Statistics May Be Misleading in Athlete Admissions
By Sarah Kuriakose
Staff Writer

The general admission rate for the Pomona College class of 2007 was an ultra-competitive 20 percent. The admission for recruited women’s basketball athletes in the Pomona College class of 2007 was a much less competitive 50 percent.

Based on numbers alone, it seems, being a recruited athlete can more than double a prospective freshman’s chance of admission. Along with this conclusion comes the concern that recruited athletes may be admitted even if they are academically inferior to their future classmates.

However, presenting this statement to admissions officers, sports coaches, and varsity athletes brought nothing more than some heartfelt scoffs and the occasional sigh of frustration. Dean of Admissions Bruce Poch says, “I know this seems like doublespeak, but the numbers are not as clear-cut as they seem. Yes, the percentage of admitted athletes is often higher than the general admit rate, but the admissions process more than explains this.”

The admissions process for recruited athletes that Poch speaks of can begin in two ways. Coaches will either scout out athletes that they believe are a good fit for the team and the College, or the athletes themselves will express interest in varsity athletics by filling out the 5b card that is an optional part of the standard freshman application. Coaches for each sport consolidate this data to form a preliminary list of candidates for admissions. Shakila Williams, a Pomona admissions officer, and a former varsity basketball player at Oberlin, says, “There’s a really important point to consider at this step in the process. Coaches will only put kids that they consider admissible on their recruiting list.”

Coaches then generally follow up with the athletes they consider primary choices, often making their decisions based on video clips or reported scores sent in by the student. Poch says, “What we end up working with with the coaches are fairly groomed lists. The admission rate for these athletes will be higher just because those considered non-admissible have been taken out of the pool.” The Athletic Director will finally present the admissions committee with the department’s top three choices in each sport.

Another factor to consider in comparing admission rates is the number of recruited athletes considered in these calculations. For instance, 60 percent of the recruited golfers in the class of 2007 were admitted. However, this sixty percent refers to the three out of five recruited golfers. In the same way, 50 percent of the women’s basketball players were admitted, but that refers to 12 out of 24.

The women’s soccer team, however, only had a 23 percent admission rate, for 98 athletes, comparable to the 20 percent general admit rate.

Dean of the College Gary Kates believes that athletes perform as well as the broader student body and that the admissions process for athletes is serving the College well.

“What is considered a ‘recruited athlete’ at Pomona would be merely a scholar at UCLA. A coach declares a particular applicant to be worth recruiting. So, a recruited athlete is not only a skilled athlete, but one that the coach has deemed worthy academically of admission. No wonder they do well once they are here; no wonder they are admitted in higher numbers. I would think this would be the case with any list of applicants who were screened for one purpose or another,” said Kates.

Pomona’s system of dealing with recruited athletes differs markedly from many other colleges and universities, which use slots. Slots are positions in the entering class earmarked specifically for recruited athletes in a particular sport. Associate Dean of Admissions Betsy Geiger said, “At a college like Williams, I’ve heard that coaches can basically say which kid they want and he or she will be in.”

In contrast, Lisa Beckett, physical education coordinator and senior women’s administrator, says, “It’s designed so that admissions does their work and we don’t really understand it. That’s the way it should be. I think if a coach can successfully predict who will be admitted, something is really wrong.”

Swarthmore College uses another method to deal with this issue: placing a 15 percent cap on recruited student athletes in the freshman class. Tom Krattenmaker, Director of News and Information at Swarthmore notes, “We don’t use any kind of formula for admittance. The process is very hand-crafted, very organic.”

However, Swarthmore has had to deal with the problem of disproportionate representation of athletes in the class. Krattenmaker says, “We have 600 males. To make up a football team of 60 males, one of every ten male members of the student body would have to be football players. That would give sports an effect on the constitution of the class that no other single extracurricular activity [does].” This concern, among many others, has led Swarthmore to recently discontinue its football program after 122 years.

The issue that students may be more concerned with is the academic quality of recruited athletes. Amherst College, for instance, ranks its candidates on a scale of one to five, with a high of five. A faculty commission found that “from 1989 to 1998, 33 percent of highly-rated athletes with an academic rating of four and 48 percent with an academic rating of three were admitted, while under five percent of other non-athlete applicants with fours and less than ten percent with threes were admitted.”

In reference to this issue, Poch says, “Of course being an excellent athlete will help you fare well in admissions if you are also a solid student. But you can be a superior athlete who is not a good student, and it won’t help you at all in admissions. The bottom line is can the kid do the work in the neighborhood of the college average?”

Beckett believes that it can, “I think that on this issue, Pomona has been excellent in avoiding a lot of the pressure to admit kids who are only good athletes. All the coaches know not to put kids on the recruiting lists who are not solid candidates.”

Poch notes that every few years a faculty committee takes a look at the performance of student athletes versus non-athletes. He says, “There has not yet been a significant difference in GPA.”

Krattenmaker says that Swarthmore follows a philosophy similar to Pomona’s, “The students getting accepted here have outstanding academic credentials, completely apart from their athletic ability.”

Regardless of the admissions procedure, College administrators believe that athletes and athletics play an important role in college life.

“I think Division III student athletes are good for a campus in many ways; I think they are often models of leadership, community building, peer mentorship, and work ethic. I believe they make Pomona a better place,” said Kates.

Interestingly, some varsity athletes, who prefer to remained unnamed, mentioned that they feel athletics played a large role in admissions for them. One says, “Yeah, I definitely feel that I would not be here if it wasn’t for my status as an athlete.” Shakila Williams, says of her experience at Oberlin said, “There was definitely a feeling among varsity athletes that they did not deserve to be at the school.”

But some students disagree. Tim Brown ’07, a recruited water polo player, said “I don’t think athletics has that much pull at this school.”

Many non-athletes also agree with Brown. James Cornish ’07 says, “There’s no feeling in the student body that athletes are any less qualified than anyone else.”

Admissions officials maintain that down to the end, they are balancing the athletics and the academics.

Poch said, “It’s not about having a 100 percent win record in each sport in each year. It’s about the students having a good experience and using their talents.”

Simlarly, Beckett said “We don’t need championships in every sport every year. Our goal is quality educational experience through sport.”

The attitude of both the athletics and admissions departments that leads to kind of student athlete that Pomona admits. Poch says, “Look at Matthew Barber. He was given an award by the NFL for his status as a athlete. But he is also an extremely good student. Can you say it was sports that got him in? Or academics? It was a combination.”