High Academics

When your son is considering applying to a school you couldn't get into.

That's a pretty long list! 

Define it in a few ways. I would say a school that rejects students with unweighted 4.00's and perfect SAT scores would count (we've been to a few of those). Or schools whose acceptance rates are less than 10% (highly selective). Or schools that require 2 or more SAT subject tests. Average SAT scores at 2000 three part may count too. Google Headfirst camps and you'll see schools from D1's and D3's and are high academics. Some conferences are considered highly academic as a whole, while some of the bigger sized conferences have "highly academic" schools within conference. You can also find specific major programs at some schools are tougher to get in, then the school at large.

This is a pretty decent list of "high academic" schools (link below) or at least a list to start a discussion.  

http://www.tier1athletics.org/tier-one-colleges/

You can look at it all kinds of different ways.  Some schools are hard to get into, others are difficult to remain at the school....and some are both.  In terms of how to get in, there are all kinds of different processes the various schools on this list use to determine admission.  So understanding the admission numbers and process for recruited athletes (and non-recruited aka walk-on)) is really important.  IMHO, I think most high academic schools have a different admission policy and process for athletes than other schools.  As always, JMO.

...Colorado School of Mines?

Interesting link, Fenway, but that list has some holes.  No North Carolina?  No USC?  

UC Davis, but not LA, SB, SD, Irvine? Very odd.

Boston College but not Boston U or Tufts or Northeastern? BC grad maybe?

No Kenyon? No Grinnell?

When talking "high academics" are you talking from the player's side or from the college side?

From the player's perspective, the grades and stats are personal to the player, very quantifiable, and will be in his past when he matriculates to college. From the college side, the information pertains to the future performance in the classroom of the athlete.

I think one needs to distinguish between the athlete and a regular student. A highly selective school, like UNC (especially to non-residents) or USC looks like a certain level of academics for a regular student/applicant which is totally different from an athlete applicant. This topic is frequently addressed in these forums. Except for the very few powerful students athletes, most will be unable to take advantage of the toughest classes/majors a school like UNC or USC has to offer. That would not be as true at schools like Tufts, Kenyon and other d3 highly selective schools where the kids are really student-athletes.

This goes back to researching rosters and looking at junior and senior majors (ignore the freshmen and sophomore majors as they are expressions of desires, hopes and wishes). Look first to make sure the majors are accurate, then compare the majors of the athletes with the school major distributions. In some schools (e.g. Rose Hulman), the athletic majors generally track the student body; in others (USC, UNC) not so much (with athletes trending towards "easier" majors [not due to any inherent personal differences; rather, it's the time demands of the sport]).

Aother way of finding the information is to ask the coach what is the major distribution of his players. Ask how many are STEM majors, how many went to graduate school (type and where), etc. A parent needs to tease out academic information of athletes to compare to the rest of the school - and coaches during recruiting tend to gloss over these things while they emphasize the schools academics.  Do not assume the athlete academic profile is the same or nearly the same as a regular student.

Mines is a GREAT engineering school

Excellent post Goosegg. Excellent post. 

The list doesn't include Caltech either, but does include Georgia Tech, so I think it's someone's shot an amalgam of "higher academics and athletics excellence"

Goosegg - Out of the park!

Agreed. Top-notch.

Good point on Caltech, but UCLA, really?  I believe they have more D1 championships than any other school.

I think it's just one person's list and not really researched thoroughly.

EDIT:   I looked through the blog on that site and the writer is somebody who knows a lot about Ivy and NESCAC sports and recruiting, so if I was a kid targeting those schools this blog and the writer's book would be a good resource.  There is also good general advice on recruiting at high academic schools.  But I would not asking this person to help me develop a list of colleges to target.

If the writer appears to know more about the Ivies and NESCACs chances are he's a northeast elitist academic snob. Therefore, he looks down on any school that is public rather than private. 

I grew up up in this environment. I recently moved back to it. When I stated my son was at a Big Ten the first response was Michigan or Northwestern? When I said no the person asked if he did poorly in high school. 

People in the northeast would rather their kid go to some academically mediocre private college than a Big Ten. It would be too embarassing to admit their kid attends a public university. 

My daughter also attended a state university in the Big East. It was of the top schools for her major. After I receive the condescending remarks I enjoy telling them she's at the top of her class at an Ivy law school. And what is your kid doing now?

i attended UCLA. It's one of the inferior universities not on the elitist's list. Then again it's on every relevant publication's top twenty-five list.

RJM,

Based on your statement...I think you've been scarred for life living in that traffic snarled cold & snowy climate.   In this case, the writer you are referring to knows a lot about the Ivies and NESCACs because he's researched them ad nauseam and has many years of experience with them across many, many sports. You'll be shocked to learn that he lives in the Midwest....believe it or not.  Anyway, his list was meant as a starting point for this thread..  

I'm giving you a hard time because, I know exactly the type of person you are referring as I grew up in the same neck of the woods.  I've lived it as well, but don't see those private school attitudes as much down in Virginia.  The attitudes are still there but just focused on different schools. 

Stanford alumni magazine had an article "Who gets in"  It can be found w/a search.

I lived in Maine, Connecticut and Massachusetts my first sixteen years and Massachusetts the last four. In California and Pennsylvania no one looked down at UCs or Penn State. When you get outside New England state universities tend to be better. My three cousins attended Harvard, Yale and Penn. it freaks them out I've been more successful.

When my daughter got accepted to an Ivy law school my mother's response was, "At least someone in your family is successful." When they attended state universities for undergrad my mother was humiliated. I brought this on by refusing to be 7th generation/eleventh family member to attend Bowdoin. But so did my father until he injured his back playing football (Big Ten) and transferred.

To this day my mother asks me what college baseball ever did for me and what's it doing for my son. And what did softball do for my daughter. It's part of the Jewish stance on abortion. It's a living fetus until it finishes grad school.