HS Sports requirement good or bad?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me it means bloated rosters with kids who will never see the field/court

That's the glass half empty. Glass half full = kids have a built in way to make friends, experience being on team, be physically active and get all the benefits of sports. You don't have to be a starter to have a positive experience.

If you're the 17th kid on a basketball team or the 19th on a soccer team, the you aren't getting a positive experience unless you really don't care about playing. I went to a school with a sports requirement and we had seniors have to come to games and sit in the stands because our roster was over the league limit. Some were ok with it, but some were miserable

I can see that but they did have the option to decline the spot and go to another sport.

[Anonymous]

Has anybody managed to get the sports or team sports requirements waived for another activity that's not a sport?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anybody managed to get the sports or team sports requirements waived for another activity that's not a sport?

Some schools will waive the requirement for students who participate at a high level in an outside sport, but often it has to be a sport not offered by the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To me it means bloated rosters with kids who will never see the field/court

I think it is great for schools to strongly encourage sports, but I do not think requiring HS sports is helpful or needed. I might not mind so much if schools were not insisting that all (or nearly all) students have a school day from 8 something to 5:30pm or 6pm. If the local top schools would let all of the non-athletes leave campus anywhere between maybe 3:45 and maybe 4:30pm, that would be a huge improvement.

My top-1 school in a different metro took that other approach. Their rosters were not bloated by non-athletic kids who did not want to be there. JV/V sports practices were 4:15-5:30pm. Otherwise all students were dismissed at 4:00pm. There were similar levels of homework to top metro DC schools, but the students were not artificially sleep deprived. The school consistently placed multiple students at very top schools (HYPS etc.) every year. There was (and is) a Lacrosse to Ivy to Wall Street pipeline, in addition. There were no special issues with making friends or having social opportunities with that setup. So I see the local custom of -requiring- sports in 2 or 3 seasons each year as both unnecessary and not very helpful.

I realize it will not change. People dislike any form of change. Do an6 status quo will continue for decades or centuries…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anybody managed to get the sports or team sports requirements waived for another activity that's not a sport?

I have been told it could theoretically be approved, but no one I have talked with (parents, faculty, or staff) knows of any case where it was approved. As PP noted, there have been exemptions in a small number of cases where school did not offer sport X and student indisputably had high level skills in that other sports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me it means bloated rosters with kids who will never see the field/court

That's the glass half empty. Glass half full = kids have a built in way to make friends, experience being on team, be physically active and get all the benefits of sports. You don't have to be a starter to have a positive experience.

If you're the 17th kid on a basketball team or the 19th on a soccer team, the you aren't getting a positive experience unless you really don't care about playing. I went to a school with a sports requirement and we had seniors have to come to games and sit in the stands because our roster was over the league limit. Some were ok with it, but some were miserable

I can see that but they did have the option to decline the spot and go to another sport.

Even if no one played in 2 sports, which is not true anywhere, there are more US students than playing positions. So the school requires people to stay very late, but only to serve as bench warmers with no playing time and no desire yo be there. Seems pretty silly to me. Huge waste of time for those who do not want to be there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me it means bloated rosters with kids who will never see the field/court

I think it is great for schools to strongly encourage sports, but I do not think requiring HS sports is helpful or needed. I might not mind so much if schools were not insisting that all (or nearly all) students have a school day from 8 something to 5:30pm or 6pm. If the local top schools would let all of the non-athletes leave campus anywhere between maybe 3:45 and maybe 4:30pm, that would be a huge improvement.

My top-1 school in a different metro took that other approach. Their rosters were not bloated by non-athletic kids who did not want to be there. JV/V sports practices were 4:15-5:30pm. Otherwise all students were dismissed at 4:00pm. There were similar levels of homework to top metro DC schools, but the students were not artificially sleep deprived. The school consistently placed multiple students at very top schools (HYPS etc.) every year. There was (and is) a Lacrosse to Ivy to Wall Street pipeline, in addition. There were no special issues with making friends or having social opportunities with that setup. So I see the local custom of -requiring- sports in 2 or 3 seasons each year as both unnecessary and not very helpful.

