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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Honestly the same thing can be said about robotics... and pretty much everything else

The amount of time dedication and talent it takes to turn robotics into an extracurricular activity that is noticably more impressive than varsity sports is huge.

You want to build a competitive robot for the FIRST or Vex competition? That one activity crowds out pretty much everything else.

You want to get invited to the USAMO? You are going to be spending almost all your time on it.

You want to be a regeneron semifinalist, forget about the USAMO or robotics or the football team.

The academic extracurriculars are important to have, but if you aren't pointy (winning at least at the state level), it doesn't really help that much, you might as well touch some grass.

And yet every year, IVY+ takes kids that aren't winning competitions or being recruited athletically.

If you don't get in, maybe you are actually better off elsewhere.

Np. I feel like you guys need a primer on what AO are looking for. They seem SOOO may Robotics/Vex/USAMO - it doesn't even phase them anymore. They are bored when they read those applications.

Really?

There are 223 students that qualify for USAMO in the country.
If you qualify for USAMO and you have good stats, you have a good chance at any school.

First Robotics Competition has 100 Dean's List finalists. This is significantly more impressive than varsity sports, (not as impressive as USAMO for most purposes).
Vex Robotics has 32 teams with an average of 6 players per team for about 200 students (slightly less impressive than FRC Dean's List).

USAMO especially is a big deal.
I know kids who got into MIT with almost no other EC (they were struggling to fill out that section of their application).
They had great stats 1550+ SAT and near perfect GPA but qualifying for the USAMO was their main activity.
They didn't even qualify for MOP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Honestly the same thing can be said about robotics... and pretty much everything else

The amount of time dedication and talent it takes to turn robotics into an extracurricular activity that is noticably more impressive than varsity sports is huge.

You want to build a competitive robot for the FIRST or Vex competition? That one activity crowds out pretty much everything else.

You want to get invited to the USAMO? You are going to be spending almost all your time on it.

You want to be a regeneron semifinalist, forget about the USAMO or robotics or the football team.

The academic extracurriculars are important to have, but if you aren't pointy (winning at least at the state level), it doesn't really help that much, you might as well touch some grass.

And yet every year, IVY+ takes kids that aren't winning competitions or being recruited athletically.

If you don't get in, maybe you are actually better off elsewhere.

Np. I feel like you guys need a primer on what AO are looking for. They seem SOOO may Robotics/Vex/USAMO - it doesn't even phase them anymore. They are bored when they read those applications.

Really?

There are 223 students that qualify for USAMO in the country.
If you qualify for USAMO and you have good stats, you have a good chance at any school.

First Robotics Competition has 100 Dean's List finalists. This is significantly more impressive than varsity sports, (not as impressive as USAMO for most purposes).
Vex Robotics has 32 teams with an average of 6 players per team for about 200 students (slightly less impressive than FRC Dean's List).

USAMO especially is a big deal.
I know kids who got into MIT with almost no other EC (they were struggling to fill out that section of their application).
They had great stats 1550+ SAT and near perfect GPA but qualifying for the USAMO was their main activity.
They didn't even qualify for MOP

This makes doing robotics or math sound like an even worse idea than doing varsity sports. Your kid will put ALL his time into robotics or math and have an even worse chance of being a winner/finalist than a varsity athlete has of being recruited.

300,000 students take the AMC exam each year. Of them, 3,000 qualify for the AIME. Of them, 250 qualify for the USAMO. Thus you have a 0.0.8% chance to qualify for USAMO. Meanwhile 7% of high school varsity athletes are recruited (even higher for some sports) - basically 100x the odds of being a successful athlete than of being a successful math geek.

86,700 high school kids competed in the 2024 First Robotics. If there are 100 Dean's List finalists then you have an 0.1% chance of being a finalist, much lower than the odds of being recruited as an athlete.

