[CTcard]

My consistent view is that exceptional performance in athletics should be treated the same as exceptional performance in music, art, public service, etc.

If that were really what Stanford were to do, we would probably not field a football/basketball team - certainly not one competitive at the highest level.

Roughly speaking, to get admitted to Stanford you need both a GPA within ear-shot of perfect + 2200+ thee part SATs AND exceptional performance in something else ... plus some luck. I once heard this described by an admissions officer as needing "two excellences", i.e. academics plus something else.

There are, at least from time to time, a few excellent musicians/artists/etc at Stanford that slip just a bit below the general standard on academics, but there are not 85+13 of them and they didn't slip to the sub-1100 two part SAT level.

There is a significant, difficult question in weighing what an individual athlete brings to campus in their combination of athletic and academic prowess. I don't know that Stanford always answers that question correctly, in fact there isn't an absolutely correct answer. I am happy in my belief that Stanford puts more care into addressing that question than most any other Division 1A school.
However, it's not reality to pretend that balancing act isn't going on and that athletic accomplishment in the money sports is really treated on an even level as other extra-activities.

[CTcard]

My consistent view is that exceptional performance in athletics should be treated the same as exceptional performance in music, art, public service, etc.

If that were really what Stanford were to do, we would probably not field a football/basketball team - certainly not one competitive at the highest level.

Roughly speaking, to get admitted to Stanford you need both a GPA within ear-shot of perfect + 2200+ thee part SATs AND exceptional performance in something else ... plus some luck. I once heard this described by an admissions officer as needing "two excellences", i.e. academics plus something else.

There are, at least from time to time, a few excellent musicians/artists/etc at Stanford that slip just a bit below the general standard on academics, but there are not 85+13 of them and they didn't slip to the sub-1100 two part SAT level.

There is a significant, difficult question in weighing what an individual athlete brings to campus in their combination of athletic and academic prowess. I don't know that Stanford always answers that question correctly, in fact there isn't an absolutely correct answer. I am happy in my belief that Stanford puts more care into addressing that question than most any other Division 1A school.
However, it's not reality to pretend that balancing act isn't going on and that athletic accomplishment in the money sports is really treated on an even level as other extra-activities.