It's official: Scarlett to Stanford

It's official: Scarlett to Stanford - Printable Version

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Re: It's official: Scarlett to Stanford - FarmBoy - 03-12-2015

I really don't understand their issue that Stanford loosening their grad program admissions standards for a football player is any different than allowing undergrads who wouldn't make the standard without football. Why is grad school so sacrosanct?

Also, it is surprising to me how much info is known about these guys. I can see a market for the info on high school students trying to get admittance, but I'm taken aback that these guys know the C'al gpa and Cornell undergrad GPAs for guys discussed in that thread. Of course, they could be as off base on those numbers as they were about the assertion of BS going to GBS...

I also find it amusing that these guys talk about BS being "set of life" by getting and undergrad at Haas and grad degree in MS&E. They really believe that a Stanford degree grants admission to some secret vault of gold and start up options with now additional effort required. So naive.

That whole crew is just exhausting. But I think if the shoe were on the other foot, I would probably disavow the former Stanford team captain who transferred to play for C'al. I mean, to take of the red and white after four years and then put on the blue and gold (UCB, not UM which I'm fine with)? It is pretty crazy.

Re: It's official: Scarlett to Stanford - BostonCard - 03-12-2015

One other thing about the MS&E master's degree... it wouldn't surprise me if we already have (or have had) some 5th year players getting a co-term in MS&E.Â I know some players have majored in it as an undergraduate, and I know some players who redshirt and stay for a fifth year enroll in a master's degree.Â The only thing I don't know is how large the intersection of those two is.Â But I would imagine it is not the null set.

BC

Re: It's official: Scarlett to Stanford - FarmBoy - 03-13-2015

Quote:I don't understand the semi constant reference to taking athletes who who wouldn't make the standard without athletics.Â Do you really believe all non athletes are admitted solely on grades and test scores?

ferrari - are you directing this to me or asking a rhetorical question? My consistent view is that exceptional performance in athletics should be treated the same as exceptional performance in music, art, public service, etc. Exceptional attributes in one area should definitely outweigh, to some degree, deficiencies in academics. However, at a minimum, all students need to be able to contribute positively to the academic community of Stanford. I see no evidence here that BS won't do that.

Re: It's official: Scarlett to Stanford - CTcard - 03-13-2015

(03-13-2015, 06:34 AM)FarmBoy link Wrote:My consistent view is that exceptional performance in athletics should be treated the same as exceptional performance in music, art, public service, etc.

If that were really what Stanford were to do, we would probably not field a football/basketball team - certainly not one competitive at the highest level.

Roughly speaking, to get admitted to Stanford you need both a GPA within ear-shot of perfect + 2200+ thee part SATs AND exceptional performance in something else ... plus some luck. I once heard this described by an admissions officer as needing "two excellences", i.e. academics plus something else.

There are, at least from time to time, a few excellent musicians/artists/etc at Stanford that slip just a bit below the general standard on academics, but there are not 85+13 of them and they didn't slip to the sub-1100 two part SAT level.

There is a significant, difficult question in weighing what an individual athlete brings to campus in their combination of athletic and academic prowess. I don't know that Stanford always answers that question correctly, in fact there isn't an absolutely correct answer. I am happy in my belief that Stanford puts more care into addressing that question than most any other Division 1A school.
However, it's not reality to pretend that balancing act isn't going on and that athletic accomplishment in the money sports is really treated on an even level as other extra-activities.

Re: It's official: Scarlett to Stanford - FarmBoy - 03-13-2015

I'm sure that's the admissions office party line, but I personally met a number of people at Stanford who were exceptional in non-academic areas but I felt were well below the average in the classroom in the areas I specifically cited. Maybe my judgment was off and these classmates had exceptional high school transcripts and test scores, but that's how I saw it. (Of course, there were also many exceptional musicians, artists, activists, etc. who were also exceptional in the classroom, just as there are exceptional athletes who are exceptional in the classroom.) But I thought these people contributed positively to the Stanford community, despite their lack of academic spark.

It is certainly debatable the number of seats in the class that should be held for students who are exceptional outside of the classroom and how many of those should be given to athletes vs. students from other disciplines. I think Stanford has probably erred on the side of fielding the most competitive athletic program in the country rather than having the best Symphony, for example. The few athletes I met who were clearly not qualified to contribute in the classroom made me question this most strongly. But in general, I think the balance is healthy and I personally greatly value the contribution made by student athletes.

Re: It's official: Scarlett to Stanford - stupac2 - 03-13-2015

(03-13-2015, 06:57 AM)CTcard link Wrote:Roughly speaking, to get admitted to Stanford you need both a GPA within ear-shot of perfect + 2200+ thee part SATs AND exceptional performance in something else ... plus some luck. I once heard this described by an admissions officer as needing "two excellences", i.e. academics plus something else.

If that were true I wouldn't be here. Still not sure exactly why I got in.

Quote:There are, at least from time to time, a few excellent musicians/artists/etc at Stanford that slip just a bit below the general standard on academics, but there are not 85+13 of them and they didn't slip to the sub-1100 two part SAT level.

