Season 3: Episode 11 Transcript
The Intersection of Athletics and Admissions
Lee Coffin:
From Hanover, New Hampshire, I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's Dean of Admissions in Financial Aid, and this is the Admissions Beat.
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My guess is that if you're a student in high school somewhere in the world, you probably play some type of sport, maybe in a very direct way as a captain, maybe you are all state or on your national team, maybe you're on the JV squad, maybe you like to play ultimate Frisbee. Maybe as you think about athletics, like I used to—fun to watch, can't do it. But sports is part of high school, almost anywhere you go. And for some of you, you are going to enter a college search where athletics is going to be a really big part of how you present yourself to the college. You see yourself as a recruit. Some of you will be focusing on an NCAA division one program where you'll be recruited and you're imagining a scholarship opportunity. Some of you are thinking about division two or D three, and you see yourself as a scholar athlete.
Some of you think, "I don't need to be recruited, but I might like to walk on when I get to campus." And some of you are going to be looking for intramural opportunities to combine play with what you do in a classroom. All of that is legit. All of that is part of your search. For some of you, it's going to be a much more deliberate transactional process, and for some of you, it's part of the conversation just like place, just like financial aid, just like your sense of where do you see yourself, will be. So this week, we have an encore episode from season one of Admissions Beat where my former colleague, Peter Roby, who at that point was the interim Director of Athletics at Dartmouth, and then previously been the AD at Northeastern, and the varsity men's basketball coach at Harvard, joined me for a conversation about athletics and how an applicant should present herself, how to think about it, what role parents might play in this process, whether it's a formal, "I need to be an athletic recruit," conversation or it's a more informal, "This is part of what I hope to find."
So when we come back, we'll meet Peter again and enjoy his Yoda-like wisdom as he explains all things athletics to us on this episode. We'll be right back.
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So this week's roundtable brings us to an important and very specific part of college admission, which is the intersection of athletics and selective admissions. And I wanted to offer a resource to high school students and their parents who might be thinking this is a possibility, but they have no idea how to start this conversation with the college.
Peter Roby:
The first thing to do is have a conversation with your coach to say, "I'm interested in potentially playing this sport when I get to college. And can you help me by making contact with any of the colleges that I might be interested in attending to let them know that I'm on your team, what you know about me, how you would rate me in terms of a prospect?" So that's the first place that I would encourage high school students to go, especially because the high school coach or the club coach is going to have a lot of, I think, a lot of traction induced with the college coaches because college coaches don't want to offend a high school coach by not taking a call, by not responding to an email.
And so I would say that's the first thing. The second thing I would suggest is, nowadays, technology is so much more a part of the recruiting process than it was back when I was either going to school or when I was coaching, because we didn't have the internet, we didn't have YouTube and all the kinds of technologies that kids have now at their disposal. So sending coaches a short clip of your highlights or game film, or directing them to a website where they can see a bunch of things about you, your profile, your academic background, and maybe some highlights of you playing in high school or on your club team. That's another way to get coaches to take more of an interest in you and know more about you.
And given all that's happened the last almost three years now, calendar years, with COVID, coaches are much more likely and willing to start their recruiting process by having seen something of your talents online as they would've before when many people were relying on face-to-face and in-person evaluations, either in the summer or at tournaments or at your high school games. So that would be a way to start the process, and then it can broaden from there.
Lee Coffin:
So pragmatically, Peter, great first two steps. When does that happen? When should a student and a parent and a coach, but really a student and a parent, when do they start doing this? When they're juniors, when they're sophomores? Does it depend on the sport?
Peter Roby:
Yeah, it might depend on the sport to some extent, but I would say certainly by the time you're a junior. And you might have video from your summer between your sophomore and junior year, if you feel like it's impressive enough to get people's attention. But certainly at some point in your junior year, you should be reaching out to folks, talking with your high school coach or your club coach and asking them to help you to strategize about the types of places that you're interested in maybe attending, and the idea of trying to have a chance to participate in college athletics. The other thing is if you are within a drive of some of these schools, then try to get yourself to those schools and take what they consider to be an unofficial visit.