Yes if you qualify for USAMO or are a First Robotics finalist that's huge but it's like being recruited to play D1 basketball. Awesome if it happens but the odds of achieving that are extraordinarily low. For the overwhelming majority of kids, math or robotics is (to echo the criticism about sports if you don't get recruited) a poor investment of time and is "just another EC" that didn't make them stand out at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Mine can dunk. Still didn't get a call from Duke.

Many of the best universities - Ivy League, Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt, Michigan, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Berkeley, even Rice - have serious D1 sports programs. If you are shooting for these schools, unless you are recruitable it doesn't make much sense to devote 20-30 hours a week in high school to a sport. Varsity, travel, and AAU sports are extremely time consuming and come with an enormous opportunity cost. You can't play varsity or club soccer or whatever and be editor in chief of the school newspaper, or president of DECA, or a nationally ranked debater, or compete in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, or do any of the other things that are expected for admissions to T20 schools.

My very good basketball player who can dunk with his teeth but wasn't recruitable at the D1 level decided the time commitment for AAU and varsity was too much. End of sophomore year, he dialed basketball down to rec and focused on other ECs and leadership. And he attends one of the schools listed above - not because he plays basketball, but because he dropped competitive basketball and used his time to, first, do extraordinarily well academically, and second, pursue prominent and interesting ECs that made him stand out to admissions offices. There is no chance he'd be attending a T20 today if he had continued to play basketball at the highest level, even though he was very good.

Being reasonably good at a sport might help for D3 schools. But it does nothing for the super-competitive D1 schools. Non-recruitable high school athletes who are aiming for the most selective D1 schools really do have to make choices. Time is time. There are only 24 hours in a day. Every high school athlete needs to figure out the best use of their time in order to achieve their goals. For most, a sport isn't going to be the best way to get into Duke or Vanderbilt or Stanford or similar. Unless you have Cooper Flagg or Katie Ledecky talent, it's going to be an inefficient use of time when it comes to applying to most T20 schools.

In fairness, many of the AAU teams are basically the "cut" if you are D1 or not

Go look at Team Durant. Every kid on that team has multiple D1 offers...many Power 4. They are also the star players for Sidwell, PVI, Gonzaga, etc.

Another variability with D1 level basketball is growth spurts in high school. You can't count or plan on these things. I'm the poster above with the kid with the hops. But he maxed out at 6'2. And 6'2 forwards don't play D1. Basketball in particular is probably the toughest sport when it comes to D1 recruiting. It's generally not a great investment in time for smart kids looking to go T20 schools.

LAX much better. For girls too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

New poster here. I consulted with at least 3 national college counselors and each of them basically said that unless your kid is going to be recruited, they should probably not play sports because sports will take up too much of their time and make it harder to stand out in other ECs. I generally agree that sports is not enough unless you're going to be a recruit and my kids learned in 9th grade that speech and debate meets every day after school and has weekend tournaments, same thing with robotics, newspaper, etc. So, it's not an untrue statement that your kid needs to go beyond sports, which it sounds like your kid did, in order to stand out from a very competitive applicant pool.

At public school yes, they make it so you can only do 1 or 2 things.

Totally different at private school. You can specialize in 1 or 2 things year round, but still do other things like 7th period school sports or seasonal clubs or trips.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Honestly the same thing can be said about robotics... and pretty much everything else

The amount of time dedication and talent it takes to turn robotics into an extracurricular activity that is noticably more impressive than varsity sports is huge.

You want to build a competitive robot for the FIRST or Vex competition? That one activity crowds out pretty much everything else.

You want to get invited to the USAMO? You are going to be spending almost all your time on it.

You want to be a regeneron semifinalist, forget about the USAMO or robotics or the football team.

The academic extracurriculars are important to have, but if you aren't pointy (winning at least at the state level), it doesn't really help that much, you might as well touch some grass.

And yet every year, IVY+ takes kids that aren't winning competitions or being recruited athletically.

If you don't get in, maybe you are actually better off elsewhere.

Agree.


