This Winter Olympics, the content of "American famous schools" is also too high!
Female ice goalkeeper Zhou Jiaying graduated from Stanford University, female ice vice captain Lin Qiqi is a graduate of the University of Connecticut, and Gu Ailing, who has 6 gold in 36 days, has also fulfilled her dream of Stanford.
A few days ago, Rao Yi also mentioned in his article commenting on the Zhu Yi incident: "Our children are involved in sports, but they only need the general middle school school team and at most some regional small competitions to apply for Harvard and Yale." "Is sports really a shortcut to America's top universities?
U.S. admissions officers do pay a lot of attention to the physical activity of applicants, and although the threshold is far from being a "world champion", the preference of the U.S. higher education system for sports is evident.
Sports: A shortcut to American universities
Parents who pay attention to the study abroad circle often hear such a saying: the most popular in American universities is not a bully, but a sports star.
Even the Ivy League favors it so much: Sports are an important educational component of a student's undergraduate experience.
图 | ivy league
1. Student-athletes - the darlings of colleges and universities
In the United States, students can submit application materials to schools as "student athletes", and schools prefer students with athlete status, for example, in 2021, Harvard University admitted students, student-athletes accounted for 10.4%.
Figure | Harvard University official website
According to data released by Princeton University, 11.8% of the new students enrolled in the class of 2025 were admitted as "student athletes".
Figure | Princeton University website
From the data released by these two universities, it can be seen that the probability of getting an offer as a student athlete is more promising than that of ordinary students.
Therefore, many people have moved their crooked minds. In 2019, a number of top universities in the United States, including Yale University, Stanford University, Georgetown University, etc., were exposed to the "sports specialty student enrollment fraud case", through the black box operation, some celebrity children can become so-called "sports students" through bribery, and get more advantages in admission.
Figure | Internet
Like our domestic art candidates, although the admission situation of sports students is better in other schools, it does not mean that it is easier for student athletes to apply for universities.
The Stanford Admissions Office said that the athletic students admitted by Stanford were excellent in academic performance and athletic expertise, and all met the university's admission standards. The only difference between them and the average student is that sports expertise plays the biggest role in the admission criteria, but it does not mean that their grades are not good.
2. Sports - the applicant's killer
American universities pay attention to the comprehensive quality of students, and do not blindly value the test results of students, even for ordinary applicants, sports is also a very important basis for judging in the eyes of admissions leaders.
Among the new students of Harvard University in 2025, sports account for 44.2% of extracurricular activities, and sports activities can show that students have a good competitive mentality, as well as the quality of positive and courageous struggle, as long as the applicant gets some regional small medals, he can apply for a famous school in the United States (the premise is that the hardware conditions such as standardized scores and TOEFL are also sufficient).
Why do American universities value sports so much?
1. The concept of higher education values sportsmanship
Americans believe that sport helps develop personality, qualities, and the ability to work together in teams and leadership qualities that American higher education seeks.
In a report, Bender, the director of Harvard's admissions office, declared that a group of students with top academic performance is unhealthy and detrimental to the full and well-rounded development of individual students. This view has profoundly influenced the policies of Harvard and other top universities since then to recruit and develop talent.
The American education community believes that higher education must not be limited to cultivating students with high test scores and great academic potential, nerds cannot be capable of coping with the rapidly changing challenges in the real world, and top Universities in the United States must cultivate "comprehensive people" who can face, analyze, control, and deal with complex information and difficult situations.
2. Sports bring fame and fortune to the school
A standard or a spirit can be implemented for a long time, there must be interests behind it, in the United States, sports can bring fame and benefits to schools.
Tickets for sports are an important income for the school, but more importantly, sports can open the wallet of the big guy!
Alumni donations are an important source of income for the school. The joy of a large number of alumni seeing their alma mater winning the championship is no less than the mood of seeing the women's football Asian Cup winning the championship, at this time, if the principal proposes some donations, he is so happy that he can't find the big alumni of the North, how can he refuse?
And for those who are not very well-known in the school, sports competitions are a good way to "brush their faces", winning a game, you can get a certain degree of social attention, which can attract better students and more investment, the school can also develop in the long run, in case of encountering a "purple microstar from heaven", although it can not be a person to get the Tao, chickens and dogs ascend to heaven, but also can open to eat for three years.
After Gu Ailing won the championship, many parents found a new idea of chicken babies, can children practice some sports to help apply for American schools? Wait, don't use your strength in the wrong place.
The most respected sports in the United States are football, football, etc., and American middle schools also attach great importance to sports education, students have to carry out physical activities almost every day, if we just spend a few hours on weekends to participate in special classes, in their eyes this is just a hobby, not a specialty.
SAT, TOEFL and other hardware conditions can be suddenly passed, but extracurricular activities, competitions and other soft conditions must be laid early, in order to apply for the United States famous schools in advance to start preparing for a few years in advance of the students are large.
Opportunities to pamper people, 2023 fall season to apply for students, pay attention to the "American Study Abroad Center", with Stanford, Columbia and other successful cases of senior consultants to take you to take the offer through train.