Here how I have been told Academic Index works. The AI as people call it is based on certain criteria. There’s only one universal truth about the Academic Index: If you have an A.I. below 171, you cannot be admitted to an Ivy League school as an athlete. The Ivy League is unforgiving on this point, no matter how good the athlete.
For those at or above 171, the meaning of the Academic Index varies from school to school.
To precisely determine an athlete’s recruitability, the Ivy League segments all A.I.s above 171 into four “bands.” Bands at each school are defined by the statistical make-up of the school's current freshman class. In each school, therefore, the numbers associated with the bands differ. The universal rules that define the bands are as follows (if you're an Ivy League recruit, bear with this description; you should be able to understand it):
High band: This bands starts with the school's mean Academic Index, and ranges down to one standard deviation below the mean. ("Standard deviation" is defined as measure of the range of variation within a group. Typically, 68% of all data points fall within one standard deviation; 95% fall within two. In the case of the Ivy League Academic Index, one standard deviation reportedly varies from 12-16 points per school.)
Medium band: Goes from one standard deviation to two standard deviations below the mean.
Low band: Goes from two standard deviations to two-and-a-half standard deviations below the mean.
Low-Low band: Ranges from two-and-a-half standard deviations down to the minimum A.I. of 171.
Using this system, an Ivy League school with a mean Academic Index of 210 and a standard deviation of 14 would have its bands defined as follows:
Ivy League schools rarely, if ever, publish their mean A.I.s. It is assumed, however, that Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (in that order) have the three highest mean figures, probably at or around 220. According to the book, "Playing the Game," Dartmouth usually falls fourth at approximately 212, followed (in order) by Columbia, Pennsylvania, Brown, and Cornell.
College must be different, I guess there's no way a wealthy parent can, "Pay to play", for his child like the two attack men on one 2019 team ?
