[donkey687]

2) Stanford had the biggest deviation in scores from average student compared to football players.  Thus, Stanford has the highest standards for football players but also bends their standards the most to get football players in.

I don't want to dismiss this out of hand, but it doesn't strike me as correct, and I will tell you why.  The gap between the average Stanford student SAT score and the average SAT score of the better Div I universities (I am thinking of places like Notre Dame, USC, Cal and UCLA) is not very high, because there are many more students with perfect or near perfect SAT scores than there are spots for them at elite universities like Stanford.  On the other hand, the gap between Stanford athletes generally (and Stanford football players specifically) and that of other schools is gargantuan.

This link put the mean Stanford SAT score at 1500, compared to 1470 at Notre Dame, 1440 at USC, 1430 at Michigan, 1420 at Berkeley, 1400 at UCLA.  I would bet dollars to donuts that our football players average SAT scores are more than 30 points higher than the Domers, more than 60 points higher than SC's, more than 80 points higher than Cal's, and more than 100 points higher than those at UCLA (if someone has the data, please let me know where I can find it).  If my assumptions are true, then the gap between students and football players is higher at those schools than at Stanford, and the quoted statement is wrong.

BC

My data was a number of years ago. It could have been more than 5 years ago so it probably no longer applies because there has been SAT grade inflation in recent years that has compressed the difference between Stanford and the Notre Dames of the world. I remember the data showed that Stanford football players had roughly 100 points higher on SAT at that time but the average Stanford student was something like 200 points higher than the average Notre Dame student.

[donkey687]

2) Stanford had the biggest deviation in scores from average student compared to football players.  Thus, Stanford has the highest standards for football players but also bends their standards the most to get football players in.

I don't want to dismiss this out of hand, but it doesn't strike me as correct, and I will tell you why.  The gap between the average Stanford student SAT score and the average SAT score of the better Div I universities (I am thinking of places like Notre Dame, USC, Cal and UCLA) is not very high, because there are many more students with perfect or near perfect SAT scores than there are spots for them at elite universities like Stanford.  On the other hand, the gap between Stanford athletes generally (and Stanford football players specifically) and that of other schools is gargantuan.

This link put the mean Stanford SAT score at 1500, compared to 1470 at Notre Dame, 1440 at USC, 1430 at Michigan, 1420 at Berkeley, 1400 at UCLA.  I would bet dollars to donuts that our football players average SAT scores are more than 30 points higher than the Domers, more than 60 points higher than SC's, more than 80 points higher than Cal's, and more than 100 points higher than those at UCLA (if someone has the data, please let me know where I can find it).  If my assumptions are true, then the gap between students and football players is higher at those schools than at Stanford, and the quoted statement is wrong.

BC

My data was a number of years ago. It could have been more than 5 years ago so it probably no longer applies because there has been SAT grade inflation in recent years that has compressed the difference between Stanford and the Notre Dames of the world. I remember the data showed that Stanford football players had roughly 100 points higher on SAT at that time but the average Stanford student was something like 200 points higher than the average Notre Dame student.