(04-13-2026, 03:16 PM)Nurdyguy Wrote: I agree that, given past history, Stanford is unlikely to adapt to the transfer/NIL era, as the self-imposed limitations our revenue sports are suffering under are tolerated by our alumni and key donors, and the Stanford Administration refuses to change. I'll still cheer for all Stanford teams to win as many games as possible, while understanding that our inability and lack of will to adapt to the transfer/NIL era will severely limit our ability to attract good coaches and players, so our mediocrity in revenue sports will continue. So be it.
IMO you are still missing the point. It is not that the "Stanford Administration refuses to change". While it is indeed probable that the various administrators involved undoubtedly have their own ideas about what the Stanford transfer admissions policy should be, Stanford Admissions has several constituencies that it MUST satisfy. In this case, the roadblock to transfer free-for-all is the Academic side of the University. Even if the "Stanford Administration" wanted to (which it probably doesn't) it could not adopt an admissions policy that would deliver to Stanford sports an essentially unimpeded flow of transfers in. The "real" part of the University wouldn't stand for it and that isn't a battle the Administrators could win or want to fight.
IMO it is worthwhile to examine three cases of schools Stanford must compete with. The poster child for relaxed admissions and transfer admissions is ASU. They have 194,000 students across all campus and online programs. They admit a fair number of "regular" freshman students who have a GPA of 1.9. Thus, it is quite easy to accept a large number of athletes each year without skewing the statistics. Athletic admissions are always a de minimis factor. They have a transfer acceptance rate of 90.6%. Pretty much a free-for-all.
There are about 33,000 undergraduate students at UCLA. They have an admission rate of approximately 9% for first-time students. According to Google AI "UCLA admits approximately 6,000 to 6,500 transfer students annually." The transfer admission acceptance rate is 23%. One could admit 50 athletes as transfers every year and it would constitute 0.83% of the transfer admissions. Again, de minimis. The faculty simply can't go nuts over such small numbers percentage-wise. The are a lot of state schools that are in a similar situation. Many of the football powers are "big" schools. They can get what they need through the transfer portal without moving the meter.
Lastly we can consider Duke, a school much more like Stanford in size than the two previous examples. Duke has been suggested as a "model Stanford should emulate". Duke had an undergraduate enrollment of 6,523 in the 2024 academic year. In 2024 Stanford had 7,904, slightly larger than Duke. Their acceptance rate is listed as "4 to 8%'. Apparently some years Duke accepts a lot of people that chose to go elsewhere. When that happens they compensate the next year(s). In 2024 Duke accepted only 77 transfer students. This represented an acceptance rate of 3%. Duke has been trying to increase the number of transfers and is targeting about 100 per year. In 2024 Stanford admitted 65 transfer students. The acceptance rate was 1.58%. While the numbers are different, they are arguably not THAT different. Now the problem. Duke football added 13 transfers. Duke basketball added 5 transfers. Duke men's tennis added 6 transfers. According to Google AI "Approximately 28% of all incoming transfers to Duke are athletes." In 2024 it was 31%, so 28% is obviously not a "hard limit". There is no way that even 28% can be called de minimis. The Stanford faculty would say that level of athletic bias is totally unacceptable. It wouldn't be tolerated, period. I would unfortunately agree with them. Thank Wally, but that is how it is.
