I hope Schlissel and Hackett read the WSJ

Is there really a university that holds all athletes to the same academic standards as regular students? There's absolutely no way Vandy baseball, Duke bball, UCLA bball, Texas football hold athletes to the same standards. Does it really matter anyways? They were recruited to play sports just as some students are recruited to the theatre or dance programs. The fact that they're all in knesiology is probably because it corresponds directly to their life passions and not because it's easier. The only problems I really have is if they are committing crimes ala Frank Clark. Who cares if they can't get a 27 on a subjective ACT?

What I remember of the ACT is that all of the questions were pretty easy but they give you like 30 minutes to do a crap load of questions so it's essentially just measuring how fast you can comprehend stuff. I think GPA is a better indication.

There have been some UofM athletes over the years that have proven to me the standards are not higher than the average D1 school.

Beast Mode went to Cal Berkeley. I'd imagine all schools bend the admission standards for athletes.

Coming in, miss the whole point and why sports are such an amazing thing. NCAA athletics is the great equalizer to a broken public school system that under serves and is ill equipped to help students from many communities. I proudly taught and coached that system and was always happy when I could place a student at an institution, technically "above" his or her academic merit. Getting a kid from a crap urban or rural school no one cares about that might be failing and putting them into a rigorous academic institute, regardless of how they got there, is nearly always the best opportunity ithat individual kid will have to date in there life and us a beautiful thing.

Where the tragedy happens is where elements in or around that system start to cheat that kid of his opportunity (eg nyc or nd boosters taking tests for the kid).

Most of these kids start a lap down and sports help them be in a situation where they have the chance to catch up. Screw their sat scores.

If it makes you feel better, Michigan was mentioned with Stanford as peer research institutions at my Northwestern employee orientation yesterday. So that's something.

Attempting to make this relevant to POTUM's plans seems a stretch. The Ivies have fudged their admissions standards significnatly more the last several years than they used to, and "need based" financial aid is routinely turned into scholies under the table, but it's still a very different model than the I-A model. As mentioned above, with the possible exception of Stanford, I-A admissions standard are, and will continue to be, clearinghouse minima. Schlissel doesn't mean changing that significantly when he talks about "balance."

Off topic FWIW, I think the deemphasis of athletics comes at a serious cost to campus life. I was at a campus bar for both tournament games this year and no one was watching. I had to ask one place (think downscale Ashley's or upscale Jug) to change just one TV away from the other games to Harvard/Cinnci; no one else was aware they were playing. We'll go to the game tomorrow because we need an excuse to drink in the morning, but sports are completely invisible even when sucessful here. As a result there is almost no reason for iteraction between studnets from schools and programs.

Sports can be a huge impetus to improving academics at a school as well. I think it goes widely overlooked but if you've been on the campus at Alabama lately you'd clearly see the impact that Saban has had on the school. He could arguably have done more for the academics at Alabama than anyone in the last 50 years. The amount of investment in school buildings and growth of academic programs spurred on by an improved and much more diverse applicant pool is astounding. Imagine the influx of dollars if Michigan was able to go to 50/50 instate out of state and the additional revenue that was generated and could be invested by the kids who are paying three times the instate tuition. Bama traditionally drew the large majority from instate--as recently as 2007 the incoming freshman class was 67% in state. 2013 it will be 40%. if you don't think that has enormous financial impact you're nuts. The key is do they squander the opportunity or do they turn it into a highly regarded research university. I guarantee you that there are kids applying to Michigan right now who are looking at a place like Bama as a fairly decent option and was not the case 5 or 10 years ago.

 

http://www.al.com/news/tuscaloosa/index.ssf/2014/07/is_the_university_o…

I was recruited to play soccer for UM varsity as a preferred walk on. 

My father, mother, and uncle graduated from UM. 

I scored a 27 on my ACT, 1260/1600 on SAT (low i know, but only took it once).

I was waitlisted by normal UM admissions, and after I told the soccer coach this - one day later I received my admittance letter.

Sports carry a lot of weight - and I was a SOCCER player.

 

/my cool story bro