Affirmative action for athletes?

You've handed in your history term paper after a week of soda-fueled all-nighters when you realize that the lacrosse player—who attended your section all of three times—got an extension on his assignment and is working with the TA to bring his grade up through "extra credit."

EUGENE WONG/YH

Better yet, the finanacial aid office just turned you down again with a gentle-yet-unyielding "we have no more assistance for someone with your financial situation," when you meet the football player who drives an Audi coming in to check on his half-tuition aid package.

Or maybe you're still thanking Kaplan for the SAT scores that got you into your reach school, while bristling every time you hear that some jock with a 1250 was accepted early decision into a school that boasts a 1380 minimum.

A recent unnerving inclination around prestigious college campuses seems to be to trade academic excellence for athletic accomplishment. Summarized in anecdotes about lower admissions standards for recruited athletes and "athlete-friendly" courses, this trend has spread from powerhouse-athletic schools to exclusive liberal arts colleges and the Ivy League.

NCAA Division I schools can hide a running back's D in Economics behind his championship ring—these programs sustain their big-time programs by pushing scholarships at students who have little interest in academics. But in Division III schools and the Ivy League, where athletic scholarships are banned, coaches tantalize top high school athletes with something more valuable: admission to top-level colleges. No admissions office or athletic department would ever admit to guaranteeing admission as part of a recruitment package, but statistical data offer disturbing evidence. Amherst and Williams are reserving over 13 percent of their freshman classes for recruited athletes; acceptable SAT scores for desirable athletes are 15 percent lower than those of non-athletes. The admissions rate for athletes is 62 percent higher than for minorities and 50 percent higher than for legacies. As retired Williams Dean of Admissions Phillip Smith told The New York Times, "Athletic recruiting is the biggest form of affirmative action in American higher education."

Admissions officers at prestigious colleges are quick to point out that all students are judged against certain standards and further evaluated for the unique contributions they will bring to the school. That said, it has been proven that a student wielding a hockey stick is more likely to make it past the GPA barrier than one lugging a cello case.

So maybe athletes do, in fact, "have it easier," but why? What are the concrete benefits of a prominent athletic program for an institution traditionally known for academic excellence? University presidents like to talk about superiority in all areas of student life. Yale's own athletic mission statement declares, "Through its commitment to competitive athletics, Yale demonstrates its belief that the lessons such engagement teaches are many and enduring. Among these are learning how to strive to win, to compete with pride and honor, to make sacrifices, to persevere when all seems lost, and to develop a sense of obligation and responsibility for others." In the next breath, the statement promises that "student athletes should be generally representative of their class and admitted on the basis of academic promise and personal qualities as well as athletic abilities; that financial aid to student athletes be awarded in the same way it is awarded to other students...that student athletes be held accountable to the same academic standards as other students." Neither Williams nor Amherst has an athletics mission statement, but their philosophies are probably similar to Yale's. "Williams ranks fifth among the nation's colleges in varsity athletes who have won a Rhodes Scholarship with 16 of 33 received by Williams graduates being varsity athletes," claims the school's web site. Amherst's admissions prospectus extols scholarship and intellectual struggle above all. And yet, they too, are in the athletic arms race.

I would argue that schools like Amherst, Williams, and Yale consider the value of big-time varsity athletics to be more than the benefit of competition and proving one's mettle on the intercollegiate battle field. A winning athletics program furnishes the school with visibility which provides a connection to alumni, who in turn donate money to the endowment. Ahh, the endowment.

So is the trade-off worth it? In the end, the University does benefit from a fat endowment. The academic community enjoys taking a break from esotericism to defend school pride. Athletes—some from underprivileged backgrounds—get a chance to partake of and even contribute to the top intellectual environments. In the end, everyone seems to win, except, perhaps, for the kid still lugging the cello.

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