Chiming in on the Ivy question, sorry to sidetrack things: the Jill Hicks answer is not inaccurate but is a short version of a complicated situation. For the right athlete, the “minimum” test scores and GPAs might go up or down. Here are some Ivy athlete admit scenarios:
1) athletic recruit, coach puts them on a very restricted (usually 2ish per year per team, depends on school and team) preferred admit list and works with admissions to admit candidates that are qualified academically but will contribute in a huge way athletically. These are the Ivy athletes you’ll see announce that they are “committing to the admissions process at X school” this spring and fall. They apply during early admissions. They won’t be on the team until they have been accepted by the admissions office. They might have scores or grades a tiny bit below average, but they may just as well have stellar scores that could stand on their own.
2) athletic recruit, not preferred candidate, strong gymnastics and strong grades. The coach wants these athletes, the admissions office knows who they are, but they go through a mostly normal admissions process. They often need to have slightly stronger grades and scores to compensate for any deficiencies in the preferred admit pool and keep the team academic composite score close to that of the general student population. In the olden days these athletes would receive “likely letters” which was a winking way of letting students know they would get in before the notification deadline, but I don’t know if that is still a thing.
3) normal applicant, signals interest and intent to compete to the admissions office and is in contact with coach. Would get into the school if they weren’t going to compete. They probably have a talent or special interest that makes them stand out besides gymnastics. May not compete often or on all events depending on the rest of the team. This is the Ivy League version of a walk-on.
Ivy League recruiting needs to be really high-touch because the coach has to be careful about who they put up for admissions- if they have too many recruits bail on the process over the years or if recruits leave the sport after their first year, they’re stuck and can’t expand their roster via transfers. They also risk losing the quantity of their preferred recruits in the future.
You can look up bios of athletes at Brown, Yale, Cornell and Penn to see what mix of Level 10s they recruit and then check their mymeetscores history to understand their paths better. Some programs attract a bunch of homeschool/former elite path athletes, but like other conferences, many were “just” solid Level 10s.
