LEXIS-NEXIS® Academic Universe-Document

LEXIS-NEXIS® Academic

January 7, 2001, Sunday, Late Edition - Final
Correction Appended

SECTION: Section 4A; Page 22; Column 1; Education Life Supplement

LENGTH: 3222 words

HEADLINE: Gaining Admission: Athletes Win Preference

BYLINE: By EDWARD B. FISKE; Edward B. Fiske, a former education editor of The New York Times, is editor of the annual "Fiske Guide to Colleges" and co-author, with Bruce G. Hammond, of "The Fiske Guide to Getting Into the Right College" (Random House).

BODY:
As a senior last year at the Choate School in Wallingford, Conn., Matt Skoglund dreamed of attending a top-rated liberal arts college. Unfortunately, his academic record, including 1,200 on the College Boards, fell short of the usual lofty standards of such institutions.

Mr. Skoglund, though, was a star ice hockey player, and the hockey coach at Middlebury College in Vermont, Bill Beaney, agreed to put the young man's name on his wish list with the admissions office. "I probably would not have gotten into Middlebury without hockey," said Mr. Skoglund, who now plays on a Middlebury team that has won five national Division III championships in the last six years. "Being a hockey player gave me access to a first-rate education." Everyone knows that universities that compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I sustain their big-time programs by awarding athletic scholarships to students who may or may not have much interest in academics. Not so well known is the significant role that athletic ability plays in access to elite colleges in Division III -- where athletic scholarships are banned, but coaches can offer something even more valuable over the long run: access to a top-rated college.

Over the last decade the most selective small liberal arts colleges, especially those like Middlebury that compete in the New England Small College Athletic Conference, have become increasingly eager to field winning teams. This eagerness has been documented by James L. Shulman and William G. Bowen of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in a new book, "The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values." Based on a study of admissions and academic records of 90,000 students at 30 selective institutions, including 11 small liberal arts colleges, since 1951, they conclude:

"The recruitment of athletes has become much more aggressive, professional and intense. This is true at all levels of competition, including Division III, and in all sports, including the lower-visibility ones such as tennis and swimming. Coaches have come to play a much more important role in the admissions process than they used to play, and there are fewer and fewer 'walk-on' athletes."

In order to assure success on their playing fields, admissions directors are setting aside specific numbers of places for recruited athletes and going lower on the academic ladder to fill them. Amherst College, for example, designates 75 out of the 450 places in each year's freshman class for athletes recruited by coaches in 27 varsity sports. At Williams, a perennial winner of the Sears Cup given to the most successful overall athletic program in each division, 71 athletes are given preferential admission in a class of 550.

"Athletic recruiting is the biggest form of affirmative action in American higher education, even at schools such as ours," said Philip Smith, the recently retired dean of admissions at Williams.

Since such colleges are so small, being an athlete plays a much more important role in the admissions process than it would at larger institutions, including Division I athletic powerhouses where recruited athletes make up a tiny proportion of undergraduates. "Of our students who went to highly selective schools last year, more than half had athletics as a significant element in their attraction," said David Holmes, headmaster of the Suffield Academy in Suffield, Conn.

The growing interest in athletes affects not only women applying to selective coeducational colleges but women's colleges as well. Over the last two years Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., has become much more aggressive in seeking out talented athletes. "Athletics is important at all institutions these days," said Laurie Priest, the director of athletics. "It also allows us to cast a wider net for women who might be interested in a women's college."

College officials attribute their growing preoccupation with athletic success to a number of societal and other influences, including expansion of postseason play in Division III, higher skill levels among high school athletes, tendencies toward a winner-take-all attitude in society and published rankings of colleges that elevate those perceived to be successful in everything they undertake.

Critics, however, contend that athletes are claiming places that would otherwise go to more academically able students. The Shulman-Bowen data show that recruited athletes not only enter selective colleges with weaker academic records than their classmates as a whole but that, once in college, they "consistently underperform academically even after we control for standardized test scores and other variables." Moreover, they say, the academic standing of athletes relative to their classmates has deteriorated markedly in recent years.

