Ivy Recruiting

The New York Times had an article today which primarily discusses the move of Ivy football into Division I-AA 25 years ago.
[www.nytimes.com]
One particular paragraph raised some question:

The Ivy League, which has never given out athletic scholarships, has a complex statistical rubric for all its athletic recruits called the Academic Index, which converts high school grades or class rank and test scores into a single number assigned to each recruit. There is a minimum Academic Index number allowed for admission, and each institution is allowed only a certain number of recruited athletes at the lowest range of the acceptable index. The information on athletes’ index numbers and the total admitted is shared among the league members.

Does anyone who has been privy to the inner-workings of Admissions have any detail regarding the referenced statistical rubric? One could infer from the article that the number of recruited athletes at vaious academic levels are, by agreement, the same at all Ivy institutions.

Note: This is posted here rather than "Other Sports" as the recruiting issue applies to hockey and other sports.

I can offer a little bit of insight...I don't know exact ratios or all the different categories going into computing the index number, but it takes measurements like SAT scores, high school GPA, any junior college/other college classes, etc.

Apparently there was an outstanding basketball recruit a few years ago who couldn't get into Cornell because even though he had awesome juco grades and a solid SAT score, his high school grades were pretty miserable.

The academic index is different at different Ivy schools.

I believe that one rule of thumb is that the incoming recruits for a given sport cannot have an average Academic Index that is more than one standard deviation below the average Academic Index of the entire student body.

Ronald Ehrenberg's book, "Tuition Rising," has a chapter on sports admissions that explains it pretty well. Too bad I've forgotten the details, but someone could check it out

cbuckser
The academic index is different at different Ivy schools.

I believe that one rule of thumb is that the incoming recruits for a given sport cannot have an average Academic Index that is more than one standard deviation below the average Academic Index of the entire student body.

That's pretty much it. Philosophically, the League doesn't want the recruited athlete to feel too out of place academically. Of course, the A.I. doesn't take into account other factors that could lower an individual's AI, like extra-curricular activities.

This formula provides Cornell a distinct advantage over H-Y-P. Our "all things to all people"/state school philosophy results in a lower institutional A.I., allowing us to accept athletes H-Y-P should be rejecting. I say should be, because I believe this arrangement is informal, and thus self-monitored by the schools.

Story also mentions how the Ivy presidents had the opportunity to appeal the finding that kicked the Ancient Eight down to Division 1AA ... and they just walked away. Some recruits said they didn't want to play for a school not in the top division ... even if the schools were not competitive in the division.

In terms of athletic talent, we probably do belong in D-1AA. But what is it about football players that makes them stupider than other Ivy athletes, and more in need of being in the classroom? Else why would the Ivy presidents discriminate against playoff participation for just one sport?

billhoward
Else why would the Ivy presidents discriminate against playoff participation for just one sport?

Well, there *is* no IA and IAA for any other sport, for starters.

DeltaOne81

billhoward
Else why would the Ivy presidents discriminate against playoff participation for just one sport?

Well, there *is* no IA and IAA for any other sport, for starters.

I think he means why don't we allow football to go to the playoffs as we do with other sports.

Yeah - I could see them saying, well, you can play 1A but not go to bowl games (since big payouts for the schools aren't really consistent with the Ivy athletics philosophy), OR you can play 1AA, take your pick

But I don't understand the postseason ban at 1AA.

Robb

But I don't understand the postseason ban at 1AA.

Don't they usually say that the I-AA postseason (normally) conflicts with final exams?

Really, what difference would it make other than maybe a slight boost in recruiting? With three OOC games are we going to switch out Patriot League opponents to be Notre Dame's punching bag instead of the service academies? Anyone remember the 1991 game at Stanford?

Center eligible!

Scersk '97
Center eligible!

Pass blocking? Who needs pass blocking when the other team can't count?

Wasn't that trick play the first first down of the game?

Scersk '97
Wasn't that trick play the first first down of the game?

I don't think so. I remember us using it three times with varying levels of success.