[81alum]

Stanford loses 3 undergraduate students to the portal. If Tara wants to bring in 3 transfers to replace them, are they competing in any way in the admission process with other transfer applicants into the university? Or are the WBB slots "held in reserve exclusively for WBB applicants" and admissions is just evaluating the incoming transfers independently to determine if they are/are not of Stanford academic quality?

I don't know the answer to this, BB.  I suggested about a month ago that athletics teams should be allowed to replace any transfers out with academically qualified transfers in, rather than pooling their slots with the rest of the university.  In a year in which WBB has 0 transfers out, there would be no transfers in (except possibly grad transfers.)  In a year like this, there could be three transfers in--but of course they would have to meet admissions criteria as stringent as the outgoing students met.  My suggestion won't be popular, though, because at this rate the athletics teams at Stanford could easily double the transfer-out rate of the rest of the university, putting a serious dent in one of the stats that elite universities prize.  Princeton and Harvard are not too worried about their student-athletes transferring out, and this is going to give them a serious edge in the competition for lowest transfer rates.

But even if my proposal were accepted, it raises another problem.  To get outstanding student-athletes to have the credentials to get through admissions, the coaches and counselors at Stanford often have to cultivate them for years.  Many prospects are contacted very early in high school and they are told how high they have to keep their grades, how many AP courses they need to take, how often they need to take the tests, etc.  None of that is possible with transfer students.  When a student decides to transfer during the portal they get a decision within weeks.  It is not as if our coaches can contact students in the portal and say "you need to take courses X, Y, and Z and add an extracurricular A, B, or C so that our admissions office will approve you for Stanford." 

Yet another serious problem that the new transfer flexibility posed for Stanford vis a vis our competitors.

[81alum]

Stanford loses 3 undergraduate students to the portal. If Tara wants to bring in 3 transfers to replace them, are they competing in any way in the admission process with other transfer applicants into the university? Or are the WBB slots "held in reserve exclusively for WBB applicants" and admissions is just evaluating the incoming transfers independently to determine if they are/are not of Stanford academic quality?

I don't know the answer to this, BB.  I suggested about a month ago that athletics teams should be allowed to replace any transfers out with academically qualified transfers in, rather than pooling their slots with the rest of the university.  In a year in which WBB has 0 transfers out, there would be no transfers in (except possibly grad transfers.)  In a year like this, there could be three transfers in--but of course they would have to meet admissions criteria as stringent as the outgoing students met.  My suggestion won't be popular, though, because at this rate the athletics teams at Stanford could easily double the transfer-out rate of the rest of the university, putting a serious dent in one of the stats that elite universities prize.  Princeton and Harvard are not too worried about their student-athletes transferring out, and this is going to give them a serious edge in the competition for lowest transfer rates.

But even if my proposal were accepted, it raises another problem.  To get outstanding student-athletes to have the credentials to get through admissions, the coaches and counselors at Stanford often have to cultivate them for years.  Many prospects are contacted very early in high school and they are told how high they have to keep their grades, how many AP courses they need to take, how often they need to take the tests, etc.  None of that is possible with transfer students.  When a student decides to transfer during the portal they get a decision within weeks.  It is not as if our coaches can contact students in the portal and say "you need to take courses X, Y, and Z and add an extracurricular A, B, or C so that our admissions office will approve you for Stanford." 

Yet another serious problem that the new transfer flexibility posed for Stanford vis a vis our competitors.