Yale Daily News

This story vacillates between admitting that Yale and the other Ivies admit atheletes based in part on their atheletic ability and not solely on their academic credentials and suggesting that they do not. Let's face it, they do. Further, those athelete/students use this affrimative action program to get in and then quit the programs to make them appear to their peers as normal admittees. Too bad the Black students can't change anything to make themselves more accepted by their peers, since whether they got in on perference or not, they are seen that way.

are you kidding?

to 9:25am-

And what magic criteria established your acceptability?

Everyone here has outstanding high school grades and prominent talents. Yale athletes are no different- they were admitted because they had the grades and the talent (sports).

Maybe the athletic director needs to have in place a moral & ethics policy for both coaches and athletes. When new coaches come into program and do not treat jr. & sr. athletes the same as the freshman that the coach has recruited. As well when coaches are abusive and the athletes do not know as to where they stand and fear being publicly called out by in front of their peers is not conducive to a respectful atmosphere. If the athlete has any option, why wouldn't they "choose to leave" vs being labelled as a "quitter". I'd say that the coach "quit" and needs to be called out by the athlete director even though he hired them. Potential athletes that have the potential to become professionals in their fields that are not being utilized/played is hurting "Yale's image" and professional teams will not be interested in having a high caliber/elite athlete (that Yale recruits) not come to Yale due to regression in performance/training etc. Unfortunately this problem exists at this time with Yale and will also have an impact on their alumunae donations currently and in the future. Frustrated athletes and parents talk to alot of other potential Yale recruits.

Athlete wrote: "Everyone here has outstanding high school grades and prominent talents. Yale athletes are no different- they were admitted because they had the grades and the talent (sports)."

This is true to an extent, but it is also true that the admissions office doesn't give the Director of the Glee Club six guaranteed admissions spots for excellent singers. It doesn't give the YPU and the Debate Team six spots for promising debaters. It doesn't give the YDN six guaranteed top journalists. You get the picture.

There is a difference between getting an admissions boost for to students who have excelled in high school extracurriculars, and giving a Yale extracurricular guaranteed admissions spots with which to recruit participants. Athletic recruiting is unique in that sense.

Yes, recruited athletes have to meet certain academic standards. Yet unlike any other applicants, if they do meet these standards and the coach puts their names on a recruiting list, these athletes are essentially guaranteed admission.

My own opinion (and I'll freely admit that it's biased, given that I'm a walk-on in a minor sport) is that Yale has a good reason to recruit for the major teams (Football, Basketball, Crew) since alumni giving depends greatly on their success. I don't see the point of recruiting for volleyball, cross country, or fencing.

A full time coach who has a goal of making his team the best it can be invests time, energy and emotion in recruiting an athlete to come to Yale to play for his/her team. It is understandable that the coach would be disappointed if the athlete failed to play the whole four years. That disappointment is probably not much different than the big sports schools who lose kids early to pro contracts, like Ohio State with Greg Oden or Texas with Kevin Durant or Wake Forest a couple of years ago with Chris Paul. There is no guarantee with any college athlete that he/she will stay with the team for four (or five with redshirting) years.

there is no such thing as a guaranteed spot at Yale. there are plenty of recruited athletes that do not get accepted to yale in the end. all that recruiting does is make an application stand out to let the administration know there are people at the university that WANT that student athlete there.

let's see.... guarantees for athletes, legacies, big contributors or potential contibutors, celebraties, ethic and geographic diversity. there must be very few spaces for truly qualified students. so much for an academic meritocracy, but then again that was probably never the goal.