-- [ From: Kepler * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] --
The questions of the definition and M.O. of preferential admissions and
preferential aid are issues that come up on hockey-l every year. I would
think by now we would have an FAQ about this somewheres.
How about the (easier) question of preferential admissions? This is much
less complex than the question of aid (since admission is a simple yes/no,
whereas aid explodes into many forms).
Can hockey skills compensate for poor SAT's or poor high school grades in
gaining a student-athlete admission?
This is probably more a matter of "well, how poor?" than "well, how skilled?
" If you could genuinely examine the D1 colleges by the *actual* SAT / high
school achievements of their admittees, (and even though ostensible numbers
are out there, you can't, since they are self-reported and the top U-Snooze
schools want to remain that way), the mean of the hockey players is probably
pretty similar to the mean of the admittees as a whole.
There will be some deviation, since (1) even a representative sample will
have a somewhat deviant mean, and (2) most importantly, every school has a
sort of quasi-mystical admissions formula which includes not only grades and
scores but, er um, intangibles. Admittedly or not, one of these intangibles
may just be a great shot from the point. We can also probably assume that
that deviation is more often than not in the downward direction.
Does this imply that an otherwise utterly unacceptable candidate can gain
admission to a highly selective D1 hockey school if he is also the #1
prospect for Central Scouting? Highly doubtful. This may or may not happen
in some sports (maybe Duke basketball... maybe Stanford football...), but I
really can't conceive of a constellation of university political interests
that would, for example, allow Jean-Jacques Jock to get admitted with
510/470 to a 640/600-mean school, and then just as inevitably flunk out 4
semesters down the road. Too many people along the decision chain would
have so strong an interest in covering themselves, that even if they wanted
to subvert the system, it still wouldn't be worth the hassles that would
arise when the admission decision was reviewed in an atmosphere in which "um
, he looked like a blue chip winger?" would be bad form.
Do borderline candidates "slip in" on the basis of even a modicum of hockey
skill, with a few Admissionvolk crossing their fingers, hoping they can stay
out of the bars and jail long enough to pull that elusive solid C? I guess
we're all thinking "Definitely!" on this one.
So, the question is just how far that invisible scale is allowed to shift
from easily-rationalizable-borderline to clearly-outrageous-and-even-
embarassing-to-(your least favorite coach here). Since it's all subjective
anyway without any genuine data, that compound murkiness is probably
relatively safe territory for the "unscrupulous" (for which read: your rival
) and for the merely "determined" (for which read: your school).
That all having been said, I'd bet dollars to Canadian dollars that if you
ranked D1 schools by incoming SAT means for first the overall undergraduate
population and then the hockey-player cohort, you'd get very similar rank-
orderings. Maybe there would be an overall downward skew of X points, but
there's no reason to think that it wouldn't be uniform across the range of
all D1 programs.
Except yours and mine, of course -- those being lilly white.
--
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* Greg Berge
* Portland, Oregon
* [log in to unmask]
* www.spiritone.com/~kepler
*
* "An theron heng a brooch of gold ful sheene,
* On which ther was first write a crowned A,
* And after, Amor vincit omnia."
* -- Lines 160-162, General Prologue,
* The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer
*
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