And as we all know you are competing for a seat versus others of the same gender, race and metro area. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Mine can dunk. Still didn't get a call from Duke.

Many of the best universities - Ivy League, Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt, Michigan, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Berkeley, even Rice - have serious D1 sports programs. If you are shooting for these schools, unless you are recruitable it doesn't make much sense to devote 20-30 hours a week in high school to a sport. Varsity, travel, and AAU sports are extremely time consuming and come with an enormous opportunity cost. You can't play varsity or club soccer or whatever and be editor in chief of the school newspaper, or president of DECA, or a nationally ranked debater, or compete in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, or do any of the other things that are expected for admissions to T20 schools.

My very good basketball player who can dunk with his teeth but wasn't recruitable at the D1 level decided the time commitment for AAU and varsity was too much. End of sophomore year, he dialed basketball down to rec and focused on other ECs and leadership. And he attends one of the schools listed above - not because he plays basketball, but because he dropped competitive basketball and used his time to, first, do extraordinarily well academically, and second, pursue prominent and interesting ECs that made him stand out to admissions offices. There is no chance he'd be attending a T20 today if he had continued to play basketball at the highest level, even though he was very good.

Being reasonably good at a sport might help for D3 schools. But it does nothing for the super-competitive D1 schools. Non-recruitable high school athletes who are aiming for the most selective D1 schools really do have to make choices. Time is time. There are only 24 hours in a day. Every high school athlete needs to figure out the best use of their time in order to achieve their goals. For most, a sport isn't going to be the best way to get into Duke or Vanderbilt or Stanford or similar. Unless you have Cooper Flagg or Katie Ledecky talent, it's going to be an inefficient use of time when it comes to applying to most T20 schools.

In fairness, many of the AAU teams are basically the "cut" if you are D1 or not

Go look at Team Durant. Every kid on that team has multiple D1 offers...many Power 4. They are also the star players for Sidwell, PVI, Gonzaga, etc.

Another variability with D1 level basketball is growth spurts in high school. You can't count or plan on these things. I'm the poster above with the kid with the hops. But he maxed out at 6'2. And 6'2 forwards don't play D1. Basketball in particular is probably the toughest sport when it comes to D1 recruiting. It's generally not a great investment in time for smart kids looking to go T20 schools.

Unless they are Steph Curry...but I guess he's not a forward (though he is 6'2").

He got one offer and his father is Dell Curry.

and it was D3.

[Anonymous]

Mine played sports. Just not AT the high school (well except for freshman and sophomore year--before academics kicked in very hard). Just did club. Good enough to get on a D1 squad sophomore year- red shirted freshmen (got in on academics alone).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Honestly the same thing can be said about robotics... and pretty much everything else

The amount of time dedication and talent it takes to turn robotics into an extracurricular activity that is noticably more impressive than varsity sports is huge.

You want to build a competitive robot for the FIRST or Vex competition? That one activity crowds out pretty much everything else.

You want to get invited to the USAMO? You are going to be spending almost all your time on it.

You want to be a regeneron semifinalist, forget about the USAMO or robotics or the football team.

The academic extracurriculars are important to have, but if you aren't pointy (winning at least at the state level), it doesn't really help that much, you might as well touch some grass.

And yet every year, IVY+ takes kids that aren't winning competitions or being recruited athletically.

If you don't get in, maybe you are actually better off elsewhere.

Np. I feel like you guys need a primer on what AO are looking for. They seem SOOO may Robotics/Vex/USAMO - it doesn't even phase them anymore. They are bored when they read those applications.

Really?

There are 223 students that qualify for USAMO in the country.
If you qualify for USAMO and you have good stats, you have a good chance at any school.

First Robotics Competition has 100 Dean's List finalists. This is significantly more impressive than varsity sports, (not as impressive as USAMO for most purposes).
Vex Robotics has 32 teams with an average of 6 players per team for about 200 students (slightly less impressive than FRC Dean's List).

