It's really not comparable, but Davidson (where I played baseball) used to aggresively feature how hard the school was on all of their tours and materials. It was an explicit talking point on marketing materials and spoken by alums. I found it really off-putting that many alumni and students were visibly grumpy when I said that my first semester really was not impossibly hard. Did I make the same grades I did in high school, no, since there was a curriculum-wide forced curve in classes with more than XX students where only one "A" was allowed and there were a set number of "Ds" and "Cs".
I think it came from an inferiority complex. E.g. ivies and other comparable schools (who do not have to worry about their reputation.....) didn't ever mention it. These schools assumed that if you got in, you would thrive. Davidson figured that out and changed their recruiting to prominently feature named four/five year academic/athletic scholarships, and they work hard to keep good kids enrolled even when they are failing nearly everything in school. That's basically the only way they can ensure a competitive basketball team -- e.g. I took a required class with the best defender on the basketball team who was rumored to have a 0.0 at one point. He eventually graduated after being on scholarship without playing ball for a year. Now he is a D1 coach. Baseball is figuring this out over there too. Also, they don't voluntarily drug test...
I think Tech should do the same -- assume that everyone respects the hell out of Tech, which they do worldwide, and sell it as an elite place for elite people. If kids (athletes in particular) are not prepared academically -- maybe they have never taken the underlying math needed, or their writing skills are not initially passable -- but they are intelligent, hard working and can handle it once they are ramped up with tutoring, then this should be sold to them too. Just think about our reaction on this board to Cortez Alston transferring to Penn -- "can't go wrong with that" . This is the way people in these recruits' high schools should think about getting a full ride to Tech. My high school sent kids with nearly perfect records to Tech, and they chose it over Ivies/Stanford. Add the glamour of playing sports at the highest level and there is a lot to sell. Put another way, as some posters did, "getting in" should be celebrated since it really can be a ticket to a better life for a lot of kids.
