New PL AI guidelines

Lafalum · Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 365

The PL presidents have agreed to a new set of AI guidelines similar to that applied to schools in the Ivy League. The purpose is to make the PL competitive with the Ivy in recruting student athletes. Given that I have heard from numerous coaches on the hill about how the Ivies can accept people our coaches can't....does this change the picture for us???
Are we changing. I understand from the coaches the faculty wants our scholarship athletes to be above the all school average using the AI calculation. ( that was not the agreement but they seem to putting in additional hurdles for us) Will this mean a change for us or will we go our own direction!!
Will the new AI bands apply to all sports or just football and basketball!!
Since we are in the heat of recruiting season for 09 freshmen, does this improve our pool? Are the PL schools obliged to follow the new AI or is it up to individual schools??
Can anyone give us a clear picture of the implications??

TheTruth · Joined: 26 Feb 2007 Posts: 252

Refresh our memories. What are the components of the AI and why was it necessary to change it? I would think the Ivies would have tougher standards.

Lafalum · Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 365

The PL AI consisted of a standard that said we could not recruit anyone below 2 std deviations from the mean of the incoming class measured using a formula devised by each school which included Sats, class rank etc.. The Ivy Ai had bands which allowed a limited number of recruits below that level. The practical effect was that in some circumstances many PL league schools could not touch a particular athlete where the Ivies could. That is the simple version. As I understand it the bands are applied across alll the sports. So it was posible to use the lower bands to populate single sports. ( I think I am correct in that) It's unclear how they apply now in the PL but at the very least all PL schools are on the same system (or should be) and it applies to transfers as well.

carney2 · Joined: 24 Feb 2007 Posts: 402

Isn't this too little too late?! With many of the Ivy "big kids" (Harvard, Yale, Princeton and, up to now a non-biggie, Brown) giving free rides to all applicants whose family income is below some hefty figure ($200,000 in some cases), these schools are effectively able to award athletic scholarships in all sports. It seems to me that tinkering with the AI to mirror Ivy standards at this point in the game addresses yesterday's problem and is something of a joke. The Patriot League administrators need to decide who they are, who they want to be, get proactive and stop being the tail of this dog.

Lafalum · Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 365

Being unaffordable AND having restrictive admissions seems like a pretty difficult hurdle. I don't know if you saw, but Bucknell had a drop of 1,000 applications this past year. I understand Lafayette's 09 profile has not changed AT ALL despite a smaller class.
Since we are doing very little vis a vis affordability at least getting us to be more realistic regarding admission seems reasonable, albeit behind the curve.
For myself I will never understand that 7 pct hike in tuition. I wonder if they brought that up at the BOT right before their break for cocktails or maybe on their trip to Italy last summer??!!!

Andy · Joined: 23 Feb 2007 Posts: 466

If the introduction of an AI floor extends our recruiting pool, then it helps our "external competitiveness." Banding, however, only serves to limit the benefits of the lowered floor. Banding was introduced to Ivy football (only) recruiting in response to fears that coaches would group their recruits at the lower end of the allowed AI range and balance them out with a group at the high end. The concerned wanted to control the distribution. My limited understanding has me thinking that this forced distribution throughout the AI range will help "internal equity" in the PL, but might actually hurt some PL program's external competitiveness based on current recruiting practices.