User:Smt46

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NCAA, What is a student athlete?, Georgetown women's track team, Paid to play, Quitting and Cheating

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Internship

A student athlete is described as a person who is enrolled in a school as a full-time student while being fully committed to that school’s varsity sports team. Many student athletes are compensated by scholarships to attend these institutions but do not need them to be considered a student athlete.

Student athletes are busy due to rigorous schedules to accommodate both their academic life and sports life. Many students fall behind in their academics because of the intense sports schedule. Academic advisors and tutors are provided for the student athletes but it does not always help with the intense course work of the institution. Numerous student athletes fall behind the curve compared to other non-athlete students and are not eligible to stay in the university and then graduate. Recently the, federal law mandates that universities reveal their graduation rates purportedly to inform policy makers and constituencies about efforts to support educational attainment for students and athletes.^[1] Revealing the graduation rates of student athletes allows perspective students to estimate the course load and amount of practice and game time that will consume their schedule by looking at student athletes that have already attended the institution. Universities with more selective admission policies graduate both students and athletes at higher rates, although their athletes graduate at lower rates, relative to their student cohorts. ^[2]

Not only are there significant differences between student athletes and non-athletes, scholarship athletes fared worse than non-scholarship or partial-scholarship athletes in academic achievement.^[3] Many scholarship athletes feel an obligation to the university to put the varsity sport before academics because their bills are being paid by the coaches essentially. Student athletes are at times disadvantaged by their full time involvement in a varsity sports. Using the table of Demographic and Academic Information for Athletes and the General Student Population, it is emphasized that non-athlete students on average have higher GPA’s than student athletes. The high school GPA for athletes was 2.99 and 3.31 for non-athletes. The average college GPA for student athletes is 2.56 with a graduation rate of 34.2% where as non-athletes average GPA is slightly higher at 2.74 with a graduation rate of 46.8%.^[4] The GPA averages are not too far off but the education received by non-athletes is far more than a student athlete because of the lack of time the student athlete has to absorb the information and to learn it. The highly watched athletes like basketball player are normally focused on the next game or the pressures to win instead of the school work but they manage to get by. Although this is only an average and other factors such as the institution, sport, resources and division should be factored in, on average student athlete’s graduate at a lower rate particularly because of their rigorous sports schedule or may not graduate within four years.

Along with graduation rates comes a student athlete’s preparedness for the institute’s academics. Many student athletes are accepted into college based off of their talents and not exactly their academics. Studies have shown that there is a high likelihood that coaches will recruit exceptional athletes who are unqualified for the academic demands of college.^[5] This leads coaches and academic advisors to have to put more effort toward the athlete to keep them eligible to play and stay in school. Often time these sports programs interfere with the education of the student athletes.