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Could someone please explain how scholarships and the AI are
.......related. I have talked with 3 head coaches and one person in the administration and I get four different variations. One coach complained that the AI requirements have put us in position of uncompetitiveness vis a vis even the Ivies. Another coach has told me its a minor inconvenience. Another has told me the AI has no relationship to the general student population and as constructed would in future years require scholarship athletes to be rated higher than the average student. The administration official didn't know what the requirements are(or is not telling me) even though he was involved in the negotiations.
Can anyone clear this up for me??? There seems to be a lot of confusion over the issue.
Xboreturns
It appears no one really understands it. If it can't be explained there is obviously something wrong with it. The fact that both the formula for calculating it and the disclosure of the results are kept secret makes one wonder if anyone can justify it.
As I've said before, I favor full, league wide disclosure and simply stated ranges that recruits must fall in. This would also allow for league expansion without handicapping the existing schools. All recruits would have to meet the minimum score regardless of what the schools general population average is.
Lafalum
That would make sense, the present system, whatever it is does not to most people.
bison137
Re: Could someone please explain how scholarships and the AI
[quote="Lafalum One coach complained that the AI requirements have put us in position of uncompetitiveness vis a vis even the Ivies.[/quote]
From all that I have seen, the PL AI does not leave anyone - even Colgate who is on the high side - uncompetitive with the Ivies, with an occasional Cornell exception.
I don't know exactly how the AI works, but it is clear that Patriot League schools are bringing in athletes who are as much as two standard deviations below the average of its student bodies, which is in line with the low bands of the Ivies. For example, here is a quote from the Bucknell board by our resident guru on the AI and academic profile for the PL, discussing Colgate's recent self-study report:
"colgate's football class of 2009 had an average ncaa core gpa of 3.26 with a mean SAT score of 1105. in contrast, as a whole, colgate's class of 2009 had an ncaa core gpa of something like 3.65 with an average SAT score of 1340. thats a differential of nearly half a grade-letter per class and well over 200 points on the SAT. pretty significant.
"looking at the data, a student one standard deviation below the colgate mean would have to have a core gpa of around 3.45 with an SAT score of about 1200. these numbers are above the mean for the entire football class, so obviously the 'one standard deviation' rule holds true for neither classes nor individual players.
"my guess is that patriot league programs cannot recruit individuals with an academic index more than TWO standard deviations below the mean. in the case of colgate, thats something like a 3.2/1060 (on a sliding scale, so a higher gpa would require a lower SAT to meet the same ai baseline)."
Also, looking at Lafayette stats for the most recent three recruiting classes from its 2006 self-study:
Group - ave SAT / ave GPA
Football - 1079 / 3.47
Basketball - 1109 / 3.32
Average LC student - 1285 / 3.8
I'm not going to figure out the standard deviations (even if I could), but this data indicates to me that athletes are being brought into LC (as they are into other PL schools) who are at least as low as could be brought into the Ivies. On the football side, I know Yale would not take a VERY good football player who had an 1110 on his first try at the SAT. He had to retake it and raise his score to get in.
Lafalum
The self study stats are mostly pre scholarship for us. The problem as described to me is the deal made with the Lafayette faculty for scholarships that (according to one coach) says the recruited scholarship players must be at the average of the incoming class. In other words if you take one below the average you have to take another above the average.
Said in other words its is above the two std deviations requirement set by the league. Another coach told me they moved that requirement higher for succeeding years making incoming average for athletes higher than the class as whole making us uncompetitive with most other PL schools.
I then asked the administration official who was involved in the negotiation with the faculty who said "that can't be right"
There was no one who could give me a clear standard.
You were the first to give me actual stats. Which brings us back to the above comment this should be made public promptly as other stats for incoming freshmen are made public yearly. There will then be a clear picture for everyone to see.
