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24% of High School Student Athletes Want to be Engineers, Scientists

howto.berecruited.com

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Re: 24% of High School Student Athletes Want to be Engineers, Scientists

#31

Post by waldrews »

dxbydt wrote: post #12
vsprabhakara1 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great background information. I wonder what the primary driver of switching out is

Two of my classmates dropped out of a math graduate program. One of them actually quit right in the middle of class, saying "This is not fun anymore!". It was a Group Theory class on Galois Fields. She became a real estate agent. The other flunked his qualifiers & decided to quit the program and become a pilot (!!) instead of retaking the exams.My prof said attrition rates in math were super high.Its just not everybo…

wait, shell sort is stable?

Re: 24% of High School Student Athletes Want to be Engineers, Scientists

#32

Post by vsprabhakara1 »

gt384u wrote: post #28
vsprabhakara1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there might be a slight amount of skewing due to the fact that we're an online service, we have a very large data set relative to the population we're speaking about. Also, given the process of college admissions today, its fair to say that most people applying to college have access to a computer. In addition, there is more than the NCAA, such as the NAIA and Junior Colleges. We take all that into account.

Interesting. If I were interested in the current recruiting landscape for high school athletes, do you happen to know of any good survey or review-type sources? I'm curious about the context surrounding your company's service.

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking for. Feel free to email me at vish AT berecruited DOT com with more details

Re: 24% of High School Student Athletes Want to be Engineers, Scientists

#33

Post by wvoq »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #29
vsprabhakara1 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This means that the intellectual average of student athletes is highly likely to be lower than the average of non-athletes" This applies to Michigan specifically. They are willing to make academic sacrifices for the sake of their athletic programs and (maybe) a well-rounded student body. Not all schools operate this way.

Many schools do it. Michigan is the only one who's point system was made public. But you are right, there are some who don't do this.

Even so, the rubric only shows that Michigan is willing to overlook academic shortcomings in their efforts to recruit athletic talent. Academic and athletic talent still might be correlated in the general population, while sampling bias from the university admissions process over-represents dumb jocks and under-represents dumb non-jocks.

For example, suppose the academic ability of jocks is normally distributed about 105 with a std dev of 15, whereas non-jocks are normally distributed about 100 with the same std dev. If the cutoff for admission is 110, but athletic talent gives you a 20 point bonus, then you're your comparing mean aptitude in a sample of non-jocks, given that every observation is >= 110, to the mean aptitude in a sample of jocks, given that every observation is >= 90. Under those conditions, you'll find a 10 point difference in favor of your sample of non-jocks, even though the population mean for jocks is higher.

I think you alluded to this point in an earlier reply, but it's worth spelling out.

Re: 24% of High School Student Athletes Want to be Engineers, Scientists

#34

Post by wisty »

dxbydt wrote: post #12
vsprabhakara1 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great background information. I wonder what the primary driver of switching out is

Two of my classmates dropped out of a math graduate program. One of them actually quit right in the middle of class, saying "This is not fun anymore!". It was a Group Theory class on Galois Fields. She became a real estate agent. The other flunked his qualifiers & decided to quit the program and become a pilot (!!) instead of retaking the exams.My prof said attrition rates in math were super high.Its just not everybo…

Galois Fields was when I realized I just didn't want to be a mathematician. I like math, but you can only be a professional mathematician (as opposed to a numerical modeller or some other applied mathematician) if you tackle the stuff that's so hard no other mathematician in the world can do it, or esoteric enough that only a few other mathematicians have bothered trying.

Re: 24% of High School Student Athletes Want to be Engineers, Scientists

#35

Post by baddspellar »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #18
drcube wrote: post #5

I can't tell if this is supposed to be surprisingly high or surprisingly low. Either way, it is worth pointing out (perhaps to the choir) that the stereotypes of dumb jocks and fat nerds are not realistic, if they ever were. Strong minds correlate with strong bodies. Which reminds me, I need to get back in my routine, and go out there and run today after work. :)

...it is worth pointing out (perhaps to the choir) that the stereotypes of dumb jocks and fat nerds are not realistic... Within a given college, it is likely to be realistic. Take U-Mich, for example (since they are the only school to reveal their point system) - being a student athlete is worth +1.0 on GPA. I.e., a student athlete with a 2.5 is on equal footing with a non-athlete having a 3.5. This means that the in…

I looked at the form. It doesn't say "student-athlete". it says "scholarship athlete". Athletic scholarships overwhelmingly go to Football players who are heavily recruited because football is revenue generating. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_I_(NCAA)#Scholarship_l...

Re: 24% of High School Student Athletes Want to be Engineers, Scientists

#36

Post by candre717 »

There seems to be an undercurrent of resistance against student athletes, when keep in mind that even engineering schools have athletic programs. They are generally D3, but the athletes in these programs face a relatively demanding schedule. And, from my experience, these slots are usually not walk-ons in the pure sense of the term, so the students coming in are noticed during high school for their athletic abilities. I'd hesitate to say 'recruited,' because D3 - and D2 - recruitment is not the same as D1 and I think D1 is the model people conjure.

Maybe we (as in the scientific and math-inclined) like to feel special, because 'we solve hard problems.' Maybe we were always picked last, while we watched the more athletic and popular lead. And they took our lunch money. Whatever the case, rather than trying to minimize athletes, we should try to support and encourage each other, athletic or not.

Re: 24% of High School Student Athletes Want to be Engineers, Scientists

#37

Post by psykotic »

waldrews wrote: post #31
dxbydt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two of my classmates dropped out of a math graduate program. One of them actually quit right in the middle of class, saying "This is not fun anymore!". It was a Group Theory class on Galois Fields. She became a real estate agent. The other flunked his qualifiers & decided to quit the program and become a pilot (!!) instead of retaking the exams.My prof said attrition rates in math were super high.Its just not everybo…

wait, shell sort is stable?

No, it is unstable. The striding means that two equal elements can easily be reordered. For example, after 2-sorting [(2,a), (1,b), (1,c)] by the first component you get [(1,c), (1,b), (2,a)].

Re: 24% of High School Student Athletes Want to be Engineers, Scientists

#38

Post by lergix »

I'll informally confirm the 60% drop out statistic.

When I first started college (engineering focused school) the dean of undergrad academics had us all stand in a line and did the "look left and look right" thing - chances are that out of the 3 (yourself included), 2 of you will not make it to graduation. I thought he was joking until i got to my 4th-5th semester and a lot of folks i knew were either transferring out or switching to business type majors.

Education in engineering is a lesson in self discipline.

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