Maybe go through the admissions tour with your family and then if you get the chance, let the coaches know that you're going to be there so that they don't necessarily have to spend any money or do anything in particular but just greet you. And maybe at that point, you put a face with a name, you make a connection, and then you follow up with video or other things that might help them to better appreciate the type of player that you are, and so-
Lee Coffin:
And that can all happen in 11th grade?
Peter Roby:
Yeah, I think 11th grade is the right time to do that. So much, as you know, Lee, changes between the time you're a sophomore and the time you're a senior in high school in terms of what you're interested in studying, the types of places you might want to go to school, the geography that you might be interested in, and the dynamics of the team that you might be interested in joining. Half the team might be gone, by when you go from being a sophomore to a senior in high school and then ultimately get to the campus. And so I've always been concerned about the early recruiting because I think so much changes on the part of the student in terms of what they're interested in or them as a person.
Lee Coffin:
And Peter, when you talk, sorry to interrupt you, but when you talk about early recruiting, what does that mean?
Peter Roby:
That's a situation where somebody is making a decision of where to attend school when they're a sophomore in high school.
Lee Coffin:
Wow.
Peter Roby:
Because they may be good enough that the coaches think that they would like you to come there and participate, but there's so much that's going to change between your interests, your development, the dynamics on the team. The coaching staff may not even be the same coaching staff by the time you're ready to attend. I mean, that's almost three years from the time you're a sophomore to the time you matriculate, and a lot can change in that situation. And so I would just say it's better to do these types of things as you get closer to when you're actually going to be wanting to go to school there, so you know more about what it is that you're interested in.
Lee Coffin:
And I would think developmentally too. I mean, I see high school students and 15-year-olds and 17-year- olds don't always look like the same person.
Peter Roby:
My goodness, so much so. And you're, as a coach, you're projecting what you think that 15-year-old is going to be when they're 17 and a half or 18. Well, what happens if it doesn't happen? And now all of a sudden you've made a commitment to a place, and nobody else has recruited you because you've come out and said you're attending X University and now X University may not be as interested in you as they once were. And so you don't want to box yourself in. And so I think parents and students need to resist the temptation to try to lock it in so that they don't have to worry about it anymore, quote unquote. Because I think if you are talented enough, there's going to be a place for you that you can attend that will allow you to pursue your interests in terms of college athletics.
Lee Coffin:
And is senior year too late? Because I know a lot of people who from less sophisticated backgrounds, they're in a high school that this is not the norm or just my own college…I didn't really start thinking about it until the fall of my senior year. Now that's a long time ago, and it's a different admission environment but I know a lot of people who, it's September, they're seniors and they think, "Oh, now I have to start." So that feels late for athletic recruiting.
Peter Roby:
Yeah, I would say it's late in terms of how the industry works now. But I'll tell you this, if you're good enough, it's never too late.
Lee Coffin:
It's never too late.
Peter Roby:
I mean, if a young person has a skill, there's going to be a college out there that would love to have you participate on their teams, and you just have to bet on yourself. And I think it's also why it's important that you think about your college interest for more than just the athletics, so that you're making choices about where you really can see yourself fitting in with the people, with the geography, with the offerings academically and the extracurriculars. And so that if it doesn't always work out athletically, you still are at the place you really wanted to be. And one of the things I think that's contributed to the amount of transfers that happen in athletics is because young people are making decisions when they're 15 years old, 16 years old, and then they get someplace and it's not the place they thought they wanted to be, and now they're looking to go elsewhere because they're disenchanted with their experience
Lee Coffin:
No, that's really good advice. One of the things I've often said to students when I meet them from the admission side and they're thinking broadly about athletics and colleges: So when you're a high school student, you usually don't have a choice. You're at a certain public high school and Peter is the coach of the basketball team, and you might play basketball, you play for Peter. In college, you as the applicant, have a decision to make about which coach or coaching staff is going to be the best set of mentors, athletic, developing your talent. So you might say, "I love Dartmouth as a college," but the coach in that sport at this college may not be the one you click with. I mean, is that a fair consideration for a student and parent to think about?
