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An athletic scholarship seems both exciting and controversial ... until you calculate the hours that go into it and realize you could literally do better financ

An athletic scholarship seems both exciting and controversial ... until you calculate the hours that go into it and realize you could literally do better financially flipping burgers. Still, there is a useful and notable je na sais quoi about athletes, and the way they approach life, that is not fully valued by the academic community-- a drive for practicality, achievement, teamwork. Frankly a lot of the demeaning comments in this board are silly. I turned down Harvard many years ago for not offering athletics scholarships-- I could not reasonably afford school any other way. And, I was laughed at for years by those in the know of the "need based" assistance framework. One thing that made it unaffordable in my case was they wanted a year of prep school on top of high school which definitely is exclusionary. But, if a Bloomberg contributor can fail to see a pathway equivalent to a scholarship for someone who financially cannot attend any other way, I'd say there is something to the author's grievance.

grogenaut 4y ago
I mean flipping burgers doesn't really help as much in the long run. My college teammates and friends that I met through sports ended up being a pretty solid network. So many CFOs, VPs, etc obviously. But one Federal Judge, one Secret Service agent, one FBI Agent. The Secret Service guy actually walked onto the practice field his first day (this is D3 small school) having been a 2 way all state player in high school and said "I'm literally never going to touch the field" because everyone was so much bigger and more athletic than him at even a non-scholarship school. He stuck with it all 4 years though. That kid had grit as they say. Interesting, what was the prep school? My school required 4 years of math/science in HS which is a thing many US schools don't require but if you're a top student you can go for. One kid I played with only had 2 years of HS. He spent the whole summer on campus from like 3 days after HS graduation to 3 days into football taking stats, physics, chemistry, and college algebra to get him up to snuff. I think that may be similar to the prep you're talking about. He ended up doing fine (average grades) in the B school, and I believe is a arson investigator now.

grogenaut 4y ago

I mean flipping burgers doesn't really help as much in the long run. My college teammates and friends that I met through sports ended up being a pretty solid network. So many CFOs, VPs, etc obviously. But one Federal Judge, one Secret Service agent, one FBI Agent. The Secret Service guy actually walked onto the practice field his first day (this is D3 small school) having been a 2 way all state player in high school and said "I'm literally never going to touch the field" because everyone was so much bigger and more athletic than him at even a non-scholarship school. He stuck with it all 4 years though. That kid had grit as they say. Interesting, what was the prep school? My school required 4 years of math/science in HS which is a thing many US schools don't require but if you're a top student you can go for. One kid I played with only had 2 years of HS. He spent the whole summer on campus from like 3 days after HS graduation to 3 days into football taking stats, physics, chemistry, and college algebra to get him up to snuff. I think that may be similar to the prep you're talking about. He ended up doing fine (average grades) in the B school, and I believe is a arson investigator now.