Feel like I can add some perspective to the whole athletics/admissions debate as I’m currently a freshman at UIUC, so it’s only been a year since I went through the whole process.
While the main reasons I chose UIUC were the accounting program and scholarships, the basketball team’s success certainly helped me choose here. As a huge sports fan, having a team to cheer on played somewhat of a role in my decision. Yes, academics are the driving force behind college decision, but college is also supposed to be fun, and the atmosphere/athletics plays an important role in that. I’m envious of certain schools football environment, for example you can watch one clip of Penn State’s whiteout games and immediately you want to be there or apart of something like that. I went to Notre Dame football games as a high schooler and that atmosphere was part of the reason Notre Dame was one of the other 2 schools I really considered.
But getting back to basketball, I was a casual sports fan until just a few years ago (Ayos freshman year is when I really got into the sport). You could see the potential in that team and then the next year they were finally good, and that’s all it took for me to become a diehard fan. I watched every game and was honestly by far the biggest reason I loved the school before I even enrolled.
ANOTHER anecdote, I have a friend from back home who’s super into college football. He’s smart enough to go to much better schools than he is, but his parents have !!!! you money and a wealth of connections so guess where he’s going right now… Alabama