Facts on Admissions, Financial Aid and Football

Posted Dec. 27, 2004

Background:

• In December 2000, Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg wrote a letter to Swarthmore College President Alfred Bloom, wherein he congratulated Bloom on his decision to terminate football and expressed the view that “sadly football, and the culture that surrounds it, is antithetical to the academic mission of colleges such as ours.” The letter was written to be supportive of a colleague at a difficult time and in a particular context.
• President Wright became aware of the letter in early 2001. He talked to Dean Furstenberg about it and made it clear that the dean’s views expressed did not represent those of the College. The dean assured him that the sentiments would not have an impact on the policies and practices of the Admissions Office.
• President Wright also wrote to President Bloom to explain to him that the views expressed did not represent Dartmouth’s position on athletics. 

Dartmouth and the Ivy League: 

• The Ivy League follows an approach to athletics, and to the admission of students who may be intercollegiate athletes, that is unique in American colleges and universities.  This approach seeks to protect the integrity of the admissions process at each school, support the academic and personal growth of student-athletes after matriculation, and encourage both athletic excellence and equity in athletic competition across the eight Ivy League schools.
• First, from the Ivy League’s inception in 1954, the Council of Ivy Group Presidents has required that “student athletes should be generally representative of their class and admitted on the basis of academic promise and personal qualities as well as athletic ability.”
• While many conferences have similar goals, the Ivy League is the only conference at any level of the NCAA with a detailed structure to govern the qualifications of recruited athletes. A league-wide monitoring system focuses on how the qualifications of each institution’s recruited athletes compare to the institution’s overall student body, and ensures that each institution’s  admissions process is consistent with this fundamental league principle.
• The principles that govern admission of Ivy students who are athletes thus are the same as those for all other Ivy applicants.  Each Ivy institution:
  • admits all candidates including athletes on the basis of their achievements and potential as students and on their other personal accomplishments;
  • provides financial aid to all students only on the basis of need, as determined by each institution; and,
  • provides that no student is required to participate in athletics as a condition of receiving financial aid.
• Second, in order to provide Ivy athletes with time for a complete overall undergraduate experience – for academics, non-athletic activities, and personal time  -- Ivy League rules place limits on permissible practice, competition, and other athletic activities.
• Third, this framework is intended to provide every Ivy institution with an opportunity for competitive success in every sport over time.  And through Division I competition and success, the Ivy approach demonstrates that college athletes can be serious students, with the same requirements and achievements as their non-athlete classmates, while still developing and achieving athletically at the highest level.

Dartmouth Athletics

• Dartmouth student athletes graduate at a rate that mirrors (and occasionally exceeds) the graduation rate of students who do not participate in athletics.
• Students who recently won Rhodes and Marshall scholarships are student athletes (heavyweight crew and cross-country skiing).  At Class Day 2004, the Dean's Prize co-recipient was a member of the football team; the Barrett Cup winner was a member of the cross-country ski team and participated in crew.
• Dartmouth student athletes are very involved in community service.  An internship named after former Athletic Director Richard Jaeger was established in conjunction with the Tucker Foundation in order to coordinate this outreach.  Dartmouth student athletes are regular visitors to the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth and can be seen at local schools reading to elementary school children as part of the "Big Green Readers" program.
• In the past five years, Dartmouth has improved its athletic facilities with the addition of Scully-Fahey Field, the Boss Tennis Center and Gordon Pavilion, the McLane Family Skiway Lodge, the renovated golf course and Leverone Field House, and, specifically for the football program, the Blackman practice fields.  We are about to begin renovations on the Alumni Gymnasium that will significantly expand our recreational fitness and varsity strength training facilities, and we have plans to construct a new soccer competition field.  In addition, we have increased coaches' salaries, enhanced our equipment and recruiting budgets, and endowed the Robert L. Blackman Head Football Coaching Position.
• Three members of the Dartmouth Community were inducted into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame this fall: Coach Christine Wielgus, Ann Deacon '83, and Gene Ryzewicz '68.  Murry Bowden '71 was inducted into the National Collegiate Football Hall of Fame.
• For Dartmouth athletic highlights go to http://athletics.dartmouth.edu/

Athletics, Admissions and Financial Aid

• The working relationship between athletics and admissions and the results of it over the past four years have been very successful. Dartmouth has admitted thousands of highly qualified student athletes over the past 10 years.
• Admissions is a complicated process whereby the dean puts together a diverse class that includes a number of different criteria, including academic excellence, athletics, legacies, racial and socioeconomic diversity, the arts, and geographic diversity.  Dartmouth's academic profile has strengthened in recent years, as have those of other Ivy League schools.
• The athletic admissions process in the Ivy League is governed by a wide range of policies and regulations.  The central feature in this regulation is the academic index (AI).  This is a measure consisting of three parts using the high school rank or GPA, combined with the highest SAT I scores, combined with the three highest SAT II scores.  All Ivy schools are obligated to use the exact same methodology in calculating AIs.  In admitting students who are recruited as athletes in one of the 33 "Ivy championship" sports, each school has numerical limits (depending on the number of sports it offers), and an AI goal that is a function of the mean AI for its entire student body (i.e., four classes). The AI goal is one standard deviation from this mean.  Most Ivy schools have very similar AI targets.  Because the eight Ivy student bodies have slightly different profiles, their AI targets are very similar but not identical.  In addition, there is a minimum AI, or floor, below which schools cannot admit an athlete without special dispensation from the League. 
• Football is the most closely monitored sport in the Ivy League.  Given the range of competitive pressures surrounding football, it is monitored through a more detailed system of AI bands, or ranges, with very specific numerical limits on the number of football recruits that may be enrolled in each AI band.  There are four bands corresponding to:  class mean AI -1 S.D., 1 S.D.-2 S.D., 2 S.D. -2.5 S.D., and 2.5 S.D. - the Ivy AI floor.  An average 30 football recruits may be enrolled each year distributed 8, 13, 7, 2 across the four bands top to bottom.  No more than 120 recruited players may be enrolled over four years.  Every Ivy school is obligated by the same system.  This is an attempt to create a "level playing field"in terms of admissions standards.
• The football monitoring system has changed periodically in response to changes in the external educational environment and direction from the Presidents. These changes have been well communicated to all staff within the League. Throughout the history of these changes from 1990 the Dartmouth Admissions Office has been very supportive of football as the College has sought to work within the Ivy system.
• Financial aid policies have also been changing during the last decade as schools have undertaken initiatives to enhance aid programs.  The most heavily endowed institutions, including Dartmouth, have made the most extensive changes.  Dartmouth's enhancements are specified below:
  • Sept. 1992 ~ Dartmouth seeks to match better financial aid awards from other member schools of the Consortium on Financing Higher Education (COFHE) if a justification can be found in needs analysis methodology.
  • Oct. 1998 ~ Dartmouth announces reduced loan expectations on a graduated basis according to family income.  Students from families with incomes less than $30,000 will have no loans during the first year (effective with the Class of 2003).  Also announced was Dartmouth's continuation of our case-by-case assessment of family assets in the need analysis formula and that students would be able to retain 100 percent of the benefit of any outside scholarships they might receive.
  • Apr. 2001 ~ Dartmouth announces reduced loan expectations on a graduated basis according to family income, with students from families with incomes less than $45,000 having no loan during the first year. (The latter was effective with the Class of 2005.)  Summer work expectations were reduced by $250 for first year students and by $200 for upperclassmen.  In addition, the academic year self-help was reduced by $275 for first-year students.
  • Nov. 2004 ~ Dartmouth adopts a policy of no loans for all four years for families with incomes less than $30,000 (effective with the Class of 2009).