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"I would guess that the lacrosse students at Duke would be slightly less prepared than the average student non scholarship student at Duke"

from http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/08/really-really-well.html

Brodhead has not commented upon last week’s release of the ACC Academic Honor Roll. Nor does the Duke lacrosse site—or any Duke site, as far as I can tell—mention the ACC honors.

I wonder what accounts for this silence, since Duke led all conference schools with 362 student-athletes named to the Honor Roll. Could the inconveniently high number of lacrosse players on the honor roll explain the university’s reticence?

Twenty-seven members of this year’s men’s lacrosse team were named to the Honor Roll. This achievement, of course, took place amidst Nifong’s using the team members as pawns for his re-election campaign. More remarkably, it occurred despite a troubling pattern of unprofessional behavior toward the players from many Duke faculty members—of which the experiences of George Jennison and Honor Roll member John Walsh seem to be only the tip of the iceberg.

The lacrosse team’s 27 Honor Roll members is the highest number in the ACC, easily outdistancing the numbers earned by UNC (16), Virginia (16), and Maryland (14).

This result ran true to form: over the last five years, the lacrosse team has had 173 members make the Academic Honor Roll, more than twice as many as the next closest school. The Coleman Committee highlighted this point, but the Duke administration has never publicly referenced it. And of this year’s recipients, five made the Honor Roll in each of their four years at Duke: Dave Evans, Erik Henkelman, Glenn Nick, Bruce Thompson, and Matt Zash. No other Duke team had as many four-year winners.

The 27 lacrosse players who made the Academic Honor Roll also surpassed the total of any other men’s team at Duke except for football (34, of a roster of 80-plus). The lacrosse team had more Honor Roll members than baseball (15), basketball (5), cross country (13), golf (3), indoor track (17), soccer (15), swimming (13), tennis (8), or wrestling (17).

Perhaps Duke could couple its publication of these figures with Professor Paul Haagen explaining his theories about how athletes who play “helmet sports” are more likely to engage in violent crime. Alas, as blogger John in Carolina has revealed, Haagen, after his infamous March 25 comments to the N&O, no longer seems to be commenting on the case.

I think your are right that the anti-athlete group of faculty apparently led by Brodhead is why you have not seen comment on this.

But in fairness, I should point out:

1. Private schools, tend to have fewer really low grades than public schools. Is that the "gentleman C" at work. Or is it that smaller classes lead to more social pressure to attend/study. Or is it that smaller classes lead to fewer all objective courses and it takes willfulness to know or write nothing for an essay, but it is possible to miss all or nearly all of an objective test. Or is it that smaller classes lead to the profs knowing the people and being less willing to assign a low grade? Maybe it is a combinnation but grades at private schools tend to be higher than at big state schools. [At one time, years ago I read a story that claimed grade inflation was so great at Yale that 82% of the graduates that year graduated with honors or better.]

2. A program with more athletes like lacrosse will tend to have more absolute honor roll members than a smaller sport like say basketball with 12 or so athletes on the roster.