There is a significant, difficult question in weighing what an individual athlete brings to campus in their combination of athletic and academic prowess. I don't know that Stanford always answers that question correctly, in fact there isn't an absolutely correct answer. I am happy in my belief that Stanford puts more care into addressing that question than most any other Division 1A school.
However, it's not reality to pretend that balancing act isn't going on and that athletic accomplishment in the money sports is really treated on an even level as other extra-activities.

I dunno about this. I met an awful lot of people at Stanford who weren't actually very visibly intelligent, by which I mean "able to process information and synthesize it into a coherent argument"*. Some of the discussion classes I took were absolutely brutal, the discussion felt barely better than in high school, and I went to a pretty marginal high school (the closest SAT score to mine was nearly 200 points lower). And I don't even think that I'm particularly smart for a Stanford grad!

So I think there's something else at work in admissions. I don't really know what it is. Then again, maybe those people who had me facepalming in IHUM really were brilliant at something, just not IHUM. I have no idea. I just don't really buy this idea that Stanford is composed of a bunch of really smart people and then some marginal athletes.

Oh, also, one thing about athletes is that they tend to be extraordinarily hard workers. I think that at a place like Stanford that counts more than a few hundred SAT points, or a few tenths of a point on a GPA. I'm completely certain that most football players get more out of their Stanford degree than I did, just because I'm lazy. I might have more natural intellectual aptitude (however measured) than nearly all of them, but knowing how to work matters more.

*I personally like this definition of intelligence because it's so broad and doesn't need to be restricted to language or math individually. I think it's also the way almost everyone intuitively judges the intelligence of others.

Re: It's official: Scarlett to Stanford - OutsiderFan - 03-14-2015

I'd say they are more generally stereotyping what they believe the academic chops of their football players to be.Â Moreover, there has been speculation by both Ca.l and Stanford observers that Stanford accepted Scarlett with less academic qualifications that it might require from others given his ability to play DE for the football team.

To me this is all just a tempest in a teapot.

Re: It's official: Scarlett to Stanford - Rally - 03-14-2015

If we were talking about Scarlett, a new HS recruit for the class of 15 the topics and opinions would be dramatically different, right?Â Instead we have a mature college graduate and are talking about his academic qualifications.Â Seems weird to me.

Re: It's official: Scarlett to Stanford - Mick - 03-15-2015

(03-14-2015, 07:41 AM)garvin link Wrote:What completely cracks me up about the threads on the 59 boards is the assertions that no way is Scarlett academically qualified for graduate schools at Stanford. So we have two conflicting sacred truths: 1) Nobody in the world offers tougher classes than 59erU, where the professors are merciless and a student must work like the devil, unlike Stanford, where everybody just takes folk-dancing and the degree is more like a Special Olympics participation medal; and 2)Scarlett's 59er degree noneless leaves him unqualified to attend Stanford.

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."Â Emerson

You're talking about representatives of the same University in the People's Republic of Berkeley that nonetheless insists on a state exemption so that they can pay less than the elevated minimum wage to some of their workers after the City of Berkeley raised the local minimum from $9 to $10 per hour.Â

Same local statutes affects San Jose State, which chose to pay the elevated minimum, as did City College of San Francisco.Â San Francisco State gave the same FYou to their employees that UC Berkeley did.

So no...rank hypocrisy from UCB doesn't surprise me much.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/12/05/hyperliberal-uc-berkeley-wont-pay-higher-minimum-wage/

Re: It's official: Scarlett to Stanford - CTcard - 03-15-2015

(03-15-2015, 02:35 PM)Mick link Wrote:You're talking about representatives of the same University in the People's Republic of Berkeley that nonetheless insists on a state exemption so that they can pay less than the elevated minimum wage to some of their workers after the City of Berkeley raised the local minimum from $9 to $10 per hour.Â

So no...rank hypocrisy from UCB doesn't surprise me much.

Have to admit I am a bit confused about where the hypocrisy is on this particular topic.

If either UC Berkeley itself or perhaps the state of California raised the minimum wage and Berkeley used an exception to avoid paying it - that would be hypocritical.
If UC Berkeley were a city owned or run institution that used an exception to avoid paying the higher minimum wage passed by the city - that would be hypocritical.

Perhaps the hypocrisy is that UC Berkeley has taken a stand that the minimum wage should be raised to $10/hour?
Though that would surprise me because usually public universities scrupulously avoid taking such political stands.

[But I see the conflict in the Berkeley is hell - but doesn't qualify one for Stanford meme.]

Re: It's official: Scarlett to Stanford - Mick - 03-16-2015

(03-15-2015, 09:32 PM)CTcard link Wrote:[quote author=Mick link=topic=11858.msg114783#msg114783 date=1426455332]

You're talking about representatives of the same University in the People's Republic of Berkeley that nonetheless insists on a state exemption so that they can pay less than the elevated minimum wage to some of their workers after the City of Berkeley raised the local minimum from $9 to $10 per hour.Â

So no...rank hypocrisy from UCB doesn't surprise me much.