Two speakers examine why even a valedictorian with a 1600 SAT and 15 AP courses got rejected from Yale, Harvard, and MIT. They argue that playing soccer can be an alternative pathway to admission at elite schools, even with a weaker academic record.
How difficult is it to play at a top academic Ivy League school or a top academic Division III school? Let me just show you how difficult it is to get into the school if you don't have soccer.
This high school kid basically had a perfect college application. Watch this. Ranked 1 out of 457, valedictorian, 4.0 unweighted GPA, 4.5 weighted GPA. He essentially had straight A's or A pluses, 1600 SAT score, and a 36 on his ACT. You literally cannot have stats better than that. He also took 15 AP courses. As for The rest of his college application, well, he was varsity debate for 4 years, captain, patrol leader in his Boy Scout troop, he started finance club, he did summer programs at Yale and UPenn, volunteered teaching math at a summer camp, and he also started a 5-figure business. Now his college results were insane. Waitlisted then rejected from Yale, waitlisted then rejected from UPenn, rejected from Harvard, rejected from MIT, rejected from NYU, deferred then accepted to UMich, rejected from UC Berkeley, rejected from USC, accepted to UC Irvine, and accepted to UCSD. What is this? Are you freaking kidding me?
How could that kid get rejected from any school? That's insane. And he didn't even get into the highest level academic schools. My students who are playing soccer, who do not have a resume like this, like this player, like this player, are getting scholarships and getting into these programs because of soccer. So sport can be the reason you get into these incredible schools. If you wanna know which schools you should aim for as a high academic, comment top academic, and I'll send you a list.
