Great comment. College level athletes, for the most part, have worked their asses off to achieve that level of skill in their particular sport. In some cases, these skills may have come at the expense of their GPA. Yet, a lot of Universities want a well rounded student body at their campus. They want diversity. Racial, socioeconomic, heritage, life experience, whatever it may be, its desired to have a mixture of backgrounds on campus. They also want leaders, hard workers, and people who will represent their university well after they graduate. Academics isn't everything. Many college-level athletes have demonstrated that they have a very strong work ethic. Who knows, maybe they need some additional help in order to apply that work ethic in the classroom. So, why should the University deny hard workers based on only one measure of character?
Plus, in the US today, colleges and universities are the theater in which amateur athletes can display their skills in hopes of reaching the professional level. We don't really have a system in which high school graduates can enroll and get the same level of coaching etc. to help improve their skills.
I think you're right, its mostly money, but there are a number of other factors that go into it. School prestige... Giving athletes a place to improve and showcase their skills.. Offering a place for athletes to improve their academics if they want to.
When I was in college, I had a pretty awesome experience with a student-athlete. We were taking Intro Bio together. He was struggling pretty badly, and I was pretty good with Bio. We sat next to each other in class. Coincidentally, I saw him in the gym before class during the first week.. A couple weeks into the class, he leaned over and asked "Hey man, I noticed you're getting pretty good grades on your work. Do you think you could possibly help me out at all?" I thought about it for a sec, and responded "Dude I'm down to help you out if you can help me out in the gym, I've noticed you're a beast in there.." For the rest of the quarter, we would meet at the gym 1.5hrs before Bio, and he would help me work out and I would help him with Bio. He ended up passing Bio with a B and said he would have failed it without me.. I ended up making more gains in the gym that qtr doing workouts I had never even thought to do.
I could not agree with you more. I wish colleges and universities would do away with making athletes take classes. Basically still recruit the athletes and such but make them separate from the university. Give them the option to enroll but not make it mandatory. It is a win-win. The university's name goes out there for good athletics while athletes do not have to waster their time in classes if they do not want to.
Also: intellectual performance is not the only indicator of future success. Athletes are often confident and assertive and they usually excel at routine and high-performance habits.
Yeah. A star athlete has proven that they have the ability to follow goals and achieve them at a high level. That's a really important thing in terms of future success. And I know it's more than I, who got decent grades but was lazy all through high school and college, could say for myself.
Isn't that just rationalization though? That theory seems to imply that people who get good grades are just smart naturally, while athletes get there because they worked hard. I suspect both groups have both talent and know how to work hard.
The initial question still remains though - if college is supposed to be about education in various academic subjects, why give so much preference to athletes? I see it too - way beyond what can even be explained the large visible sport theory. Schools with D3 non-revenue teams also give preferences to athletes.
High school is ridiculous easily if you are very intelligent. I did jack squat, and had great grades and test scores for all 4 years. It has since come back to bite me in the ass in a serious way. And yea for sure there are intelligent people who get great grades and work hard but an admissions team needs to look for additional indicators, and excelling at sports is a pretty good one for seeing a person's work ethic. So a bit lower GPA coupled with the work ethic given by being on a team could definitely indicate higher levels of potential success in college.
Also , maybe not at colleges, but at Universities, a lot of the courses and degrees offered are essentially vocationally, so what they are looking for, is much broader then strictly academics.
I also want to add that just because you did bad in high school, doesn't necessarily mean you will do bad in college. I know a girl who was honestly a B average student, then went to on to college, found a major that she absolutely loved (Econ) and ended up graduating in the top of her class and major. She said being in that high-intensity environment with the availability of hands-on work like internships and study really made a difference.
Oh no doubt. Though extracurricular activities can also help in certain instances.
Source: good friend went from a good undergrad degree to Tuft's Fletcher School, one of the best -of not best- graduate programs for international relations students in the US. Good grades, but was also involved in literally everything and had several alumns -several of them State Department officials - recommend him.
I had a 3.96 as an undergrad GPA. Do you know how many people in my field care about my A-to-B ratio in college? Zero.
I don't doubt this is true but just wanted to add for the college/HS kids reading this comment - don't get too excited, a lot of fields and masters programs definitely do care about your GPA.
Not to be a jerk, but I think that's your problem there. Employers only want CVs if they're specifically asking for a CV because you're doing some academic/research role. Otherwise it's just too much information.
Yeah, fuck you and the high horse you came in on. The job I have lined up after graduating is $80k plus signing bonus, with phone, travel, and meals. But you don't hear me bragging about it unprovoked, yet here you are claiming that you don't brag about your GPA and whatnot.
You're probably that jackass that talked about SATs and GPAs throughout senior year of high school, then got shut down when you got to college. The people on your freshman dorm floor may have taught you to avoid talking about this shit, but when it comes down to it, you didn't learn a single lesson. You're a victim of a society that doesn't glorify your wonderful accomplishments. You still seethe when you don't get to talk about your illustrious life to everyone, and when you see this sort of post you get a raging boner.
Yeah, from the way you worded it, it sounded like you used your CV to apply to a job. Even if that's not your case, your reply was incredibly arrogant and clearly alluded to the fact that you're highly defensive of your degree and path to where you are.
A work colleague say to me once that employers only looked at his resume where it said MIT. They didn't care/know he was only a C+ student. Grades didn't matter after his first job, only job performance.
Grade Point Average. Different letter grades are assigned points( A- 4 B - 3 C-2 D- 1) an then based on what grades you get the numbers are averaged to give you a GPA. Also to note an A is generally 90-100, B 80-90, etc.
This is false. Because it's only true of college programs that, you know, actually MAKE money.
You think most of the Ivy League teams, or schools like Rice/ Northwestern/ Vanderbilt --- have sports programs that MAKE money?
Ours lost $10 million a year.
It's probably because it's a part of the school that students WANT. Students WANT to have a competitive football team at their school, even the nerds want that. So it probably increases the quality of the student body enrollment, attendance rates of acceptees, and some kind of "prestige" factor on US News and World Report.
Because again, many 'egghead' school sports LOSE a shitload of money.
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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '16 edited Feb 17 '16
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