Over the next four years, fewer student-athletes will be recruited to each of Dartmouth's 27 "Ivy Championship" teams, thanks to new recruiting limits instituted at the Council of Ivy Group Presidents' 2003 annual spring meeting.
In addition to limiting the number of student athletes that each Ivy institution may enroll during any four-year period, the Council increased the minimum qualifications required for admission -- typically measured by secondary school rank and standardized test scores. The average academic qualifications of students recruited each year must now meet the average qualifications of all students at the school.
For the first time, the admissions standards have been extended to the entire cohort of incoming "Ivy sport" athletes, as opposed to only the students recruited for football, men's ice hockey and men's basketball.
When the decisions were made, presidents James Wright of Dartmouth and Hunter Rawlings of Cornell said they were pleased that the new policies upheld academic standards.
"These actions ... renew and deepen our long-standing commitment to the principle that students who are recruited as potential athletes at each Ivy institution should be representative of that institution's overall undergraduate student body, especially as the credentials of those student bodies continue to improve," Wright and Rawlings said in a joint statement.
"Ivy Championship" sports, of which there are 33 in total, consist of men's and women's sports in which five or more Ivy League universities participate. Each institution's four-year limit on the number of students it recruits will be based on the specific sports it sponsors.
While football players are not included in the four-year limit, recruiting restrictions on the Ivy football programs were also recently heightened. The Dartmouth football team witnessed a decrease in the number of recruits, from 35 to 30 players per year, beginning with the Class of 2007. This will result in a total loss of 20 players over a four-year period that could be harmful to the team, according to Head Coach John Lyons.
"Raising the [academic] standards has narrowed the pool as to who you can recruit and more importantly, has made it so that you can't afford to make any mistakes in recruiting," Lyons said.
The changes require coaches to be much more precise in their projections for where their teams will be in a year, Lyons said. Also, there is much less room to account for injured athletes and for athletes who might need time to develop.
For all of the other "Ivy Sports," the Class of 2008 has been the first to be affected by the academic and recruiting changes.
"Good thing I got in when I did," varsity lacrosse player Casey Hazel '06 said.
The new regulations are part of a larger movement instituted by the Council of Ivy Group Presidents in response to two books written by William Bowen, the former president of Princeton. Bowen's books, "The Game of Life" and "Reclaiming the Game," took a critical look at the role of athletics in institutions of higher education. Bowen found that too often admissions standards are lowered for athletes and that student-athletes are over-represented in the matriculating classes.
Bowen pointed out that Ivy League athletic programs prevented athletes from pursuing other extracurricular and personal activities. As a result, in June 2002, the Council of Ivy Group Presidents limited the number and frequency of off-season practices and required that there be at least 49 off-season days free from required or coach-supervised activities. While this "time-off" scheduling benefits student athletes, it also has its down sides.
One varsity athlete who wished to remain anonymous said, "We always had the unspoken pressure of, 'well you guys are on your rest period but you can come to these optional things' -- optional meaning pretty much mandatory or else we will think less of you, and you won't get as much playing time."
Nina Fulmer '06 of the varsity field hockey team said she felt disadvantaged compared to other Division I programs.
How Dartmouth will fare against Division I schools that are not subject to the new Ivy League recruiting policies remains to be seen. Athletic Director Josie Harper and Deputy Athletic Director Bob Ceplikas were not available for comment.
