Sports as route into top US universities

[Ivybound]

US Ivy league schools do not offer sport scholarships. This is not about financial support, just simply gaining admission. Has anyone any experience with their DCs gaining admission to the eight Ivy league schools or Stanford/MIT? Any advice about which sports are most desirable? Anything you wish you had known earlier?

Really most interested in hearing from parents that have DCs that have successfully navigated the process themselves.

Yes.

it’s not which sports are most desirable, but whether your dc is of a standard that the uni or coach want to recruit them.

dc was approached by the coach. Grades are decent, but not stunning a*’s, because they’d been training 18 hours a week alongside, plus lockdown. A friend didn’t have the a’levels so did sats to meet the admission criteria.

the coach sorts the academic admission. Once that’s done you can apply for your means tested financial package.

best way is usual ncaa recruiting patterns. Fill out the interest forms on websites, look up the coaches and email, set up YouTube and recruiting accounts with results and performance videos.

does your dc have a sport? You generally need to be nationally ranked at whatever it is.

Thank you. Yes, two sports. Both have very accurate global skill ratings so it's easy to see whether or not DC is good enough for any given school by looking at the school's roster of players. Will explore the NCAA online platforms. Thanks again.

The Ivy Leagues and Stanford are D1 schools, MIT is D3 so very different levels of competition. The kids I've known that go D1 are top level athletes which it's sounds like your DC are, the kids I've known that go to MIT are exceptional academically and just happen to be good enough at a sport to pique the coaches interest so very different approaches needed depending upon which school your DC are interested in.

Good point about MIT. Last week an American friend described MIT and Chicago as the last meritocracies. Thanks

This intrigues me as an idea (one of my DC I suspect would hit the standard for a sport that some of the Ivy colleges consider important). But I think I’d worry terribly that they’d emigrate and never come home!

That is a real possibility.

I once had someone work for me who had got an Ivy scholarship through being good at wrestling. I reckon he had had a conk on the head a few too many times as he was useless as an employee.