[qwerty49]

No, I don’t think that there is a bias for Olympic sports; I think the makeup of “country club” sports is different than the revenue sports, for a few reasons.  First and foremost, most of the non-revenue sports have a much weaker path to a professional career, especially for collegiate athletes.  For football the NFL draft selects almost exclusively from collegiate athletes; the NBA draft selects mostly from collegiate athletes plus some foreign players.  Thus, for many players, football and basketball is a means to an end (playing professionally).  The value of a Stanford education is not clear under those circumstances.  Most other sports don’t require college, so those who most value playing professionally will skip college athletics entirely.  Moreover, for many country club athletes, the athletics is a means to get into a prestigious education.  Many of those athletes go into sports in order to improve their chances at getting into Stanford, not vice versa.  Finally, for better or worse, the demographics of who plays certain sports is different, and sports like tennis, golf, soccer, etc. tend to attract the very upper middle class demographic who most values an elite education, and who has the resources to improve their chances of getting it (stuff like tutoring, college counselors, etc.). Now that latter one might be a good reason to “bend” admissions further for sports like football, but it does explain why it is easier to admit elite volleyball and tennis players than it is to admit elite football players.

BC

Can't disagree with any of that, all true.  However, I'd argue it's also a convenient truth -- a neatly packaged set of arguments for maintaining a status quo that accepts well-healed kids with curated resumes and the right image, and rejects extraordinarily talented kids because they lack the same.

*************

Agree with Both of you Row80 & BostonCard,

I did not mean to imply that the admissions applications were being reviewed in an intentionally biased way, but rather that the criteria chosen for how to evaluate an applicant for admission included some marginally unimportant things, & left out other very important things, ...thus yielding or netting 'a small somewhat artificially homogeneous slice of humanity & unnecessarily missing very important relevant swaths of society, who were A+ in non-traditional ways while still being very good (B+/A-) SAT & GPA students.

(A) If for example, a young high-school person spent a large part of their high-school career playing football & working on a farm/ranch in their free time, and they were an A+ Football Player & an A+ ranch-hand or A+ farm-hand, ....but a B+ Student relative to SAT & GPA, ...and they wanted to Attend & Play Football for Stanford University would they get admitted to Stanford under our present Admissions/Transfer criteria ?  Do we have majors for people who are specifically skilled and interested in farming, ag, ranching, veterinary science, etc ?  [I know in the SEC & BIG10 they have some very unique majors centered around vocational training, but it doesn't seem like our Stanford University has those offerings]

(B) If for example, a young high-school person spent a large part of their high-school career playing football & working in their father's machine-shop, and they were an A+ Football Player & an A+ lathe-operator, drill-press operator, or welder .... but a B+ Student relative to SAT & GPA, ...and they wanted to Attend & Play Football for Stanford University,...would they get admitted to Stanford under our present Admissions/Transfer criteria ?  Do we have majors for people who are specifically skilled and interested in vocational trades like machining, welding, plumbing, etc ?  [I know in the SEC & BIG10 they have some very unique majors centered around vocational training, but it doesn't seem like our Stanford University has those offerings]

-C- If for example, a young high-school person spent a large part of their high-school career playing football & working on pop-music production or popular video/film production (eg singing, DJ-ing, rapping, music production, video/film production) ....and they were an A+ Football Player & A+ performing artist, ...but a B+ Student relative to SAT & GPA, ...and they wanted to Attend & Play Football for Stanford University,...would they get admitted to Stanford under our present Admissions/Transfer criteria ?  Do we have a wide selection of majors for people who are specifically skilled and interested in pop-music. performance art,  or contemporary music/video/film production ?


(D) Also to ponder: Is the current student body at Stanford University being deprived, by not having classmates from the above 'swaths of society' to interact with, & to be exposed to, & not having majors/instructors in these  specific vocational areas ?  [I have heard of Football players who are great Football Players who have B+ academic records (SAT. GPA) & want to pursue careers in music/music-production, acting/ film-production ..would they look to apply to Stanford? ...would Stanford admit them? ...or would they potentially go to USC (a great film school) or Vanderbilt (great country music production school)?]