Peter Roby:
Oh, I think so. I think absolutely. And it comes back to the notion that this is about what's best for you as a student, as a person, as an athlete. And you have to own this process as much as you can. And if you are interested in a particular school, you have to do as much research as you can so you know that this is the right place for you in every way. It's interesting because when I meet or have met with prospective students who are being recruited, I've often asked the coaches to encourage them to come to my office so I can get to know them a little bit, answer questions and ask questions. And one of the things that I always tell the student and the family is, you need to own this process and don't let the process happen to you. So you need to be curious, you need to ask questions, and you need to hold people accountable for what it is they have done or said.
And so what are you interested in studying? What do you think you're interested in studying? Are you interested in having a smaller environment where people are more connected and there's more sense of community? Or do you want a bigger, sprawling urban campus? Are you interested in a school that has graduate programs or are you interested in more of the liberal arts? Professional versus liberal arts. All of that should be part of what kids are considering, and the connection to the coaching staff is a crucial one.
So if you are able to get to know some of the athletes on the current team, one of the things you should be trying to get at is, "Hey, what kind of relationship do you have with the coach? Do you go in and talk with the coaching staff? Have you talked to them about what you're interested in studying? Has this experience met your expectations from when you were recruited and now that you're a junior, is it going the way you expected it to go in terms of what they said was going to happen and what's actually happened?" All that sort of thing. So, you've got to take ownership of the process and not let the process take ownership of you.
Lee Coffin:
No, that's great advice. And when you talk about a two-way street, it occurs to me that, so a student is assessing the coach and saying, "Is this a mentor? Is the person I want play on his team?" But you're also looking at the character of the applicants. And I'm reminded of one of the coaches I worked with when I was at Tufts who brought somebody in for a visit and afterward said to me, "I'm dropping him as a recruit." And I said, "Oh, why? I thought he was a really talented athlete." And the coach said, "He had a really toxic personality and it wasn't somebody I wanted to bring into my locker room." And I thought, that is so interesting. And I don't think the student had any sense that the effect he brought with him to that visit was a turnoff to both the teammates. I mean, the people that would've been his potential teammates went to the coach and said, "No, please don't recruit him." And then the coach saw it too, and the whole thing shifted.
Peter Roby:
Yeah, I think it's really important that it's a two-way process, and it's not just the student trying to decide if they want to go there, but it's also the staff and the school trying to decide if they want you to be part of that community. So one of the things you hear coaches talk about when they go on the road to evaluate a student athlete in their environment, whether it's at high school or in their club sport team, is they watch the interaction between the athlete and their teammates and they watch the interaction between the athlete and their coach, and the interaction between the athlete and their parents. And the student athlete doesn't even know that the coach is watching that. So sometimes, coaches appear at events and they don't tell the athlete that they're coming because they want to be able to watch them in their natural habitat and see if they are who they say they are.
Because if you see an athlete who doesn't seem to respond to their coaches, seems to be selfish on the field or on the court with their teammates, is it all about them? Do they get on the officials? Are they disrespectful? Do they help kids up after something happens on the field or the court? Are they respectful to their coach after the game? Is there a hug and a kiss or something with their parents, or are they complaining? What's their body language when they get substituted out of the game? You watch all that because it's telling you a lot about who you are recruiting.
Lee Coffin:
Well, the chemistry of the team you're putting together, as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking about the moment a couple of weeks ago where Antonio Brown had the tantrum on the sideline at the Tampa Bay game and ripped his jersey off and left. And I thought, wow, if you're on the team or you're one of the coaches or whatever his motivation was, that an episode that didn't feel like it was going to be a happy clubhouse afterwards.
Peter Roby:
Right. And there's been times where you talk to coaches about individual situations on their team and they say, "There were some red flags and we just looked the other way because we thought they were so good that we could work with them," or whatever. And so those are rare, but it happens. And so it's also the responsibility of the coaching staff to make good choices, as well as the student athletes to make good choices.
Lee Coffin:
It's very consistent with the overall admission process. I mean, you're evaluating athleticism as a type of merit in this example, but you're also looking at the whole person.
Peter Roby:
Oh yeah, for sure.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. I think a lot of people don't really appreciate that, that it's not that you score a lot of goals. Its, are you collaborative, are you a teammate? Are you a leader? Are you coachable?