I realize it will not change. People dislike any form of change. Do an6 status quo will continue for decades or centuries…

Local custom? Which school other than STA and NCS require three seasons of sports for every high school year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me it means bloated rosters with kids who will never see the field/court

I think it is great for schools to strongly encourage sports, but I do not think requiring HS sports is helpful or needed. I might not mind so much if schools were not insisting that all (or nearly all) students have a school day from 8 something to 5:30pm or 6pm. If the local top schools would let all of the non-athletes leave campus anywhere between maybe 3:45 and maybe 4:30pm, that would be a huge improvement.

My top-1 school in a different metro took that other approach. Their rosters were not bloated by non-athletic kids who did not want to be there. JV/V sports practices were 4:15-5:30pm. Otherwise all students were dismissed at 4:00pm. There were similar levels of homework to top metro DC schools, but the students were not artificially sleep deprived. The school consistently placed multiple students at very top schools (HYPS etc.) every year. There was (and is) a Lacrosse to Ivy to Wall Street pipeline, in addition. There were no special issues with making friends or having social opportunities with that setup. So I see the local custom of -requiring- sports in 2 or 3 seasons each year as both unnecessary and not very helpful.

I realize it will not change. People dislike any form of change. Do an6 status quo will continue for decades or centuries…

Local custom? Which school other than STA and NCS require three seasons of sports for every high school year?

Not sure if sidwell has changed since DC graduated, but they required 3 seasons of sport or PE except for senior year where only 2 seasons were required

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me it means bloated rosters with kids who will never see the field/court

I think it is great for schools to strongly encourage sports, but I do not think requiring HS sports is helpful or needed. I might not mind so much if schools were not insisting that all (or nearly all) students have a school day from 8 something to 5:30pm or 6pm. If the local top schools would let all of the non-athletes leave campus anywhere between maybe 3:45 and maybe 4:30pm, that would be a huge improvement.

My top-1 school in a different metro took that other approach. Their rosters were not bloated by non-athletic kids who did not want to be there. JV/V sports practices were 4:15-5:30pm. Otherwise all students were dismissed at 4:00pm. There were similar levels of homework to top metro DC schools, but the students were not artificially sleep deprived. The school consistently placed multiple students at very top schools (HYPS etc.) every year. There was (and is) a Lacrosse to Ivy to Wall Street pipeline, in addition. There were no special issues with making friends or having social opportunities with that setup. So I see the local custom of -requiring- sports in 2 or 3 seasons each year as both unnecessary and not very helpful.

I realize it will not change. People dislike any form of change. Do an6 status quo will continue for decades or centuries…

Local custom? Which school other than STA and NCS require three seasons of sports for every high school year?

Not sure if sidwell has changed since DC graduated, but they required 3 seasons of sport or PE except for senior year where only 2 seasons were required

So, still just NCS/STA.

[Anonymous]

We like that GDS has mandatory PE for 9th/10th and optional sports after school. The PE is a good way for kids to get to know each other in a casual/fun way—it’s more about fitness and games than competitive sports. Those that want the competitive aspects do sports after school and don’t have kids that really don’t want to be on the team but need it for a credit to contend with. Also gives you tons of flexibility on when you want your school day to end or if you’re on a year round travel team, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me it means bloated rosters with kids who will never see the field/court

I think it is great for schools to strongly encourage sports, but I do not think requiring HS sports is helpful or needed. I might not mind so much if schools were not insisting that all (or nearly all) students have a school day from 8 something to 5:30pm or 6pm. If the local top schools would let all of the non-athletes leave campus anywhere between maybe 3:45 and maybe 4:30pm, that would be a huge improvement.