"Where is the sense of the amateur athlete that was the heart and soul of Division III?" asked Paul Thiboutot, dean of admissions at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. "We are in danger of losing this ideal when our culture becomes dominated by athletics and athletic role models. Why is athletics more important than music or art or other kinds of excellence?"

THE trustees of Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pa., recently concluded that athletic recruitment was threatening ad-missions standards. To control the number of slots reserved for students for whom a sport is their "primary extracurricular activity" the trustees voted last month to abolish varsity football, which has a roster of 55 players.

Maintaining double standards for athletes and regular students is scarcely new, even among elite institutions. Bill Pruden, a college counselor at the Ravenscroft School in Raleigh, N.C., pointed out that the first college football game between Princeton and Rutgers in 1869 was won by a Rutgers team that included 10 freshmen, three of whom were failing algebra. "So began what has become an ongoing struggle to define where athletics fit into the educational mission of American higher education," he said.

Admissions directors at the most selective and prestigious liberal arts colleges are quick to emphasize that recruited athletes must have the intellectual wherewithal to survive in their rarefied academic atmospheres, that recruited athletes graduate at rates comparable to the student body as a whole and that decisions are ultimately made by the admissions office -- never by coaches. Nevertheless, they concede that they routinely lower the academic bar for quarterbacks, soccer goalies, downhill skiers and other athletes recruited by coaches.

Tom Parker, the dean of admission and financial aid at Amherst College in Amherst, Mass., said that the mean College Board score for all entering students at his college, about 1,400, would put them at the 97th percentile nationally. "The mean for all athletes is the 95th percentile and for recruited athletes is the 93rd percentile," he said. For particularly desirable athletes, he added, "we will go down to 1,250, which is about the 85th percentile."

The obvious question is why liberal arts colleges that pride themselves on their world-class academics care so much about the fate of their varsity teams. No one questions the public relations value of fielding winning teams in high-visibility sports like football or ice hockey. As William Mason, a former admissions director at Bowdoin College and Williams who is now a counselor at St. Mark's School in Southborough, Mass., put it, "Athletics is seen as the one tangible place where alumni who are not physically there can connect to their school."

Asked why they invest money, effort and places in their freshman classes to succeed in such minor sports as volleyball or crew, college officials tend to talk in generalities about school spirit and the campus culture they seek to foster. "We start out with the premise that we want to be good in everything we do," said Richard Fuller, dean of admissions and financial aid at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. "There is a general sense of excellence about these places that starts with academics and extends throughout."

Others speak in educational terms about discipline, the capacity to be part of a team and other skills and values developed through athletics. "I've been on winning and losing teams," Mr. Parker said. "A team that chronically loses doesn't teach kids very much."

Admissions directors are quick to point out that they routinely ease academic requirements for other groups, like talented musicians or artists, children of alumni and students from disadvantaged backgrounds. As Mr. Holmes pointed out, however, recruiting of athletes is far more fierce, systematic and pub-

lic than for other groups. "There's not a lot of competition for skilled cellists," he said, "and no one knows it if you have a weak orchestra some year."

In their new book, Mr. Shulman and Mr. Bowen cite the example of "a representative nonscholarship school for which we have complete data on all applicants." The "admissions advantage" was 48 percent for athletes, 24 percent for legacies and 18 percent for minorities.

The extent to which colleges lower academic standards for athletes varies widely from college to college and even from sport to sport. Admissions officers say they probably dip deepest in football, which requires about 20 students in each class, and for other "helmet" sports like ice hockey and downhill skiing. "I can name on one finger the number of kids on the Williams hockey team who could make it on their own without hockey," Mr. Smith said.

By contrast, athletes in sports associated with private preparatory schools, like crew, tennis or lacrosse, as well as those in "endurance" sports like swimming, cross-country running or skiing, tend to arrive with relatively strong academic records. "To go out and run for 12 miles you have to have either a lot going on in your head or nothing going on," Mr. Parker said.

