Kisunas commits to Stanford

[HooperScooper]

I am friends with a guy whose daughter is on the Stanford basketball team (Nadia Fingall). We went to same church in Navarre, FL.

While she was being recruited he told me that Stanford is a unique school in that any recruit must be accepted academically to the university first before the coach can offer them a scholarship. Essentially, Stanford makes you prove your academic worth before the coach can even offer you a place on the team. Not sure if Duke does the same.

That is what I was told also. Obviously they lower the standards some for athletes or else there's no way they'd be able to field successful teams in so many sports, but they don't lower them like every other D1 school does. It's almost a miracle they're able to field so many successful teams.

 

[auggie22]

I hope you don't mean they're evaluated like every other run of the mill student. If that were true - it's not - they'd lose every basketball game by 60 points and every football game by 90. Stanford football and basketball players are more academically qualified than most D1 athletes but by and large they're not getting in without their sport. And frankly that's fine.

The same is true with athletes at the Ivy’s. I know Yale and Harvard alumns that have acknowledged that they were not getting in without athletics.

 

[8893]

The same is true with athletes at the Ivy’s. I know Yale and Harvard alumns that have acknowledged that they were not getting in without athletics.

The Ivies take it even further, in that they don't offer athletic scholarships at all. Which makes it much harder for them to compete even at the level of Stanford.

 

[Chuck]

The Ivies take it even further, in that they don't offer athletic scholarships at all. Which makes it much harder for them to compete even at the level of Stanford.

There are plenty of grant opportunities at Ivies. Many students at Harvard pay nothing or very little because of the size of the endowments. I also have a friend that played basketball at an Ivy. He opened corks at alumni events and "guarded" a locked parking lot for good pay.

Ivy admission is even more interesting though. The league applies an academic index to each school. Athletes have to be within certain standard deviations of the whole student body. Basically, the academic prowess of the fencing team can help bring in a lower qualified basketball player. The Academic Index at Ivy League Schools.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

The same is true with athletes at the Ivy’s. I know Yale and Harvard alumns that have acknowledged that they were not getting in without athletics.

Yeah I never said otherwise. My freshman roommate graduated in the bottom half of his high school class. Competitive high school, but still . . .

 

[8893]

There are plenty of grant opportunities at Ivies. Many students at Harvard pay nothing or very little because of the size of the endowments. I also have a friend that played basketball at an Ivy. He opened corks at alumni events and "guarded" a locked parking lot for good pay.

Ivy admission is even more interesting though. The league applies an academic index to each school. Athletes have to be within certain standard deviations of the whole student body. Basically, the academic prowess of the fencing team can help bring in a lower qualified basketball player. The Academic Index at Ivy League Schools.

Yes, I'm aware. My best friend's son was recruited to play baseball at an Ivy and is currently starting as a sophomore. He was an excellent high school student with great grades and very good SATs and got recruited out of a camp he was invited to in Arizona (not where they live), where you had to have something like a 3.8 or better and SATs over 1300 just to be invited. He pays full freight because they had no financial need (as determined by FAFSA); his freshman year roommate was from Kenya, was not an athlete, and was on full scholarship.

Point being, I don't believe they use the grant/endowment money for athletes unless they have demonstrated financial need.

 

[Robertelamin]

Has anyone heard Andrew Luck talk? He seems borderline...never mind.

 

[Dogdeacon]

The statement was that it's the best place in the world to both study and play basketball. My opinion was that that is incorrect because the level of basketball played at Duke would make it better. If you were to give basketball and education equal weight and rank the 4 components here I would rank them as such:
1. Duke for Basketball
2. Stanford for Education
3. Duke for Education
4. Stanford for Basketball
1+3 > 2+4
If weighted heavier for education than your statement makes sense, if not than Duke is better because of the basketball.

I have not read all 4 pages of this, but hopefully besides the Boeheim crack (sorry for imagery) others have pointed out that our evaluator of college education & sport isn't able to add, spell UConn or grasp the concept of qualitative rankings of basketball teams and academic institutions. Other than that, great analysis!

 

[Dogdeacon]

I'm not saying that they only look for academic profile with their athletes. What I am getting at is that if the athlete cannot meet minimum academic requirements to get into the school as a normal student, Stanford will not offer them the scholarship.

I am going off of what I was told from a man that I trust whose daughter just went through the recruiting and LOI signing process with Stanford.

That just cannot be universally true across all sports given the way Stanford dominates collegiate athletics. It'd mean the best swimmers, soccer players, rowers, tennis players, volleyball (ok where else you gonna play that), wrestlers etc.. are all also 3.8+... it just doesn't seem plausible. Maybe they just do basketball & football that way and that's why those sports are their weakest? They zig where others zag.

 

[auggie22]

Yeah I never said otherwise. My freshman roommate graduated in the bottom half of his high school class. Competitive high school, but still . . .

I was not being argumentative... just piling on to the point you were making.

 

[YoungFree]

That just cannot be universally true across all sports given the way Stanford dominates collegiate athletics. It'd mean the best swimmers, soccer players, rowers, tennis players, volleyball (ok where else you gonna play that), wrestlers etc.. are all also 3.8+... it just doesn't seem plausible. Maybe they just do basketball & football that way and that's why those sports are their weakest? They zig where others zag.

Perhaps. All I know is the experience from the women's basketball team. Can't speak to anything else.