My top-1 school in a different metro took that other approach. Their rosters were not bloated by non-athletic kids who did not want to be there. JV/V sports practices were 4:15-5:30pm. Otherwise all students were dismissed at 4:00pm. There were similar levels of homework to top metro DC schools, but the students were not artificially sleep deprived. The school consistently placed multiple students at very top schools (HYPS etc.) every year. There was (and is) a Lacrosse to Ivy to Wall Street pipeline, in addition. There were no special issues with making friends or having social opportunities with that setup. So I see the local custom of -requiring- sports in 2 or 3 seasons each year as both unnecessary and not very helpful.

I realize it will not change. People dislike any form of change. Do an6 status quo will continue for decades or centuries…

Local custom? Which school other than STA and NCS require three seasons of sports for every high school year?

StA website says they do not require 3 sports - at least in the last year. Potomac requires 3 sports activities, but weirdly winter musical reportedly counts as a sport. At least StA, Potomac, NCS, and Sidwell have -very nearly- the same sports requirements for Upper School grades..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me it means bloated rosters with kids who will never see the field/court

I think it is great for schools to strongly encourage sports, but I do not think requiring HS sports is helpful or needed. I might not mind so much if schools were not insisting that all (or nearly all) students have a school day from 8 something to 5:30pm or 6pm. If the local top schools would let all of the non-athletes leave campus anywhere between maybe 3:45 and maybe 4:30pm, that would be a huge improvement.

My top-1 school in a different metro took that other approach. Their rosters were not bloated by non-athletic kids who did not want to be there. JV/V sports practices were 4:15-5:30pm. Otherwise all students were dismissed at 4:00pm. There were similar levels of homework to top metro DC schools, but the students were not artificially sleep deprived. The school consistently placed multiple students at very top schools (HYPS etc.) every year. There was (and is) a Lacrosse to Ivy to Wall Street pipeline, in addition. There were no special issues with making friends or having social opportunities with that setup. So I see the local custom of -requiring- sports in 2 or 3 seasons each year as both unnecessary and not very helpful.

I realize it will not change. People dislike any form of change. Do an6 status quo will continue for decades or centuries…

Local custom? Which school other than STA and NCS require three seasons of sports for every high school year?

StA website says they do not require 3 sports - at least in the last year. Potomac requires 3 sports activities, but weirdly winter musical reportedly counts as a sport. At least StA, Potomac, NCS, and Sidwell have -very nearly- the same sports requirements for Upper School grades..

Potomac requires two activities per year. One of those must be physical (musical checks this box) and it doesn't have to be a team sport. It can be yoga or weights/conditioning that doesn't involve competition. The other can be some non physical activity like debate, robotics, managing a sports team, or fall/spring play.

[Anonymous]

Why would a school known for its non-sporty academic kids implement a team sport requirement?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By the time the kids get home, eat, shower, it's 7pm. If you have 3 hours of homework a night, there's not a ton of give in that schedule and certainly not if you wanted to do something else.

The schools want your kid’s life to be within the school community. No, you can’t really do something else on weeknights. If you have an outside activity, then you need to plan ahead with homework. It’s feature not bug and if you can’t understand that then you don’t appreciate what it is to be part of these schools.

Also, if some kids had all these extra hours to do the work that might have a chilling effect on athletic participation among kids who would otherwise want to play but are worried their grades will suffer relative to peers. And athletics are a wonderful way to build bonds with classmates (even if you aren’t great) and wonderful for mental and physical health.

[Anonymous]

OP - HS sports requirements vary across the schools on your list.

Sidwell, for example, has a PE option that involves only 45 min 2x a week. This is very different from a 2-3 hour team practice that occurs 5 times a week, plus games. You also get (25%) more credit by being on a jv/varsity team than you do for a PE course. For example, if you do a team for 4 years, it adds up to fulfilling 5 seasons of the sports requirement (not just 4 seasons).

At Potomac, you can fill some of the season requirements (but not all) with an arts or debate or theater.

BE sure to ask how the sports can be fulfilled and the time commitment across the different options.