(E) Now that we are in the ACC, and the ACC has a 'large  Southern footprint' .(and because there is a large Migration from the North & West into the South)..I think we have to broaden our offerings for Majors, and 'what criteria we emphasize for admission, for the worlds next generation of Great Impactful Well Rounded Stanford Student-Servant-Leaders....lest we 'miss out in recruting student-athletes from that Southern ACC footprint' & 'lest we produce a generation of very narrow-focused professional nerds, making Better Mouse-traps, creating new Speculative Financial Derivatives, but with very little grass-roots  "Doris Kearns Goodwin/ Habitat for Humanity JimmyCarter / JackieRobinson ...real world impact".

A very thought-provoking post.  I think it kind of speaks for itself.  Just a few thoughts to add:

Leaving football aside, and speaking only of students in general, why would someone who wants to learn state-of-the-art in film production go to Stanford when he/she could probably get a better head start at USC film school?  And why would someone who wants to enter a vocational trade even bother with considering college and all the debts that mount up with it?  Are we so academically neurotic that we have to offer the best training for every possible career?  That sounds like a game of whack-a-mole and that's not good for an institution with as much egg-headed inertia as Stanford.  If we are too slow/unaware to see things like NIL and ACC on the horizon, then how can we expect our curricula to adjust to modern times adeptly?

Re your point C) and the creative and performing arts, I'm only aware of a very small sample size -- both Ted Danson and Reese Witherspoon came as frosh, and both left very quickly for greener professional pastures.  IIRC Sigourney Weaver stayed for 4 years and I think Jennifer Connelly transferred in from Yale.  None of them were athletes, but of a sample size of 4, we had a 50% retention rate. (Hmmm -- I seem to recall that both Richard Boone and Jack Palance were briefly at Stanford for a quarter or two, but that was way before my time).

One of my best friends was a starter for the football team, but he chose not to use his last year of eligibility.  He had way more fun singing and playing in a local rock band than being told by his coaches to "play through the pain."  He got his AB in English and later his Masters at our Ed School.

There's always a case for more diversity, but I don't necessarily need Stanford admissions to provide that for me.  I'm still in touch with my best grade school and high school friends, and when we get together it's fun to see how many different paths we've all taken in the real world.  With 2 Stanford degrees, having lived for a decade abroad, and having tailgated off and on in Lot 2 for (gasp) 50 years, I still don't expect Stanford to be a representative slice of reality.  Whether it's a respite or an opportunity, or both -- it is what it is.

[qwerty49]

No, I don’t think that there is a bias for Olympic sports; I think the makeup of “country club” sports is different than the revenue sports, for a few reasons.  First and foremost, most of the non-revenue sports have a much weaker path to a professional career, especially for collegiate athletes.  For football the NFL draft selects almost exclusively from collegiate athletes; the NBA draft selects mostly from collegiate athletes plus some foreign players.  Thus, for many players, football and basketball is a means to an end (playing professionally).  The value of a Stanford education is not clear under those circumstances.  Most other sports don’t require college, so those who most value playing professionally will skip college athletics entirely.  Moreover, for many country club athletes, the athletics is a means to get into a prestigious education.  Many of those athletes go into sports in order to improve their chances at getting into Stanford, not vice versa.  Finally, for better or worse, the demographics of who plays certain sports is different, and sports like tennis, golf, soccer, etc. tend to attract the very upper middle class demographic who most values an elite education, and who has the resources to improve their chances of getting it (stuff like tutoring, college counselors, etc.). Now that latter one might be a good reason to “bend” admissions further for sports like football, but it does explain why it is easier to admit elite volleyball and tennis players than it is to admit elite football players.

BC

Can't disagree with any of that, all true.  However, I'd argue it's also a convenient truth -- a neatly packaged set of arguments for maintaining a status quo that accepts well-healed kids with curated resumes and the right image, and rejects extraordinarily talented kids because they lack the same.

*************

Agree with Both of you Row80 & BostonCard,

I did not mean to imply that the admissions applications were being reviewed in an intentionally biased way, but rather that the criteria chosen for how to evaluate an applicant for admission included some marginally unimportant things, & left out other very important things, ...thus yielding or netting 'a small somewhat artificially homogeneous slice of humanity & unnecessarily missing very important relevant swaths of society, who were A+ in non-traditional ways while still being very good (B+/A-) SAT & GPA students.

