[NU Sports] Interesting interview with Tulane sports law expert

[Jeff Beamsley]

Evan,

Over the years, I think that we have established that there are kids
going to NU on athletic scholarship with significantly lower test scores
and GPA than non-athletes who were refused admission.  That last numbers
I remember reading suggest that a good football player with an 1100 SAT
has a chance at NU.  A non-athletic applicant has to be somewhere north
of 1300 to get a serious look.  

It is also probably no coincidence that a higher percentage of football
players, for example, share a specific major than the general student
population.

However you choose to rationalize this, however, the key measurement of
admissions success for athletes and non-athletes is graduation.  If a
high percentage of these kids graduate and are employable (except for
maybe English majors), both the admissions department and the university
have done their job.

I don't know where to look for employment statistics.  The graduation
rate statistics are on the NCAA site.

NU does a good job, and this is certainly something to be proud of.  NU
graduated 93% of all students in the most recent NCAA report and 90% of
student-athletes.  Duke was a little better, Stanford a little worse.
Michigan, by comparison, graduated 87% of all students and only 78% of
athletes.  OSU graduated 68% of its students and 69% of athletes.  

When you dig down into the numbers on the NCAA site for graduations by
sport, basketball is weakest with an 88% Graduation Success Rating
(whatever that is).  Our minor sports and women's sports graduate
virtually everyone.

So NU does appear to favor athletes both in admissions and curriculum,
but who cares if they all eventually graduate with a useful degree?
Bienen, the deans, and the Athletic Department appear to have struck a
good balance between improving NU's athletic competitiveness, keeping
high academic standards, and graduating the kids that they bring in on
scholarship. 

Jeff




 

-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com]
On Behalf Of Evan Bradley
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 10:42 AM
To: 'nwu-sports at tssi.com' Sports List
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Interesting interview with Tulane sports law
expert

I'm not sure how admissions for athletes work currently, but if we're
not doing this already, I'm curious as to why we'd want to start.

I'm all for recruiting the best athletes, but if a university admits
student-athletes who don't match the academic profile of the rest of the
student population, it's:

a) setting these students up for failure in the classroom, thereby
lowering graduation rates and/or increasing the number of athletes who
leave early to go pro

b) risking the reputation of a school where education is supposed to be
priority #1 by emulating some of the "lesser" schools lambasted on this
list for their stereotypical "dumb jock" rosters.

The attitude at NU seems to have been that we'll win while keeping our
ideals, resulting in athletes that are known for being "smart," and I
think most fans are proud of that.



On 5/28/07, Jim Bendat <thehaze at earthlink.net> wrote:
> I'm not so sure that we don't already do that.  When my daughter began

> her freshman year at NU in the fall of 2005, there were a number of 
> athletes in her dorm who told her that they wouldn't have made it to 
> NU were it not for their sports abilities.
>
>
> MHRJGScott at aol.com wrote:
> > I noted the use of "special admits" at Tulane, why don't we have 
> > something like that?
> >
> > _http://www.nola.com/sports/t-p/index.ssf?/base/sports-31/1180333669
> > 175280.xml
> > &coll=1_
> > (http://www.nola.com/sports/t-p/index.ssf?/base/sports-31/1180333669
> > 175280.xml&coll=1)
> >
> >

_______________________________________________
nwu-sports site list
nwu-sports at tssi.com
http://romaine.tssi.com/mailman/listinfo/nwu-sports