I'll put it this way. The Ivies are all among the schools that offer the most athletic opportunities to its student body, both varsity and otherwise. I see no difference in athletes getting bonus points in admissions than when the class president of some podunk town's high school gets the same admissions break, or a master pianist, or actor, or whatever (on a side note, I have no problem with preferential admission for legacies either). The Ivies want a well-rounded student body of all races, religions, and abilities, not thousands of booksmart nerds. So Dubya got in because of his dad and had an undistinguished academic career. Big deal. Most of my friends at Dartmouth are having undistinguished academic careers too - most will graduate with a B or B+ average. Then we'll have some near-albino pale person that no one has ever met as our valedictorian because he never left his room and studied even on the party weekends to carry a 3.99 GPA. That's also fine, but there's a helluva lot more to college than just booksmarts. The admissions people, college presidents, etc. recognize that fact too, or else they'd change their policies. I would go so far as to say that probably 75% of all NCAA athletes are students first. Take out 1A football, basketball, and some hockey/baseball teams, and the rest are there for an education. The difference with the Ivies is that the percentage is somewhat higher because they get less of the people who are using it purely as a stepping stone.