If your kid wants to go to a selective university, do not let them play sports in high school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:🙄

There’s more to life than sacrificing your kid’s authenticity and interests to try to match the ever-changing whims of admissions committees.

Sure, if your kid doesn’t like sports, don’t force them to play one in an attempt to impress admissions. That’s silly and worthless. Same is true if they’re all-in on their instrument, musical theater, dance, or any other super time-consuming passion.

But if your kid loves sports (or the equivalent) and wants to pursue it in HS but not at a recruited level, there’s plenty of upside for them as a human being: authenticity, grit, leadership, social skills, physical health, mental health/wellness, and more.

All that said, if playing three varsity sports is what keeps our 4.0/1500+/12AP student out of the T-20, that’s fine with us. We’re thrilled to see our kid enjoy and excel at the EC’s they have chosen. It’s been wonderful for their growth, resilience, sense of self, and relationships with their peers, coaches, and teachers, alike.

IMHO that’s more important in the long run than dropping their authentic self in an attempt to make themself marginally more attractive to a school with an already tiny rate of admission. But you do you.

It is not a marginal boost. I don’t think that many parents realize here how much sports actively hurt your chances in admissions because of the time factor. Most college admissions advisors actively tell kids to give up on sports if they aren’t being recruited

First of all, who are you to make the claim that "most" college admissions advisors actively tell kids to give up sports if they aren't recruits? Are you an admissions advisor? Second, DS was not penalized in any way in the admissions process for playing sports. Did he have to work hard to juggle academics and athletics in HS? yep. Did he learn a lot about time management that prepared him for college? yep. Did he have top grades and scores and get into a T20? yep. Here's what he did not do: make his whole personality (and personal statement/application etc) about sports. If your kid enjoys sports, let them play sports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There’s more to life than sacrificing your kid’s authenticity and interests to try to match the ever-changing whims of admissions committees.

Bolder would make a pretty good tag line for this website, tbh.

"pointy" kids are being used to create a well rounded class.
Hyper-focused on one or two activities where they achieve at the national level.
Almost regardless of what that activity is.
Concert level didgeridoo
Championship underwater hockey
As long as you are the best at it.

It is almost impossible that this many kids are authentically interested in the didgeridoo or underwater hockey.
It is not clear to me how having the best didgeridoo or underwater hockey player helps round out the class any better than a highly regarded but not best violinist or volleyball player but that is the algorithm.

Right now all the top colleges are re-evaluating their algorithms and they may decide they don't care about pointiness as much as they used to.

I remember when non-profits were on every college counselor's short list of contrived extracurriculars.
Now nobody does it because it seems so contrived.

Hmmm…I will encourage my kids to pursue underwater didgeridoo…Harvard here we come!!!

[Anonymous]

If your kid can dunk a basketball, that's worth a lot.

[Anonymous]

Not sure if playing a travel sport since second grade helped my kid get into a top 25 school, but it sure did help her make friends quickly. Making small talk with other students was easy because she often knew kids from other high schools. She could also bring up the, “remember when my school played yours and (fill in the blank) happened.?”
Of course, this is an in-state school, with many students from our region.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not being middle class also kills your odds significantly. Top tier schools hate the middle class. They prefer their student bodies to consist mostly of wealthy elites with a few poor or hooked kids sprinkled in to give the appearance of "diversity"

So true.

So NOT True. More than 50% of the students at top tier schools receive need based financial aid. That is more than "a few poor or hooked kids"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many threads do you need to start about the one kid you know who played sports and had good grades and didn’t get into some selective schools? For every one of him, there are plenty with the opposite results.

Selective colleges are extremely hard to get into these days. Period.

+1. Troll. amd wrong time of year for this post. RD is yet to come

[Anonymous]

To sum up: Participate in sports because you love to compete, love the camaraderie of teamwork, the personal challenge, the physical activity. Playing a sport is one of the best things one can do with one's time. But do not participate in sports thinking it will help all that much for college applications, unless being recruited to play on the college level. There is really not more to it than this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless your kid is recruited, admissions officers do not really care about sports. I know a kid who has perfect grades and a 35 ACT who was a captain of the varsity football and lacrosse teams (and was class treasurer, NHS president, volunteered, and did part time work), and he got rejected from every remotely selective college. The Ivy Leagues, Notre Dame, Michigan, Duke, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, UNC, and UVA all rejected him. Many other kids who are two or three sports athletes have similarly bad results.

At most top schools, the students will tell you most people there did not play sports outside of the recruited athletes. Most of their extracurriculars were centered around the major they want to study. Sports are time consuming and take away time from these more impactful extracurriculars. For sports like basketball, baseball, or lacrosse, you are easily spending 20+ hours per week on an activity that ultimately won’t help you in admissions.

