[wishart_washy]

This topic is so endlessly fascinating because it encapsulates debates on meritocracy, privilege, wealth, and recruiting that have a ripple effect across a lifetime.

I attended an Ivy and a lot of the stereotypes are true. The varsity athletes are sharper than you would expect. Because the Ivy League agreed to not give scholarships to athletes (unlike Stanford), teams have a gentleman's agreement with admissions to keep a specific average GPA and SAT/ACT score. So for every gifted athlete that's a dull crayon from Groton you also got a high-achieving student-athlete. I was a TA, and the varsity athletes were the only ones who showed up consistently. They had limited time and needed to be efficient with their schoolwork. The club athletes are the rich parents + boarding school crowd. I briefly played club lacrosse - these kids were a caricature of what you would expect. The network effect is real btw.

A running joke at Stanford is that the athletes go to Stanford Community College.

The briefs in Fisher vs. UT are a great legal primer on the state of university admissions these days. https://www.oyez.org/cases/2015/14-981

[duxup]

Not to say they're not sharp.... but I belive at most of those schools there is a system of automatic scholarships based on income. So while you don't get a sports scholarship, athletes are still not paying either way. Not to knock their academics or anything, but the no sports scholarship is just no 'sports' scholarship.

On another aside, at a lot of schools athlete attendance is recorded by other students and reported to the coaches, at times even a non mandatory attendance class is mandatory as far as the coaches see it so at those schools they show up ;) They might not be as sharp, but they know they have to show up.