USAMO especially is a big deal.
I know kids who got into MIT with almost no other EC (they were struggling to fill out that section of their application).
They had great stats 1550+ SAT and near perfect GPA but qualifying for the USAMO was their main activity.
They didn't even qualify for MOP

This makes doing robotics or math sound like an even worse idea than doing varsity sports. Your kid will put ALL his time into robotics or math and have an even worse chance of being a winner/finalist than a varsity athlete has of being recruited.

300,000 students take the AMC exam each year. Of them, 3,000 qualify for the AIME. Of them, 250 qualify for the USAMO. Thus you have a 0.0.8% chance to qualify for USAMO. Meanwhile 7% of high school varsity athletes are recruited (even higher for some sports) - basically 100x the odds of being a successful athlete than of being a successful math geek.

86,700 high school kids competed in the 2024 First Robotics. If there are 100 Dean's List finalists then you have an 0.1% chance of being a finalist, much lower than the odds of being recruited as an athlete.

Yes if you qualify for USAMO or are a First Robotics finalist that's huge but it's like being recruited to play D1 basketball. Awesome if it happens but the odds of achieving that are extraordinarily low. For the overwhelming majority of kids, math or robotics is (to echo the criticism about sports if you don't get recruited) a poor investment of time and is "just another EC" that didn't make them stand out at all.

This entire thread isn't about recruited athletes...it's the unrecruited athletes.

Considering 8 million...YES MILLION...play sports, 86,700 kids is actually a tiny number of kids participating in robotics.

[Anonymous]

Wrong. So very wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine played sports. Just not AT the high school (well except for freshman and sophomore year--before academics kicked in very hard). Just did club. Good enough to get on a D1 squad sophomore year- red shirted freshmen (got in on academics alone).

If they were a recruited D1 athlete they did not get in on academics alone. The school HAD to make a spot for your kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Mine can dunk. Still didn't get a call from Duke.

Many of the best universities - Ivy League, Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt, Michigan, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Berkeley, even Rice - have serious D1 sports programs. If you are shooting for these schools, unless you are recruitable it doesn't make much sense to devote 20-30 hours a week in high school to a sport. Varsity, travel, and AAU sports are extremely time consuming and come with an enormous opportunity cost. You can't play varsity or club soccer or whatever and be editor in chief of the school newspaper, or president of DECA, or a nationally ranked debater, or compete in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, or do any of the other things that are expected for admissions to T20 schools.

My very good basketball player who can dunk with his teeth but wasn't recruitable at the D1 level decided the time commitment for AAU and varsity was too much. End of sophomore year, he dialed basketball down to rec and focused on other ECs and leadership. And he attends one of the schools listed above - not because he plays basketball, but because he dropped competitive basketball and used his time to, first, do extraordinarily well academically, and second, pursue prominent and interesting ECs that made him stand out to admissions offices. There is no chance he'd be attending a T20 today if he had continued to play basketball at the highest level, even though he was very good.

Being reasonably good at a sport might help for D3 schools. But it does nothing for the super-competitive D1 schools. Non-recruitable high school athletes who are aiming for the most selective D1 schools really do have to make choices. Time is time. There are only 24 hours in a day. Every high school athlete needs to figure out the best use of their time in order to achieve their goals. For most, a sport isn't going to be the best way to get into Duke or Vanderbilt or Stanford or similar. Unless you have Cooper Flagg or Katie Ledecky talent, it's going to be an inefficient use of time when it comes to applying to most T20 schools.

In fairness, many of the AAU teams are basically the "cut" if you are D1 or not

Go look at Team Durant. Every kid on that team has multiple D1 offers...many Power 4. They are also the star players for Sidwell, PVI, Gonzaga, etc.

Another variability with D1 level basketball is growth spurts in high school. You can't count or plan on these things. I'm the poster above with the kid with the hops. But he maxed out at 6'2. And 6'2 forwards don't play D1. Basketball in particular is probably the toughest sport when it comes to D1 recruiting. It's generally not a great investment in time for smart kids looking to go T20 schools.