Peter Roby:
Yeah. Are you a good person that people are going to want to be a roommate with or sit next to in the dining hall or be in class together or hang out in the dorms together or whatever the case may be? It's like, we're going to spend a lot of time together as a community and you hope that the community is respectful and appreciative, empathetic and generous
Lee Coffin:
Well also, it's easy to win. Having a championship season is exciting and easy to be happy and all those things when things are going really well, but I've been on enough campuses where a team really hits a dry patch and when I was at Tufts, the football program went many seasons without a win, and the character of those players was really important because they were rebuilding. It was hard. And the day they finally won was one of the best moments of my on-campus experience. I'll never forget that. But leading up to that, it was a lot of tears and part of the experience of being a college athlete.
Peter Roby:
Yeah, no doubt. And one of the things that our college coach used to say to us at Dartmouth is that adversity doesn't build character, it reveals it.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, that's right. So Peter, in the primer part of this conversation, let me ask you a few terms that get tossed around a lot in this space, just to help people understand. So let's start with just a really fundamental one. The NCAA A is organized by divisions. What's the difference between one, two, and three?
Peter Roby:
Right. So the difference between one, two, and three, at least fundamentally, divisions one and two offer athletic scholarships. Division three does not, at any level of division three. Whereas at division two, the colleges are allowed to offer athletic scholarships, and it differs by college. And the number of scholarships is different between division two in division one depending on the sport. And so that's one way that differentiates the divisions. Obviously, it differentiates by division based on schedule and who you play, and then what post-season opportunities you would have to pursue as far as an NCAA tournament. So each of the divisions administer their own championships, and their qualifications or their criteria for qualifying for those NCAA championships differ by division, and the size of the tournament participation differs by division. So those are some of the ways that they differ.
Lee Coffin:
So if you're a really high-flying high school athlete, why would you lean towards division three? How do you know I'm three, I'm one? What's the internal conversation that happens?
Peter Roby:
Well, I think some of it, again, comes back to your high school coach or your club coach who probably have been very familiar with the level of talent that can thrive in any one of those divisions based on history. But it's also about you making an assessment of what you see when you watch teams play at those divisions. Then another way of being able to do that is asking yourself, how much are you willing to invest in the pursuit of your college career? Because the amount of time spent on your athletics might be different at a division three school than it is at a division one school, or the priority that's put on it or the balance between academics and athletics may be different depending on the division. So all of that may be part of it.
How much traveling you do at one division versus another division will also be a part of it. But I think water will find its level. And in this case, if you're good enough to play division one, part of the way you'll know is because you're getting recruited by division one schools as opposed to division two and three schools.
Lee Coffin:
So that was my next phrase, getting recruited. So my nephew was a of lacrosse player of some talent, was on a club team. When he was a senior in high school, junior in high school, he started getting emails and some phone calls and my sister would say, "Jake is getting recruited." And I said, "I don't know that he's getting recruited. There's been an inquiry." But it was confusing. I mean, it seemed like there was some interest and ultimately, there was for one of the colleges. But what does that mean, "I'm getting recruited"? How do you know someone is wooing you?
Peter Roby:
Well, if they're spending time calling you or asking you for information or actually inviting you to their campus or talking about wanting to come watch you play, that's getting recruited.
Lee Coffin:
Okay. So it's not that subtle.
Peter Roby:
Receiving a letter of interest is the first step in trying to figure out whether they want to recruit you or not. So they're interested in getting information about your level of interest, about your academic record, and that starts the process. You usually will fill out a questionnaire that the coaching staff has trying to accumulate a bunch of information that tells them are you someone that they should spend time recruiting because you seem to meet the criteria academically, at least in the range. You have an interest, you're at a level athletically that makes them feel like you're someone that could potentially help their roster. And if they see a reciprocal interest on your part, then there's probably going to be more follow up.
Lee Coffin:
And then eventually you get invited for an official visit, what's that?
Peter Roby:
So the official visit, what that means is that the school is actually paying for you to come to their campus.
Lee Coffin:
Is that D one, two and three or just one?
Peter Roby:
Yes.
Lee Coffin:
All three. Okay.
