or "Whose College Placement Advice Do You Trust?"

Are you the parent of a freshman, sophomore, or junior year High School student-athlete? If you are, you know the importance and stress of the College Board exams. Let's face it, there are no multiple choice questions that ask how many times you can dribble a soccer ball on your College Board exams.

Pat Grecco, LIJSL's college advisor, published a recent article discussing one of her clients with an SAT score that was materially less than an 860 but was admitted to an NAIA school. BOTN consistently questions this soccer-over-academics strategy and further calls into question the credentials of a college advisor that would accept an SAT score potentially less than the 25th-percentile from a "bright kid".

For the last five years, BoardLord, our College Forum moderator and advisor to a major New York University, has been providing advice and guidance to the BOTN community, free for visitors from the Northeast to California. More importantly, BOTN does not receive remuneration for the advice published on the BOTN College Forum. Answering your questions about the entire academic and sports scholarship matrix is our focused goal.

See the most recent Q&A from our BOTN College Forum where BoardLord discussed this subject.



Let's start with the standardized test scores. An ACT composite score of 18 is generally held at the 33rd-percentile of those ACT test takers. Since an ACT score of 18 maps to an SAT I two-way score of 860 based on the score conversion tables, the general placement between the two is the same. Do we really need to be focusing on athletics when students are performing in the bottom third quartile?

Most students who fail the NAIA test score benchmark will succeed against the GPA test (2.0 baseline - a "C" average) and 50th-percentile of the graduating class and therefore qualify for NAIA placements.

The question is what NAIA colleges await a potential student-athlete who cannot make the standardized test score cut? The following link provides a link to those NAIA men's and women's soccer programs.

http://www.naia.org/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=27900&ATCLID=205322922

Do you recognize these schools? Would potential employers? Are these institutions in locations where you would want your child for the long haul?

Bottom line: BOTN is trying to help the mass-market with our recommendations and advice. Our approach is to develop the whole student-athlete in multiple dimensions. Sports form just one parameter in a complex picture for a student-athlete and their family to consider for a four-year collegiate education. Choosing a college based on the ability to play soccer simply misplaces the priority and purpose of a college education.

This is one reason why the BOTN College Forum does not "hawk" services to our readers from which we profit. Our goal is education of our college-bound students and their families. Think about that when you consider the source of your advice columns.

Of course the real reality is if you have 860 Boards and can dribble a basketball extremely well, the list of colleges at your disposal is significantly greater. Its one of two sports in this country (American Football being the other) where you can be accpeted at a top university with a limited acadmic portfolio. Thus, while I have always agreed with Boardlord on academics, maybe the clearer advice might be to switch sports?

I hope you mean 860 on the old format SAT, I really hope you do.

The college I teach at has a current brochure that brags about SAT scores of "1400 on average" for their honors college. Not that good if it is out of 2400.

Yes, the NAIA standards talk about an 860 two-way SAT I score - basically, a 430 for the critical reading and mathematics sections (scoring from 200 to 800 per section). In this case, the article was discussing a candidate who did not attain those scores.