

24% of High School Student Athletes Want to be Engineers, Scientists - vsprabhakara1
http://howto.berecruited.com/student-athletes-what-where-and-who-infograph

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dmoy
Keep in mind that ~35% of ALL students want to be engineers or scientists (as
of 2006:
[http://www.heri.ucla.edu/nih/downloads/2010%20-%20Hurtado,%2...](http://www.heri.ucla.edu/nih/downloads/2010%20-%20Hurtado,%20Eagan,%20Chang%20-%20Degrees%20of%20Success.pdf)).

Also 60% of them drop out (or switch) within 5 years.

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vsprabhakara1
That's great background information. I wonder what the primary driver of
switching out is

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dxbydt
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 everybody's cup of tea, I guess. Among
undergrads, sometimes people switch because profs demean you. Once when I was
a TA, the Algorithms prof wrote an email calling a student "bozo" because he
couldn't figure out shell sort ( its a stable sort algo ). Unfortunately the
student was cc'ed in the email & took it badly & switched.

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waldrews
wait, shell sort is stable?

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psykotic
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)].

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gt384u
Based on my (perhaps limited) understanding of where they get their data set,
isn't it possible that the percentage of athletes interested in engineering be
overrepresented by the source? I would imagine an online social network for
recruiting student athletes would be just sort of thing that would skew
towards people who had computer access and savvy?

Wouldn't someone like the NCAA be a better place to derive this sort of
representative data as far as what incoming high school students are
interested in majoring in? Presuming of course that the NCAA was the only game
in town as far as collegiate athletics was concerned (is it?).

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vsprabhakara1
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.

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gt384u
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.

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vsprabhakara1
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

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drcube
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. :)

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yummyfajitas
_...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
intellectual average of student athletes is highly likely to be lower than the
average of non-athletes.

<http://www.cir-usa.org/Images/mich_index.gif>

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vsprabhakara1
"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.

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yummyfajitas
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.

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wvoq
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.

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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.

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Jach
I wanted to be a billionaire during high school (I still wouldn't mind it but
it's not a driving goal). Wanting and becoming and doing are very different
things. How many engineers and scientists were high school athletes? I'd be
interested in that percentage.

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vsprabhakara1
Its a bit more than a "want". They are telling this to colleges that offer
that major, are taking the necessary coursework, etc.

To your question: I'll have beRecruited revisit in a few years when we have
more students graduating college than still in it.

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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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robk
Sadly this seems unrealistic given the constraints placed on student athletes
and the time consuming nature of engineering studies. It's really hard to find
blocks of time to work on CS projects when you're spending 6+ hours a day
outside of classes training for any given sport.

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anonymoushn
My impression at a state university in the US was that CS was one of the least
demanding majors in terms of time spent on coursework outside of class. Sadly
I do not have any data about this.

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LearnYouALisp
Perhaps that is due to the curriculum at that particular university.

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coderdude
In first grade I'm sure that 90% of students want to be doctors and firemen.
I'd be willing to bet this is the almost-grown-up version of that.

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namank
Why is this surprising at all?

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kleiba
Note: "to be", not "to become".