Peter Roby:
No, all three. And they're going to either pay for the visit or put you up on campus once you come. So in division three, they may not pay for your visit, but once you get there, they'll make accommodation with meals and maybe have you stay in the dorm with one of their athletes, and then they'll give you the tour and have you meet people. Academically, they'll meet some faculty members and others. At our level, division one, we pay for the visit, we can pay for up to two other people in your travel party to come, typically, your guardians or your family members. 48 hours is the allotted amount of time that you can stay on a campus. So typically, you could be there two nights, if you will, arrive on a Friday morning, maybe attend class, go eat with some of the athletes, stay over in the dorm.
You'll maybe get up on Saturday, watch practice, go to some other events, watch other people play or that team play, go to dinner with other people on a Saturday night, have some fun socially. Sunday morning, you have a breakfast. You stay over Saturday night, Sunday morning you have a breakfast and you're gone by midday on Sunday.
Lee Coffin:
That's substantial.
Peter Roby:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's a commitment on the part of the C college, but it's also a commitment on the part of the family.
Lee Coffin:
No, that's a really ... I mean, for most applicants when we're open, they show up for a tour and an info session, maybe they grab a cookie in the dining hall and then they're off. So that two day journey through a campus is really ... That's a lot. So the other word that dances around here is you'll hear someone say, "I have support." And parents will say, "We have support from a coach," or the student will say it. What does that mean?
Peter Roby:
So what that means is that we have a relationship with the admissions office. We are recruiting a certain number of athletes that the admissions office is comfortable with. And by sport, there are a certain number of athletes that can be recruited in any one class. And so there's exchange of information that goes back and forth between the coaching staffs and the admissions office about a particular student's background, their level of interest, how good they are, what role they might play on that particular team. But also academically, what school did they come from? How rigorous is their curriculum academically? Have they distinguished themselves? How curious are they academically?
All of that goes into a conversation with the admissions office so that when admissions is reviewing that particular person's profile, they will ask, "Is this somebody that you would support because you want them to come and be a part of your program?" And so we don't have an unlimited number of those. And so when somebody says you have support from a particular coaching staff, that means we are vouching for this person. We would love to have them on our roster. And so if you, admissions, deem them admissible in every other way, we would love to have them.
Lee Coffin:
So if you're an athlete or a parent, you want to be listening for that pledge of support.
Peter Roby:
Right. So "Hey, coach, if I apply to school, will you support my admissions file? Will you tell the admissions office that I'm someone that you'd like to have on your team?"
Lee Coffin:
So that's the question someone should ask a coach?
Peter Roby:
Yeah. Am I one of the people that you would support with admissions?
Lee Coffin:
And what if someone dances around that answer?
Peter Roby:
Then you should be trying to get that answer from some other school.
Lee Coffin:
Okay. So it's a-
Peter Roby:
Back to the conversation about owning the process. So don't be afraid to ask the tough questions. We've heard from other schools that I am someone that they are supporting with admissions, but we haven't heard that yet from you coach, so we're just curious as to whether I am one of those select few that you're supporting with the admissions office. And they can either answer the question or dance around it. If they dance around it, they're telling you something.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, it's a skill set, you're developing the art of listening and you're developing the art of being a self-advocate. And I think you're also learning how to avoid the trap of hearing what you want to hear, which may not be what the coach is saying.
Peter Roby:
And don't let people hold you for ransom by saying, "Unless you tell me that you're really coming, I can't support you."
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Peter Roby:
Because that's not really fair to you. You should have the opportunity to assess how many schools are actually really sincerely interested in me and want to support my candidacy.
Lee Coffin:
So Peter, is a walk-on still a thing? And by walk-on, I mean someone who is not a recruited athlete, they got accepted to the college outside of the athletic recruitment process, and then once enrolled, they show up in the athletic center and say, "Hey, I play basketball," and you say, "Terrific, let's go dribble," that happens.
Peter Roby:
Yes, walk-on's are still a part of it, the Dartmouth experience for sure. And when you think about it, we're non-scholarship. And so rosters fluctuate because students don't feel like they're stuck because they have a scholarship dangling over their head. And if they were to stop participating in the sport, that the scholarship would go away. Well, that doesn't happen at Dartmouth or in the Ivy League, so we don't have to worry about that. And so rosters can fluctuate from one year to the next, but that's okay. Most of the kids that get recruited here stay here and go four years and stay on the roster. But there's always going to be an opportunity for someone who has the right stuff that's willing to put the work in that can catch the eye of a coach. They're not that many, but in the sport of rowing, for example, it happens a lot. And there are other sports where that could happen every now and then as well. So yeah, walk-on's are still a part of this experience.
