Parents who have been through the process: talk to me about gpas and kids doing sports year round

[Anonymous]

One thing to consider is backing off for a season only to teach him to learn to manage his workload and ADhD/executive functioning on his own. So many kids with similar challenges do better with very busy schedules because it eliminates procrastination. If you have practice until 7:30 every night and have to go to bed at 10, that forces you to keep a pretty rigid schedule for dinner, homework, etc. But if he’s just doing IM sports in college and has hours and hours of free time, he might fall apart without the structure he’s used to.

[Anonymous]

OP, if I had taken my club swimmer out of the pool, he'd have shut down! That said, it does take a lot of time. My kid learned a lot of discipline from swimming, especially once he really started lifting weights on top of all of the in water practices.

I also have HS freshman DS who is a swimmer with ADHD. (That kid is medicated for both ADHD and depression.) He has pared his sports down to just swimming because that's how he functions best. But he absolutely has time to do more than just school and swimming.

Talk to your son and see what he values. Now that he's made some friends, which activities make him happiest? How does he want to spend his time? Have this discussion in conjunction with his course selection for next year. Does he have time for a lot of honors/AP classes if he wants to swim and keep going with the other sports? If you start discussing things early enough, he will have time to let the choices marinate and make a well reasoned decision.

[Anonymous]

For most, participation in sports has almost no relevance to college acceptance or performance, which are correctly oriented towards academics and not athletics. Sports can have some social benefits, but also present opportunities to spend money, become injured, and can distract from what should be higher priorities if one is thinking about the future.

While it's not necessary for a child to focus only on academics in order to gain admission to a good university and to have a good career thereafter, too much time devoted to sports becomes affirmatively unhelpful, no matter how entertaining it is.

Reflect on priorities, and you'll have your answer about how much time is appropriate to devote to which pursuits.

[Anonymous]

Truth? Many students do it all and still get top grades, in the most rigorous courses, and still sleep. Some are valedictorian and award winners in arts/academics on top of their year-round 20-hr a week sport/athletics.
I have one of these. Their unhooked /nonrecruited friends at their ivy are quite similar.
Others cannot get 3.9UW even with all the free time in the world to study.

Your kid should prioritize sleep and grades, sports/ECs only if not disruptive to those.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
We don’t care where he goes to school as long it is a good fit. What we don’t want is for him to really want to go to a school and not have the gpa for it come junior year when he’s actually paying attention/knows how this works. He is taking several hard classes and I assume he’ll take AP classes starting in junior year. I do think you’ll be well prepared and I also think that his study skills will hopefully get better overtime – – fingers crossed!

So here’s my question: parents have been through this possibly with a similar type of kid what advice do you have? And how should we steer him? Other things you learned/I may not know?

Short answer: it might not be about how much time the sports take, but rather about being effective with the time they have, knowing how to study and being organized .

If possible, it’s best to be proactive about finding resources to help with study skills and executive functioning. My kid attended an optional workshop in high school regarding study skills, a one week session at Montgomery college in the summer in high school around time management, and in college working with an EF coach. It has helped as the work became more difficult. Once they know where their time goes and what it takes to effectively get their work done, it’s an easier discussion about if a sport is worth continuing at that commitment level and course selection of which AP/honors and how many AP.

[Anonymous]

As the parent of a now senior who sounds similar, and will now be attending his top choice school, here are my reflections:

- We let him manage himself freshman year, it was the first fully post-covid normal socializing. He had a good social experience. Grades were ok (B+ avg). Wish we would have ticked up academic expectations just a bit. But it worked out fine, and he was happy.

-Having a strong gpa is so important. We set gentle expectations for A's and taking an increasing # of AP classes each year and that worked out well such that a weighted 4.0 gpa gave him more options.

- We messed up and didn't start SAT prep until late junior year. He got a 1400 and went test optional at school he is attending. Grades and SAT are the most important, start SAT prep summer before junior year, get assistance, etc. to get the 1500+ score if possible.

- We required volunteer and ec's that he picked for every year. Robotics, student newspaper, and volunteering for three summers, in addition to basketball. Requiring those ec's helped greatly with admissions.

- starting late junior year, we as parents had idea of best school for him (SLAC), he wanted bit larger, social (Lehigh), we visited all and expressed great interest in SLAC (visits, interviews, attending student panels, emailing admissions, going when they visited his school). The demonstrated interest seemed to help. We let him take lead on his top choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are these school sports or travel sports?

If travel or a sport like hockey/swimming where practices impact sleep due to pool/rink times; then yeah dial it back. But exercise and being on a team is good for kids, too!

Maybe get a tutor or even an executive functioning coach to help him learn to study/manage time efficiently.

One is a club – – swim. The rest are school sports. He has worked with an executive coach on an off through middle and we re-engaged when assignments weren’t being turned in. He does have ADHD, which I didn’t mention, so we thought he might have the energy to do it all, but that has proved to not be the case.

