What is the cumulative cost to parents of competitive/club sports (K-12) per child for a recruited athlete for college?
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Anonymous
Racing suits are more than $100 now. |
Anonymous
NP, but this is the cost for a fencer competing internationally at the junior or senior level. The kids doing this travel constantly and miss weeks of school at a time. Many do online school or a private school that will accommodate their absences. For those considering fencing as a hook for elite college admissions, this is the level a fencer needs to be competing at to be attractive to the top schools. It makes no financial sense whatsoever. |
Anonymous
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We spent a lot. More or less than our friends whose kids were into travel or art or trombone or skateboarding? Who knows. It made my kid so happy, and made us happy to cheer him on.
He’s off to college next fall and will play, but that was never the point. |
Anonymous
What people don't get about top Ivies (unlike, eg, MIT or Cal Tech) is that it is not the best and the brightest - it is a majority collection of legacy, donor, and other institutional priorities. the smartest kids tend to be the ones who qualify for full rides. as for the athletes who "get mocked"? they are the ones, other than the $$ and connected, who will get the absolute biggest payoff of their college affiliation. aside from that, previous poster does not seem to be real, because anyone who thinks a kid gets into Yale for being "best in the school band" (lol) or similar, is living in another generation. the kids who get in for music are highly trained. are there some smart but not superstar and not $$$/connected kids there? sure, but not many, and they will probably get the least ROI on college. |
Anonymous
| 3k a year. My kid is playing the D1 sport but the parents of kids who are not playing in college spent the same amount. Our expenditures were never about getting a scholarship. It was about finding a community, staying in shape, pursuing a passion. The playing in college is just bonus - not in a financial way. And as I said, his peers who chose not to play in college spent the exact same amount over the years. |
Anonymous
| My DD is in her 8th year of club volleyball and I’m sure we’ll be well over $100k spent on volleyball by the time she’s done. She loves it and it’s a significant part of her social life as well. We’ve never looked at it as an investment that we expect some kind of financial return on. |
Anonymous
Sadly (for me) this sounds about right. Definitely spent less at younger ages, and more during HS, but that average is probably right. Our kid is now playing ACHA (club) D2 hockey in college (no scholarship money, for those unfamiliar with ACHA). No regrets on what we spent, because he loves the sport and pushed it as far as he (reasonably) could. |
Anonymous
How do you become the best in a band? |
Anonymous
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I have one that played basketball year round including AAU. Ultimately not recruitable for D1. Only grew to be 6'2. He lightened up on basketball in junior and senior year so he could focus on school and his other interests. There really aren't a lot of 6'6 athletic 18 year olds out there, but that's what it takes at minimum to be considered for positions like power forward at the good schools. He wasn't a guard, and 6'2 doesn't cut it. So he made the calculated decision to play for fun and use his time to focus on other interests. Went to a T20 for all the other reasons besides basketball.
The other did track. Ran in states and various invitationals. Widely recruited by D3 schools. A few travel costs, but otherwise it was a pair of good running shoes a couple of times a year that was the main expense. A pretty cheap sport all things considered. D3 is manageable for really athletic kids with discipline and drive. Maybe not the 100m, but 400m, 800m, and 1500m are willpower sports. But D1 track can be a different level. Anyone running at Oregon, Texas, and a lot of other schools is competing for the Olympic trials. My track kid declined the D3s and chose a a T20 school D1 school with an opportunity to try out. D1 sports is for real. Everyone runs. Everyone plays soccer. Everyone plays basketball. Everyone swims. It's not like fencing and raquetball and golf, where it's just a tiny sliver of rich kids competing. That being said, hockey is the most expensive sport. But anyone from the DMV that is recruitable left for boarding school up north by the age of 15. No one still playing in the DMV at age 17/18 is being recruited by Harvard, BU, Cornell, Notre Dame or even Lake Superior State. But it remains a very expensive sport for those that continue to play at the high school level in this area. Decent skates alone are $1000. Crew too is very expensive. All those regattas add up. Plus, to be recruitable, you will need a good machine to get the ERG score up. That's at least $1500 right there. And it's a huge time suck. The opportunity cost for athletes in the DMV seems to be highest for hockey and crew. The expense is high. The time commitment is enormous. And no one around here is getting recruited to an Ivy League or BC or Northeastern or any other good hockey school. And crew recruits to top 20 are more anecdotal than reality. How many 6' foot young women with great grades who are killing it with the ERG scores are out there? The short answer is - do track. |
Anonymous
For crew…the HS program matters. Jackson Reed, a DCPS school, has multiple Ivy Plus crew recruits every year. The school has the machines and the boats and dedicated coaches…kids still pay $3k+ per year. This year alone, crew has a Stanford and an Ivy commit for women’s crew. Last year there were three. Year before boys were national champs and had 5 and girls had 2. I do think coming from DCPS vs a private school helped a bunch. |
Anonymous
What is the right body construction for rowing? |
Anonymous
Very tall. Long arms and torso. |
Anonymous
+1 Everyone I Know (or at least it seems that way) who pushed a kid to do competitive sports, with the notion that "it will pay off with a college scholarship" wasted their money. Most spent more than what 4 years at those schools currently costs. Think $15-25K/year(possibly more when you include all the travel weekends, summer events, etc that you took the family too and paid for 1-2 hotel rooms for 2+ nights) since age 7/8. So 10+ years of $250K. Had you invested that, you would have enough for the $90K/year top schools as well as another $50k+ for grad school But most kids, if they get to play in college are at a school that doesn't cost that much and many times they don't even get full tuition let alone R&B (unless it's Div 1 football/Basketball). One kid had a roommate who was track and field at Division 1. Only about 75% of Tuition was included, but none of the R&B (that was $16-18K and required to be on campus first 2 years). My own (non-athlete) kid got an automatic 1/3 of tuition paid for with merit. So the athlete got an extra ~$18K paid for per year. That was it. Now track and field doesn't require as intensive, expensive training as most sports (and I dont' think there is Travel T&F), but in general, it rarely works out financially. And athletes have a hard schedule with training, mandatory tutoring, traveling for events and still taking courses, etc. Not sure it's worth it overall. |
Anonymous
You can still do sports without travel and all year intensive training. That also keeps kids occupied, making friends and helps their self esteem. Oh and you get your family weekends back as well. |
Anonymous
Where does your DD go to school? Does she ride on a club team there? |