And it doesn’t help that in the DMV area, you have to be super talented or spend years playing a sport just to make into the JV team. You have to spend a ridiculous amount of money on sports. Sports are just a waste of time for most kids

Dumb advice/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To sum up: Participate in sports because you love to compete, love the camaraderie of teamwork, the personal challenge, the physical activity. Playing a sport is one of the best things one can do with one's time. But do not participate in sports thinking it will help all that much for college applications, unless being recruited to play on the college level. There is really not more to it than this.

In fact it helps a lot more than many other ECs, and certainly much more than no sport at all. But DCUM will never not be mad about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To sum up: Participate in sports because you love to compete, love the camaraderie of teamwork, the personal challenge, the physical activity. Playing a sport is one of the best things one can do with one's time.

But do not participate in sports thinking it will help all that much for college applications, unless being recruited to play on the college level. There is really not more to it than this.

False. That’s not a summary at all.

That’s your personal option again that sports, esp team sports, take up too much time.

You’re wrong because there are scholar athletes everywhere who are attractive candidates for colleges and who don’t desire to play college sports, but club or other college ECs and focus on their majors, study abroad, internships, networking and friends.

Get over it OP. Not everyone wants to sit on their butt coding or doing hours of robotics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless your kid is recruited, admissions officers do not really care about sports. I know a kid who has perfect grades and a 35 ACT who was a captain of the varsity football and lacrosse teams (and was class treasurer, NHS president, volunteered, and did part time work), and he got rejected from every remotely selective college. The Ivy Leagues, Notre Dame, Michigan, Duke, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, UNC, and UVA all rejected him. Many other kids who are two or three sports athletes have similarly bad results.

At most top schools, the students will tell you most people there did not play sports outside of the recruited athletes. Most of their extracurriculars were centered around the major they want to study. Sports are time consuming and take away time from these more impactful extracurriculars. For sports like basketball, baseball, or lacrosse, you are easily spending 20+ hours per week on an activity that ultimately won’t help you in admissions.

And it doesn’t help that in the DMV area, you have to be super talented or spend years playing a sport just to make into the JV team. You have to spend a ridiculous amount of money on sports. Sports are just a waste of time for most kids

Was this a 100 student per grade private school like St Albans or Gilman that requires 2-3 seasons of athletics per school year?

Unless it’s a stacked team it’s just playing sports at a small school. Period.
That why if you’re good you also/mainly play elsewhere - ecnl, AAU, club lax, team Maryland.

Football is somewhat non existent.

st John’s College has excellent college athletic results.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless your kid is recruited, admissions officers do not really care about sports. I know a kid who has perfect grades and a 35 ACT who was a captain of the varsity football and lacrosse teams (and was class treasurer, NHS president, volunteered, and did part time work), and he got rejected from every remotely selective college. The Ivy Leagues, Notre Dame, Michigan, Duke, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, UNC, and UVA all rejected him. Many other kids who are two or three sports athletes have similarly bad results.

At most top schools, the students will tell you most people there did not play sports outside of the recruited athletes. Most of their extracurriculars were centered around the major they want to study. Sports are time consuming and take away time from these more impactful extracurriculars. For sports like basketball, baseball, or lacrosse, you are easily spending 20+ hours per week on an activity that ultimately won’t help you in admissions.

And it doesn’t help that in the DMV area, you have to be super talented or spend years playing a sport just to make into the JV team. You have to spend a ridiculous amount of money on sports. Sports are just a waste of time for most kids

I agree that varsity sports is not an impactful EC if I was to do it all over ago. Unless you are recruited athlete, it would help to focus more on grades.

If your kid can’t get straight As WHILE playing a varsity sport then they are not elite college material, sorry.

This is the reality. Colleges are looking for the ability to manage multiple responsibilities WHILE excelling. It could be trumpet, robotics - or sports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any other tips for sucking the joy out of childhood?

Seriously. My kid played sports because he enjoyed it. The end.

+1

My kid is aiming for t20 and I don't think being the captain of her varsity sport is 'helping" her at all re: college admissions. But she loves it, has fun, learns discipline, perseverance, and leadership, and gets great exercise. I'm not taking that away from her. I don't think it hurts her chances at ivy type schools, and if it doesn't help, I'm okay with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To sum up: Participate in sports because you love to compete, love the camaraderie of teamwork, the personal challenge, the physical activity. Playing a sport is one of the best things one can do with one's time. But do not participate in sports thinking it will help all that much for college applications, unless being recruited to play on the college level. There is really not more to it than this.

Correct.

[Anonymous]

Sports changed both of my kids' high school experience, and I'd say their lives: They are not at a high level, but the physical and mental personal benefits, the social benefits...Why on earth would someone pass on that just to get into top 20 v. top 50? Why would you make your life narrower with just academics when you can have academics and fitness and a good social life? It makes no sense to me. I'd say the same for any activity like theater, band...Whatever makes you a more complex person with broader interests is a positive, even if it keeps you from getting into a "prestigious" schools.