DP here. I didn’t want to assume ADHD but I see you added it here. I’ve been where you are about worrying about shutting the door to schools they might decide junior year they want to attend. Here is what we did
- While keeping the door open to T10 might have been nice, we would be full pay with two in college and didn’t have T10 full pay money for two saved. Since getting into the flagship from our county is very competitive, I made sure my kids were aware of that GPA/test score range from their school early on ..and assume it might be harder by the time they were seniors That was the goal for weighted/unweighted GPA
- Praise process not just outcome. The time management, asking for help early, meeting with teachers and being prepared - they went off to college knowing how to do these things and learned while I had access to grades and was there to encourage them
- Make sure they are looking at time commitments realistically and having them give input on what they want to continue and what they want to drop. My kid kept up with one sport and used the other seasons to take on new things in high school. They play that sport now on the club level in college and it’s been a good source of exercise and enjoyment as well as a connection when they studied abroad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is high school freshman and had a 99% HSPT. After his first semester he’ll have a 3.6/3.7 unweighted gpa (weighted closer to 4.0). He’s struggling with the amount of homework and getting things in on time, but is very bright especially in math and science. We think these things can improve but his classes will get harder through the years.

He currently plays a sport every season but we want him to possibly re think that for next year and going forward. It definitely impacts how tired he is and how much time he has to study. He is pretty good at two of the sports and not great at the one. He enjoys all of them and his friends with all of them. I don’t think we would say “no sports” but maybe cut down to two and eventually one?

We don’t care where he goes to school as long it is a good fit. What we don’t want is for him to really want to go to a school and not have the gpa for it come junior year when he’s actually paying attention/knows how this works. He is taking several hard classes and I assume he’ll take AP classes starting in junior year. I do think you’ll be well prepared and I also think that his study skills will hopefully get better overtime – – fingers crossed!

So here’s my question: parents have been through this possibly with a similar type of kid what advice do you have? And how should we steer him? Other things you learned/I may not know?

You said he enjoys all of them and has friends on all of them. So let him be. You have no idea if he would be doing better if he wasn't doing them. Many, many kids have loaded schedules, take really hard classes, and still do very well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are these school sports or travel sports?

If travel or a sport like hockey/swimming where practices impact sleep due to pool/rink times; then yeah dial it back. But exercise and being on a team is good for kids, too!

Maybe get a tutor or even an executive functioning coach to help him learn to study/manage time efficiently.

One is a club – – swim. The rest are school sports. He has worked with an executive coach on an off through middle and we re-engaged when assignments weren’t being turned in. He does have ADHD, which I didn’t mention, so we thought he might have the energy to do it all, but that has proved to not be the case.

It's probably the ADHD and not the sports. Work with him on that. Let him do the sports. Activity/exercise is great in general and even better for boys with ADHD.

[Anonymous]

Assuming he is in private school (due to mention of the HSPT), a 3.6/3.7 unweighted may well be equivalent to a 3.8/3.9 at a good public school. He also is apparently a good test taker. Keep the sports if they keep him regulated, organized, and happy. He will have an abundance of great college options if he keeps his current trajectory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sports if non-recruit does not help your college application. Like not at all. The only thing is that your kid will learn a ton from a team sport that is not relevant to college admissions. And they stay healthy, happy, and social. So it's your kid's call.

?? Healthy, happy and social? Hopefully every kid stays that way but that’s related to a number of factors, not just by playing baseball or swimming.

[Anonymous]

So much bad advice on this chain.

There's all sorts of evidence that HS athletes do better academically in-season than out of season. Boys, in particular, play more video games and use more substances when they're not playing sports--and, predictably, their grades suffer, they don't improve. (But at least they get to enjoy worse mental and physical health, so there's that.)

[Anonymous]

IMO, anything taken to the extreme is unhealthy. Whether its sports, academics or another activity. I do know swim and hockey families who dedicate their entire weekends and days to their kids meets and tournaments. Its not for everyone. Their kids are chronically sleep deprived, yet they keep doing it because they say their kids love it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sports if non-recruit does not help your college application. Like not at all. The only thing is that your kid will learn a ton from a team sport that is not relevant to college admissions. And they stay healthy, happy, and social. So it's your kid's call.

As the parent of a recruited D1 college athlete,
a D3 lightly recruited athlete, and a non-athlete college student who decided early on organized sports weren’t his thing, this is 100% accurate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So much bad advice on this chain.

There's all sorts of evidence that HS athletes do better academically in-season than out of season. Boys, in particular, play more video games and use more substances when they're not playing sports--and, predictably, their grades suffer, they don't improve. (But at least they get to enjoy worse mental and physical health, so there's that.)

+1

Don't sacrifice happiness and fulfillment in the teen years for a vague hope it results in better grades and a *maybe* a higher ranked college. If the kid wants to play three sports and keeps an A- gpa, I see zero problem.