Unless they are Steph Curry...but I guess he's not a forward (though he is 6'2").

He got one offer and his father is Dell Curry.

and it was D3.

Davidson is D1 my guy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Mine can dunk. Still didn't get a call from Duke.

Many of the best universities - Ivy League, Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt, Michigan, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Berkeley, even Rice - have serious D1 sports programs. If you are shooting for these schools, unless you are recruitable it doesn't make much sense to devote 20-30 hours a week in high school to a sport. Varsity, travel, and AAU sports are extremely time consuming and come with an enormous opportunity cost. You can't play varsity or club soccer or whatever and be editor in chief of the school newspaper, or president of DECA, or a nationally ranked debater, or compete in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, or do any of the other things that are expected for admissions to T20 schools.

My very good basketball player who can dunk with his teeth but wasn't recruitable at the D1 level decided the time commitment for AAU and varsity was too much. End of sophomore year, he dialed basketball down to rec and focused on other ECs and leadership. And he attends one of the schools listed above - not because he plays basketball, but because he dropped competitive basketball and used his time to, first, do extraordinarily well academically, and second, pursue prominent and interesting ECs that made him stand out to admissions offices. There is no chance he'd be attending a T20 today if he had continued to play basketball at the highest level, even though he was very good.

Being reasonably good at a sport might help for D3 schools. But it does nothing for the super-competitive D1 schools. Non-recruitable high school athletes who are aiming for the most selective D1 schools really do have to make choices. Time is time. There are only 24 hours in a day. Every high school athlete needs to figure out the best use of their time in order to achieve their goals. For most, a sport isn't going to be the best way to get into Duke or Vanderbilt or Stanford or similar. Unless you have Cooper Flagg or Katie Ledecky talent, it's going to be an inefficient use of time when it comes to applying to most T20 schools.

In fairness, many of the AAU teams are basically the "cut" if you are D1 or not

Go look at Team Durant. Every kid on that team has multiple D1 offers...many Power 4. They are also the star players for Sidwell, PVI, Gonzaga, etc.

Another variability with D1 level basketball is growth spurts in high school. You can't count or plan on these things. I'm the poster above with the kid with the hops. But he maxed out at 6'2. And 6'2 forwards don't play D1. Basketball in particular is probably the toughest sport when it comes to D1 recruiting. It's generally not a great investment in time for smart kids looking to go T20 schools.

Unless they are Steph Curry...but I guess he's not a forward (though he is 6'2").

He got one offer and his father is Dell Curry.

and it was D3.

Davidson is D1 my guy.

Where did he go first and where did he then transfer?

[Anonymous]

I read this article today and thought it would make DCUMs anti-athlete posters hyperventilate and pass out.

https://www.businessinsider.com/endurance-sports-college-athletics-are-shaping-the-future-of-vc-2025-1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read this article today and thought it would make DCUMs anti-athlete posters hyperventilate and pass out.

https://www.businessinsider.com/endurance-sports-college-athletics-are-shaping-the-future-of-vc-2025-1

This is a social networking effect far more than a skill development one. Which is why the same thing has been observed for generations to an even larger degree with fraternities/sororities. Turns out almost any kind of group activity commitment can yield networking benefits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read this article today and thought it would make DCUMs anti-athlete posters hyperventilate and pass out.

https://www.businessinsider.com/endurance-sports-college-athletics-are-shaping-the-future-of-vc-2025-1

This is a social networking effect far more than a skill development one. Which is why the same thing has been observed for generations to an even larger degree with fraternities/sororities. Turns out almost any kind of group activity commitment can yield networking benefits.

I agree, my kid played chess at a very high level and got hired by a hedge fund because the interviewer loves chess. His resume was forwarded to the firm by another friend he regularly met at chess tournaments. I think if you are good at any activity it has benefits.