Many athletes who are recruited play a big role in getting accepted early to the best colleges in our country. At Ivy League schools where they don’t give out sports scholarships, it’s estimated that about 20% of the students who enrol were noticed and chosen as athletes. These could be great swimmers, tall basketball players, skilled hockey players, or talented tennis players who caught the eye of college coaches.

Coaches set aside spots each year for these young athletes, hoping they’ll help their team succeed during their time at college. It’s a bit of a gamble, more so in some cases than others. So, what are the advantages and risks for both coaches and student-athletes? Let’s dive in!

The Athletic Recruiting Rewards

College Coaches

Coaches are mainly rewarded by seeing their team improve and become competitive. Winning games usually means they can keep their job. Plus, winning is just plain enjoyable!

Coaches love to put up banners for winning their conference or national championships. Some coaches have simpler goals depending on how good their team is – maybe they just want to do better than last year and not end up at the bottom of their league again.

But the main aim is always to win. For coaches like those in football and basketball, winning could mean the school gets more money (and sometimes more students apply, especially if the basketball team has a great run in March Madness, leading to lots of attention!).

Student-Athletes

Athletes who are recruited have a much better chance of getting into top universities, including Ivy League schools, compared to other applicants, especially in popular sports like football, hockey, and basketball. Even athletes recruited for less common sports like squash, water polo, field hockey, and lightweight crew have a higher chance of getting into prestigious colleges.

Is it fair for athletes in less common sports like squash to take up spots in each new class, especially since these schools can’t prioritise underrepresented minority applicants anymore because of changes in Affirmative Action policies? No, but that’s how it is. At Ivy Coach, we’ve been saying for a while that there should be stricter limits on how many recruited athletes can join each new class, especially for sports that don’t have a big impact on a school’s culture (sorry, alpine skiers!).

The Athletic Recruiting Risks

College Coaches

Coaches can gain a lot when they recruit a talented player who excels on the team. However, it’s the coaches, not the athletes, who face the greater risk once they’ve recruited a player and the player has been accepted by the school. Why is that?

Well, recruited athletes often leave, especially in the Ivy League. Here, there are no sports scholarships, and students aren’t legally bound to compete for the coaches who helped them get into the university. They can just decide to quit.

A couple of years back, The Harvard Crimson newspaper uncovered some surprising facts. They found that one out of every four athletes who were part of Harvard’s 42 main sports teams stopped playing their sport during their four years at the university. That’s a quarter of them – 25%!

Additionally, some athletes regularly fail to meet expectations. While coaches can more accurately judge a high school athlete’s abilities in sports such as track and field, swimming, and cross-country compared to more subjective sports like lacrosse, baseball, and football, there are risks involved in all sports.

Personally, when the head partner of Ivy Coach joined Dartmouth‘s swim team, he found out that he was faster than not just one but two recruited swimmers. How could this happen? It’s a guess, but one recruit probably fibbed about their times (they weren’t as easily checked back then), while the other simply didn’t work as hard, so they swam slower than they did in high school.

Even when student-athletes are honest, coaches might make errors in judging talent. They might misunderstand how hard the student-athletes work and how dedicated they are. There’s a lot we don’t know about high schoolers, and we would argue that the coach takes on the biggest risk.

Student-Athletes

However, student-athletes also face significant risks. For instance, what if a high school senior injures her knee just before the Early Action/Decision deadline? Will the lacrosse coach still be interested in her? What if her performance isn’t up to par? Many families have shared with the Ivy Coach that just before the Early deadline, a coach said, “Your academic record is strong enough for you to potentially get in on your own.” But don’t be fooled. This statement often means trouble from a college coach. It could indicate that a better player emerged at the last minute, or that the coach didn’t want to take a chance on an injured recruit. It shows that the coach won’t be holding a spot for the injured athlete as promised.

With just a few days left until the Early deadline, the student is facing a tough situation. They’ve dedicated years to improving their abilities in their sport, but now it’s not helping them – in fact, it’s hurting their chances. Why? Because colleges prefer to accept students who excel in a specific area of interest, rather than those who have simply shown effort or commitment to a sport, unless it directly helps the college team succeed. If the coach doesn’t guarantee a spot for the student, that’s all the admissions officer cares about.

We’re cautious about saying that spending time on this activity was a waste for the student because they definitely made good friends and got stronger while also learning important life skills. But now, playing this sport doesn’t help their chances of getting into a top college. So, what could they have done instead of doing something that doesn’t make them stand out from other applicants? There’s a cost to missing out on other opportunities.

Unlike athletes, science researchers, poets, historians, and other students with special talents that impress college admissions officers, they don’t have to think about getting hurt, how well they perform, or dealing with unpredictable college coaches.

Ivy Coach’s Closing Thoughts on Athletic Recruiting

We, at Ivy Coach, enjoy sports. We play, watch, and read about sports. We don’t have anything against athletes. However, we disagree with elite American colleges setting aside too many spots for recruited athletes, especially in popular sports like squash, swimming, tennis, and water polo.

This is because, despite what many think, most college sports teams are mostly made up of white and privileged students. Not everyone has access to squash courts or swimming pools.

Apart from creating unfairness in college admissions, which could easily be fixed by selecting the best squash players admitted to a school for the squash team, these sports also come with many risks for both coaches and students. But, there are also some good rewards.