Q&A on Ivy League Recruiting

[Cooper]

There's a very interesting Q&A with Chris Lincoln, author of Playing the Game, Inside Athletic Recruiting in the Ivy League, on the Dartmouth football blog. (http://biggreenalertblog.blogspot.com) Among other things, Lincoln talks about whether the Ivies make up for the lack of scholarships with generous financial aid and whether they ever will offer scholarships. Or if they should.

[Ivytalk]

There's a very interesting Q&A with Chris Lincoln, author of Playing the Game, Inside Athletic Recruiting in the Ivy League, on the Dartmouth football blog. (http://biggreenalertblog.blogspot.com) Among other things, Lincoln talks about whether the Ivies make up for the lack of scholarships with generous financial aid and whether they ever will offer scholarships. Or if they should.

Good interview, but it really contained few surprises for me. I've been doing alumni interviewing for Harvard for years, and I've seen the way that coaches often get the kids they want, even though they may be "subprime" academically. However, I've also seen the Admissions Office reject athlete candidates that coaches really pushed. The "non-scholarship" status that Ivies pride themselves on is really belied by creative financial aid packages. I've become a bit cynical.:rolleyes:

[Lehigh Football Nation]

Not bad, though the guy basically makes one very large misconception about the Patriot League I'd like to correct.


Can you envision a day when the Ivies actually give out athletic scholarships in a manner similar to the Patriot League?

No, this will never happen.... [I]f you choose to give scholarships to players on just a few Ivy teams on these campuses, say to men’s basketball and men’s hockey, then you’re headed down a very slippery slope. Ivy principles aren’t going to allow that, ever. Finally, on philosophical terms, it’s hardly egalitarian to give a full-ride to a kid whose family can afford the full price of tuition when there are so many highly qualified students out there who need financial aid to attend an Ivy institution.

It’s easy to see why scholarships in the Patriot League are luring bright students who are good players away from the Ivy League, though. Skyrocketing tuition costs are threatening to eliminate the middle-class kid from Ivy rosters altogether. “Middle class families get screwed,” one Ivy coach told me. “They don’t qualify for enough aid, and yet they don’t earn enough money to afford $40,000 a year.” If you’re wealthy, you’re fine. If you’re low-income, your need-based package can amount to a full-ride, or close to it. But if you’re a middle-class kid and it’s a choice between a full-ride to a very good school and getting hit with $20,000 or more in student loans, on top of the burden your family will assume for four years, it’s easy to accept that scholarship. That’s why Ivy teams are increasingly composed of rich kids and poor kids and fewer and fewer middle-class kids. This trend will only get worse.

The Patriot League has the same issue that the Ivy has in this regard. Just like the Ivies, our coaches go to recruits with academic formulas as well (plus, we have some of the demographic problems that the author is mentioning). What we do have that the Ivy does not have, however, is a chance to compete in the I-AA playoffs.

One of the reasons why a lot of PL folks want some form of scholarships is to get into this lucrative middle-class pool that he's talking about. He's making the right argument, but he's incorrectly applying it to PL schools - his argument goes for Ivies competing against full-scholly schools with very good academics such as Delaware or Willam & Mary.

[Marcus Garvey]

His comments regarding rich and poor and a lack of middle-class students can also apply to the student bodies in general at the Ivy schools.

[massdad]

Middle class kids in PL get loans paid with grant in aid $$. Ivies can't do this.