(A) If for example, a young high-school person spent a large part of their high-school career playing football & working on a farm/ranch in their free time, and they were an A+ Football Player & an A+ ranch-hand or A+ farm-hand, ....but a B+ Student relative to SAT & GPA, ...and they wanted to Attend & Play Football for Stanford University would they get admitted to Stanford under our present Admissions/Transfer criteria ?  Do we have majors for people who are specifically skilled and interested in farming, ag, ranching, veterinary science, etc ?  [I know in the SEC & BIG10 they have some very unique majors centered around vocational training, but it doesn't seem like our Stanford University has those offerings]

(B) If for example, a young high-school person spent a large part of their high-school career playing football & working in their father's machine-shop, and they were an A+ Football Player & an A+ lathe-operator, drill-press operator, or welder .... but a B+ Student relative to SAT & GPA, ...and they wanted to Attend & Play Football for Stanford University,...would they get admitted to Stanford under our present Admissions/Transfer criteria ?  Do we have majors for people who are specifically skilled and interested in vocational trades like machining, welding, plumbing, etc ?  [I know in the SEC & BIG10 they have some very unique majors centered around vocational training, but it doesn't seem like our Stanford University has those offerings]

-C- If for example, a young high-school person spent a large part of their high-school career playing football & working on pop-music production or popular video/film production (eg singing, DJ-ing, rapping, music production, video/film production) ....and they were an A+ Football Player & A+ performing artist, ...but a B+ Student relative to SAT & GPA, ...and they wanted to Attend & Play Football for Stanford University,...would they get admitted to Stanford under our present Admissions/Transfer criteria ?  Do we have a wide selection of majors for people who are specifically skilled and interested in pop-music. performance art,  or contemporary music/video/film production ?


(D) Also to ponder: Is the current student body at Stanford University being deprived, by not having classmates from the above 'swaths of society' to interact with, & to be exposed to, & not having majors/instructors in these  specific vocational areas ?  [I have heard of Football players who are great Football Players who have B+ academic records (SAT. GPA) & want to pursue careers in music/music-production, acting/ film-production ..would they look to apply to Stanford? ...would Stanford admit them? ...or would they potentially go to USC (a great film school) or Vanderbilt (great country music production school)?]

(E) Now that we are in the ACC, and the ACC has a 'large  Southern footprint' .(and because there is a large Migration from the North & West into the South)..I think we have to broaden our offerings for Majors, and 'what criteria we emphasize for admission, for the worlds next generation of Great Impactful Well Rounded Stanford Student-Servant-Leaders....lest we 'miss out in recruting student-athletes from that Southern ACC footprint' & 'lest we produce a generation of very narrow-focused professional nerds, making Better Mouse-traps, creating new Speculative Financial Derivatives, but with very little grass-roots  "Doris Kearns Goodwin/ Habitat for Humanity JimmyCarter / JackieRobinson ...real world impact".

A very thought-provoking post.  I think it kind of speaks for itself.  Just a few thoughts to add:

Leaving football aside, and speaking only of students in general, why would someone who wants to learn state-of-the-art in film production go to Stanford when he/she could probably get a better head start at USC film school?  And why would someone who wants to enter a vocational trade even bother with considering college and all the debts that mount up with it?  Are we so academically neurotic that we have to offer the best training for every possible career?  That sounds like a game of whack-a-mole and that's not good for an institution with as much egg-headed inertia as Stanford.  If we are too slow/unaware to see things like NIL and ACC on the horizon, then how can we expect our curricula to adjust to modern times adeptly?

Re your point C) and the creative and performing arts, I'm only aware of a very small sample size -- both Ted Danson and Reese Witherspoon came as frosh, and both left very quickly for greener professional pastures.  IIRC Sigourney Weaver stayed for 4 years and I think Jennifer Connelly transferred in from Yale.  None of them were athletes, but of a sample size of 4, we had a 50% retention rate. (Hmmm -- I seem to recall that both Richard Boone and Jack Palance were briefly at Stanford for a quarter or two, but that was way before my time).

One of my best friends was a starter for the football team, but he chose not to use his last year of eligibility.  He had way more fun singing and playing in a local rock band than being told by his coaches to "play through the pain."  He got his AB in English and later his Masters at our Ed School.

There's always a case for more diversity, but I don't necessarily need Stanford admissions to provide that for me.  I'm still in touch with my best grade school and high school friends, and when we get together it's fun to see how many different paths we've all taken in the real world.  With 2 Stanford degrees, having lived for a decade abroad, and having tailgated off and on in Lot 2 for (gasp) 50 years, I still don't expect Stanford to be a representative slice of reality.  Whether it's a respite or an opportunity, or both -- it is what it is.