The academic prowess of athletes became an issue at Amherst three years ago when the faculty became concerned over lowering standards. A faculty committee looked at the application records of students admitted between 1989 and 1998 and ranked them on a scale of 1 to 5 by College Board scores, class rank, course work and "intellectual curiosity," with 1 the highest. The committee found that while overall 3's and 4's were rarely accepted, nearly half of the athletes in the 3 category and one-third of those with a 4 were admitted.

The faculty investigation found that in 1994, when the Amherst football team had lost 30 of its last 32 games, the admissions office had indeed gone a bit overboard in recruiting football players. Academic requirements for athletes have since been elevated, and a college committee on admission and financial aid has been set up to avoid what has come to be known as the "lurch" of the mid-1990's.

Coaches in the New England Small College Athletic Conference operate under strict rules that prohibit them from visiting potential recruits in their homes, subsidizing campus visits or even calling them before July 1 of the year they become high school seniors. Like their Division I counterparts, they observe potential recruits at summer sports camps, all-star games and championship tournaments. "You work hard in the summer to showcase yourself in the hope that you will draw a response from coaches," Mr. Skoglund said.

Since Division III coaches do not have substantial recruiting budgets, the athletes themselves often initiate the contact. "Williams does not recruit in the Midwest, so I basically recruited myself," said Phil Swisher, a senior tackle on the Williams football team from Winnetka, Ill.

He visited the campus, in Williamstown, Mass., the summer after his junior year, met the football coach and filled out a questionnaire detailing his athletic and academic accomplishments. "I also sent in a couple of game tapes, including one where I had a good game against one of the best high school linebackers in the country," he said.

Division III coaches say that it is easiest to assess the accomplishments of athletes in sports like swimming and track, where performances are timed. In other sports they welcome videotapes and scrapbooks, although these are not always as helpful as the student might think. "We'll get a newspaper clipping showing Joe catching the winning pass even though Joe's not the applicant," Mr. Fuller said. "One swimmer sent us a fake Olympic gold medal with a note saying 'This is where I expect to be in 2008.' We weren't impressed."

High school guidance counselors complain that Division III coaches put undue pressure on students to apply to their institutions' "early decision." Under this procedure, colleges tell students in December whether they will be admitted, and students who accept are obliged to withdraw applications from other colleges. Several dozen colleges also run a second round of early decision in January.

Coaches obviously like early decision because it allows them to lock in key recruits early and to avoid having to wait until April to learn how many, if any, of the athletes they seek will be attending. Since they are barred from offering athletic scholarships, early decision also strengthens the most important weapon that Division III coaches have in attracting skilled athletes: assured admission to a selective institution. "Coaches will call some of my kids at the end of October and say, 'If you apply early decision, I can get you in; otherwise, there are no guarantees,' "Mr. Mason said.

Many counselors complain that it is unfair to put such pressure on students to make a decision by December of their senior year, but most college admissions directors defend the system. "In the past Middlebury would have to accept 70 football players to get 25, and it would make you sick taking a kid with a 480 verbal score and turning down one with 680," said Rick Dalton, a former admissions official at Middlebury. "Now you take only as many as you need and make them commit early."

Another complaint is that coaches will frequently string students along, especially in football, which requires a large squad. "I was lied to for several months by one Ivy League coach," Mr. Swisher said. "He told me that I was his top defensive line recruit and called me every week. Then I was turned down by the admissions office."

In general, financial aid is not a definitive factor in the recruiting of athletes at Division III colleges, especially among those committed to awarding scholarships on the basis of demonstrated financial need. Still, while barred from offering athletic scholarships, colleges may give athletes need-based financial aid packages that have more grant money and less in repayable loans than those offered to nonathletes. "I don't think I would have been given as large a scholarship if I were only a good student," said Sarah Gloo, a lacrosse player at Hamilton College.

