Why so few freshman athletic teams/How does it affect college admissions review?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't see this the same way some the PPs do.

I think making a team should be based on skill. If you're a freshman, but you are more skilled than a junior, you should make the varsity team over the junior. That's the way most coaches choose teams.

My niece was a varsity starter all four years of high school and was All-District (for four years), All-Region (for four years), and All-State (for three years). There were seniors on the team who had far less playing time. That's life.

My other niece didn't make varsity her freshman year, but did her sophomore year. However, she didn't become a starter until her senior year. That's life.

Not everyone makes the team. Not everyone gets a trophy. Not everyone wins.

UGH. NOT relevant. I am saying that there should be more opportunities. In my case and w/ tennis, there isn't even a JV team. So to be CLEAR: this about being FOR MORE opportunities for freshmen to play on any team. Good for you and your amazing niece. Yes, she should play on Varsity. And how about there be more opportunities for freshman to play, freshman or JV, whatever. Two things can be true.

I don’t know about your school, but some schools do not have the number of tennis courts required for two varsity and two JV teams. It’s the same with some other sports- there is just not enough space. The HS have grown to huge sizes - they expand the buildings and number of classrooms, but they can’t expand the number of field space.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I get it OP, your kid likes tennis and that is what they want to play. I think the PP was on to something, can you find a USTA league that they could play in? Are there youth leagues through USTA? I know that there are adult leagues. Maybe there is a local league and a way to look for a team in that? It would keep him playing and going and he can try out each year for HS, hopefully making the team sooner rather then later.

I’m the volleyball poster and know he can definitely play tennis outside of school. I don’t know much about tennis except that there are as many options as volleyball, if not more. There are private places, rec centers, country clubs, swim and tennis clubs, and courts just about everywhere. Surely you know where he can play. Your kid didn’t just start playing this year. He can play other places besides the school team. There is no reason he can’t put tennis on his college app if he wants to for all 4 years when the time comes senior year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it OP, your kid likes tennis and that is what they want to play. I think the PP was on to something, can you find a USTA league that they could play in? Are there youth leagues through USTA? I know that there are adult leagues. Maybe there is a local league and a way to look for a team in that? It would keep him playing and going and he can try out each year for HS, hopefully making the team sooner rather then later.

I’m the volleyball poster and know he can definitely play tennis outside of school. I don’t know much about tennis except that there are as many options as volleyball, if not more. There are private places, rec centers, country clubs, swim and tennis clubs, and courts just about everywhere. Surely you know where he can play. Your kid didn’t just start playing this year. He can play other places besides the school team. There is no reason he can’t put tennis on his college app if he wants to for all 4 years when the time comes senior year.

I think the key is looking for a league and competitive tennis. USTA runs leagues. There might be local leagues. It’s not just playing tennis but how can you represent it on a transcript. Four years of playing pick up tennis is not the same as 4 years playing in a league.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it OP, your kid likes tennis and that is what they want to play. I think the PP was on to something, can you find a USTA league that they could play in? Are there youth leagues through USTA? I know that there are adult leagues. Maybe there is a local league and a way to look for a team in that? It would keep him playing and going and he can try out each year for HS, hopefully making the team sooner rather then later.

I’m the volleyball poster and know he can definitely play tennis outside of school. I don’t know much about tennis except that there are as many options as volleyball, if not more. There are private places, rec centers, country clubs, swim and tennis clubs, and courts just about everywhere. Surely you know where he can play. Your kid didn’t just start playing this year. He can play other places besides the school team. There is no reason he can’t put tennis on his college app if he wants to for all 4 years when the time comes senior year.

In a sort of similar note, there are many elite athletes (soccer to my knowledge) who are not allowed to play for their high schools. They just play for their club teams.

What also happens, is that once they have committed to playing in college, they end up playing their senior year, and “take up spots” of players who were on the team since freshman year.

I am not saying I agree or disagree with this scenario, but it happens.

