and GPA. In fact GPA's are largely ignored these days from many schools due to grade inflation (think Newton . Weston etc...)

Not a big fan of the SAT but the Newton and Weston type scenarios are the reasons why the SAT would be more valued rather than less by some institutions. It gives a standard way to measure academic progress.

[Unregistered]

Is #17 even going to get any consideration at all at one of those types of schools? My bet is you can be no worse than a mid line up starter (#4-#6) on a good team if you are looking for support at one of those types of schools.

I know for a fact that #4-6 isn't getting much help from soccer at Harvard. What we were quoted was the SATs had to be north of 2100 to even be in the running for consideration. There also were no guarantees with that. Coach told us we would probably at best a second option but more likely third or fourth after factoring in their needs at other positions.

[Unregistered]

Is #17 even going to get any consideration at all at one of those types of schools? My bet is you can be no worse than a mid line up starter (#4-#6) on a good team if you are looking for support at one of those types of schools.

Oh, so now you are saying it is tough to play high level D3 and a high level academic D3?

[Unregistered]

Does it actually matter? Wasn't the point simply to quantify just how much assistance soccer is going to give? The last poster had it correct, a kid has to have a pretty significant academic resume in addition to having a fairly significant soccer resume if they are going to target the elite academic colleges.

So now that you were very clearly wrong it doesn't matter, LOL? And, yes, we've been trying to tell you for quite a while that getting recruited for a high level D3 requires being a very good player and also a very good student. Maybe you are finally catching on, or do you still want to talk about town and high school soccer doing the trick???

[Unregistered]

So now that you were very clearly wrong it doesn't matter, LOL? And, yes, we've been trying to tell you for quite a while that getting recruited for a high level D3 requires being a very good player and also a very good student. Maybe you are finally catching on, or do you still want to talk about town and high school soccer doing the trick???

and the obsession continues

[Unregistered]

...the reasons why the SAT would be more valued rather than less by some institutions. It gives a standard way to measure academic progress.

No, it doesn't. There's a literature on this. There is a modest correlation between SAT scores and only the first year of college performance.

[Unregistered]

So can we basically figure that the soccer might make roughly a 200 point difference? Is it safe to say that means a child has to be somewhere north of 2000 on their SAT's to even consider one of the top half Ivy or Nescac schools? The next question is what is the soccer profile of the level of player the coaches at those schools are going to be looking for to give that 200 point concession to? Any player sitting on the bench player of a quality team? A starter but not a high profile player? An all-star level player? A youth national team player? How good does the player have to be for a coach at one of these highly ranked academic colleges to start considering whether to throw their support behind them with admissions?

No, soccer ability is unlikely to help you get in at these schools if your standardized test scores are 200 below median. Maybe you could walk through how you got there. Maybe the top player in the incoming class, so a projected freshman starter, could get accepted with standardized test scores that much below median. For most, your standardized test scores still have to be at least median, and with that, your soccer is helping you get accepted. Some people say the reason for this is so the schools have more leeway with applicants in other sports, stereotypically football, but others say that the schools actually have rules to follow BY SPORT, so that stricter requirements for applicants who play sport A are not subsidizing more relaxed requirements for applicants who play sport B. Some of this may be spelled out on college league websites.

[Unregistered]

and the obsession continues

and the confusion, contradictions, and duplicities continue

[Unregistered]

No, it doesn't. There's a literature on this. There is a modest correlation between SAT scores and only the first year of college performance.

More schools are going test optional or reducing the importance they place on SAT/ACT scores. There are numerous studies that show HS performance is a better indicator of college success than standardized test scores - even more so if it is a challenging HS. Some very smart kids are just bad test takers. Then there's cultural biases and the plethora of testing services and tutors that give a boost to those who can afford them. The revised SAT is an attempt to more accurately measure intelligence so it's doubtful it goes away anytime soon. If you've got 40,000 applications you need to starting cutting someplace. But at the same time more schools are re-evaluating the role they play in admissions.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health...chool_and.html

[Unregistered]

and the confusion, contradictions, and duplicities continue

Jump fishy, jump!

[Unregistered]

No, soccer ability is unlikely to help you get in at these schools if your standardized test scores are 200 below median. Maybe you could walk through how you got there. Maybe the top player in the incoming class, so a projected freshman starter, could get accepted with standardized test scores that much below median. For most, your standardized test scores still have to be at least median, and with that, your soccer is helping you get accepted. Some people say the reason for this is so the schools have more leeway with applicants in other sports, stereotypically football, but others say that the schools actually have rules to follow BY SPORT, so that stricter requirements for applicants who play sport A are not subsidizing more relaxed requirements for applicants who play sport B. Some of this may be spelled out on college league websites.

You are not completely correct here and seem to be swinging into the overly pessimistic column. I can't speak about the D3 schools but at the D1 elite level academics, soccer can and does make a difference for some. The fundamental issue in those cases is how good does the player have to be and how much of a difference will it make.

With the Ivies they have the Academic Index which basically gives their coaches a mathematical formula to use to figure out the academic side. The minimum AI for Ivy admission as a recruited athlete is 176, which equates approximately to an 1140 (CR + M) on the SAT and a 3.0 GPA. The reality is very few with an AI that low will get in though because it is basically an average of all of the athletes on all of the teams at the school and usually different teams get different AI averages to adhere to. As a general rule the top Ivies look for 1400 (CR + M) and 3.7 as their baseline for a recruited athlete.

The grades aren't the only criteria when it comes to Ivy League recruiting though. The Ivies are D1 programs and they do compete to win. Their coaches do look for the best athletes they can find and there is competition for roster spots on their teams. They definitely are not looking for just run of the mill average players. Here is a good little article that hopefully puts the athletic side of the equation into some perspective. http://theivycoach.com/the-ivy-coach...ic-recruiting/

The bottom line with all recruiting is you need to take off any rose colored glasses you may be wearing and be brutally objective about just how good a student you have and how good a soccer player they are. Most are going to find that the best outcomes generally come when you accurately target the few schools where those variables over lap.

[Unregistered]

and the confusion, contradictions, and duplicities continue

I laugh at this guy. What confusion, contradictions and duplicities is he seeing in this thread? The only ones I have read are the ones he undoubtedly has been supplying which basically try to argue that average soccer players are capable of getting support from coaches at elite academic colleges. That just doesn't happen in the real world.