Lee Coffin:
So Peter, two other questions. One important in terms of equity and one philosophic. So the equity one, you'll read in the news sometimes issues around Title IX and the idea of gender balance on a college campus. When we see one of those stories in the news, what does it mean? What is the gender dynamic within athletics?
Peter Roby:
So one of the prongs of being in compliance with Title IX is the participation numbers and the percentage of male athletes participating on teams versus female athletes, and how that compares to the enrollment percentages, male and female of the school. And they're supposed to be very close in terms of the percentage of the athletics participation to the enrollment numbers. Title IX is a federal expectation, and it's a part of the tax code that was created in 1972 that says a person cannot be discriminated against on the basis of gender at institutions or organizations that receive federal funding.
Lee Coffin:
Got it.
Peter Roby:
And so because colleges receive federal funding for scholarships or loans and research, then they fall under the auspices of that particular text requirement, and they can't discriminate.
Lee Coffin:
That's helpful. So my last question is a philosophic one. So we've talked, and I know that you emerged out of New Britain, Connecticut, came to Dartmouth-
Peter Roby:
"Hard hittin' New Britain."
Lee Coffin:
"Hard hittin' New Britain," and you came to Dartmouth and you played basketball. You were a varsity basketball player at Dartmouth, and then your career has been spent as a coach and an athletic administrator. So this is philosophic and it's personal. Some people ask me why athletics should count in college admissions. Why does athleticism matter? Why is it a type of merit that college admissions ought to recognize?
Peter Roby:
Yeah, great question. I guess I put it to you this way. The statistics suggest that of the almost 40 million kids between the ages of five and 18 that play youth sports, only 2% of them will ever play division one athletics.
Lee Coffin:
Wow.
Peter Roby:
Only 2%. Only 5% of all the kids that play youth sports will play anything in college. 5%. So you're talking about the top of the pyramid. So why would a school not be interested in having someone come and matriculate at their institution, and impact it in a particular way who has that kind of distinction? This is about distinction in all the ways that they contribute to the community. So just like we look at SAT scores or AP scores or entrepreneurship, extracurricular activities, we look for people that have distinguished themselves in whatever it is that they've spent most of their time on, because it says something to us about them, that they're willing to put the work in, that they're resilient, that they're tough-minded, that they have this really interesting perspective that would be interesting for others to get to know, that they will bring that to the conversations in class, in the study groups or whatever. So why is it different when it's athletics? It shouldn't be.
Lee Coffin:
Right.
Peter Roby:
There's only 2% of the people in the country who do this that could actually ever do it at this level, division one. And so when you consider the requirements academically to gain admission to Dartmouth College and lay on top of that what it's required to be recruited as a division one athlete, that only 2% of the country will ever be able to say they did, that makes them extraordinary. And that's why athletics should count.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, it's a talent, it is, for all the reasons you just outlined. And I've said recently, someone asked me about athletics in our student body, and I said, "So true or false, Dartmouth is a member of the Ivy League?" And the person said, "True, of course." And I said, "Okay. Then as a existential truth, we are a member of the NCAA division one, as a member of that athletic league, and some members of our student body will be recruited athletes who participate on our varsity teams, period." And it was a faculty member and he said, "Never thought of about it that way." I said, "No, that's part of our identity. It's what we do." But it's a really ... Thank you for that really elegant ... I mean, I teed you up a softball because I knew, or I guess since you're a basketball player, I gave you a layup because I knew you were going to have a really wonderful answer to that question, and I'm glad to end on that. So thanks Peter so much.
Peter Roby:
It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
Lee Coffin:
You're welcome.
Peter Roby:
I'm really honored to be on today.
Lee Coffin:
Of course.
So thank you for listening to this encore episode of Admissions Beat. I hope Peter's thoughts on athletics resonate with you. I have always found him to be an incredibly thoughtful person on this topic and the more macro topic about undergraduates and the experiences they have on a campus. So pleased to have been able to bring this episode back into your newsfeed one more time. For now, this is Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. Thanks for listening.