Further, some admissions directors complain that some Division III colleges use the "merit" scholarships that many offer, purportedly to reward academic accomplishment and leadership ability, as de facto athletic scholarships. "Our president likes to say that we play schools with a whole front line of presidential scholars," said Mr. Thiboutot of Carleton.

One consequence of the greater emphasis on recruiting is that there are fewer opportunities for ordinary stu-dents to compete as athletes. At Amherst, for example, more than half of the 575 students who play varsity sports every year are recruited athletes. "The kid who does well on the high school soccer team cannot just go to some of these Division III schools and play soccer anymore," said Nancy Beane, college counselor at the Westminster Schools in Atlanta.

High school coaches worry that the intensity surrounding athletics at Division III colleges is creeping down to the secondary level as well. "I can feel the tension myself," said Mike Maher, the ice hockey coach at the Taft School in Watertown, Conn. "I have to pay more attention to who applies to Taft, and I meet with a lot more prospective hockey players and their parents than in the past. I'm even getting mail from seventh graders."

Mr. Holmes of Suffield Academy agrees that old attitudes are becoming more difficult to maintain. "Our philosophy is that a student should play a sport every season, but parents see their child becoming a star in some sport as the avenue to a good school," he said.

Increasingly, it seems, the parents have a point.

Tips for Recruited Athletes

Thanks to the eagerness of selective Division III colleges to field strong athletic teams, many high school athletes can gain admission to colleges that might otherwise be beyond their academic reach. How? Here are some tips from high school counselors and college admissions directors:

Work with high school coaches. They can point you toward likely colleges, as well as write letters and make phone calls in your behalf.

Also work with your high school guidance counselors. "They can help you keep a realistic view about your chances at particular schools," said Richard Nesbitt of Williams.

Prepare an athletic resume describing your athletic achievements, including game videos, but use common sense. "We have a rule of thumb that the worse the football player, the more lavish the video," said Tom Parker of Amherst.

Take the initiative in making contact with college coaches. Since Division III coaches have limited recruiting budgets, "we tend to favor students who show an interest in us," said Bill Beaney, the men's ice hockey coach at Middlebury. Contact colleges during the spring or summer before your senior year. When you visit a college, be sure to schedule an interview with the coach, and send the coach a copy of your application.

Listen carefully to what coaches tell you. Coaches may face the temptation to string recruits along, so remain clear-eyed about where you stand with a college -- both academically and athletically. "A phone call from the coach is not the same thing as an acceptance letter from the admissions office," warned Christoph Guttentag, director of undergraduate admissions at Duke University. "When the coach says he'll do what he can for you, he's not telling you you're admitted."

Get coaches to say where you stand. Ask coaches hard questions, such as how many other athletes they are recruiting and where you stand on the list. Phil Swisher, a Williams football player, said of coaches, "Many of them are not sensitive to how monumental these decisions are in an 18-year-old's life."

Be patient. If you are a bona fide star athlete with strong academic credentials, do not succumb to pressure by coaches to go for early decision. Waiting until April may allow you to make a more measured decision and could also lead to a more favorable financial aid package.

Follow the "broken leg principle." "Remember that you are going to college for an education," said Carl Furstenburg, director of admissions at Dartmouth College. "Pick a school you'd like to attend even if you break your leg on the first day of practice and never compete." Fortunately, in Division III, recruited athletes need not compete to retain their academic and financial aid status. EDWARD B. FISKE
http://www.nytimes.com

CORRECTION-DATE: January 26, 2001, Friday

CORRECTION:
An article in the quarterly Education Life section on Jan. 7 about the role played by athletic ability in college admissions misstated the class membership of Matt Skoglund, a hockey player at Middlebury College who said he owed his education to his sport. He is a senior, not a freshman.

GRAPHIC: Photos: "I probably would not have gotten into Middlebury without hockey, said Matt Skoglund, a star from Choate." (Ben Garvin for The New York Times)(pg. 22); Phil Swisher, a Williams football player from Winnetka, Ill., says, "I basically recruited myself." (Will Waldron for The New York Times)(pg. 23)

LOAD-DATE: January 7, 2001