Luckily, our high school is usually not competitive in most sports, so any fairly coordinated, semi-athletic kid, can easily make a freshman/jv team, even if they have never played the sport before. Both my kids made the vball teams (one actually made the jv team) their freshman years, without previous experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Simply don’t have the field space to accommodate all the teams. Also can’t find enough coaches to coach them. Athletics has always been an afterthought in FCPS.

As it should be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Simply don’t have the field space to accommodate all the teams. Also can’t find enough coaches to coach them. Athletics has always been an afterthought in FCPS.

As it should be.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hate how people suggest track. Track isn't no-cut at a lot of FCPS HS. And kids who love tennis or soccer don't want to do track. Track, frankly, is boring.

Soccer kids should be a great fit for track. Maybe not tennis, but I'd classify that as boring. I hope you see you are being ridiculous with your requirements

[Anonymous]

Track and cross country are boring. Kids want to play games, which are actually fun. Who can blame them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate how people suggest track. Track isn't no-cut at a lot of FCPS HS. And kids who love tennis or soccer don't want to do track. Track, frankly, is boring.

Soccer kids should be a great fit for track. Maybe not tennis, but I'd classify that as boring. I hope you see you are being ridiculous with your requirements

Soccer and Track are both spring sports in fcps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Track and cross country are boring. Kids want to play games, which are actually fun. Who can blame them?

Track is only boring for the kids who aren't very good. When I was in school I was in a minimum of 7 events every meet. I didn't have time to be bored. Sitting in the bleachers if you only did one or two events would be boring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it OP, your kid likes tennis and that is what they want to play. I think the PP was on to something, can you find a USTA league that they could play in? Are there youth leagues through USTA? I know that there are adult leagues. Maybe there is a local league and a way to look for a team in that? It would keep him playing and going and he can try out each year for HS, hopefully making the team sooner rather then later.

I’m the volleyball poster and know he can definitely play tennis outside of school. I don’t know much about tennis except that there are as many options as volleyball, if not more. There are private places, rec centers, country clubs, swim and tennis clubs, and courts just about everywhere. Surely you know where he can play. Your kid didn’t just start playing this year. He can play other places besides the school team. There is no reason he can’t put tennis on his college app if he wants to for all 4 years when the time comes senior year.

I think the key is looking for a league and competitive tennis. USTA runs leagues. There might be local leagues. It’s not just playing tennis but how can you represent it on a transcript. Four years of playing pick up tennis is not the same as 4 years playing in a league.

Yes, we are saying the same thing. I don’t know the terminology for tennis. It’s how you write it up. I’m not saying to play pick up games. But any league is fine and colleges don’t actually care if they are competitive. It will only matter if your kid is a recruited athlete and if he is, he is surely playing outside of the school team somewhere and you already know this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate how people suggest track. Track isn't no-cut at a lot of FCPS HS. And kids who love tennis or soccer don't want to do track. Track, frankly, is boring.

Soccer kids should be a great fit for track. Maybe not tennis, but I'd classify that as boring. I hope you see you are being ridiculous with your requirements

Soccer and Track are both spring sports in fcps.

Fine, soccer and xc are a great compliment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hate how people suggest track. Track isn't no-cut at a lot of FCPS HS. And kids who love tennis or soccer don't want to do track. Track, frankly, is boring.

Frankly, tennis is boring and just a sport kids do when they can't play on a team. See how dumb you sound? Track is great for many reasons, and is quite popular all over the world and I'm sorry you can't see that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Simply don’t have the field space to accommodate all the teams. Also can’t find enough coaches to coach them. Athletics has always been an afterthought in FCPS.

As it should be.

+1

They can walk and chew gum at the same time. It shouldn't be an afterthought.

[Anonymous]

I have a HS senior who was on Varsity, did club, summer, etc for her entire HS career. I'm really sad to report that as others have said, unless you are a recruited athlete, it doesn't matter. I'm not sure if it even matters if they are captain of their EC.

What I've learned in the past year is that college admissions primarily look at two things if you are not a recruited athlete: your GPA and your test scores. If your kid is doing a sport year-round, it might actually add more stress to keep doing that sport and not be able to concentrate fully on school and test prep.

If the sport is a type of stress relief and something they do for fun/exercise/love of it, I'd keep it going. But I wouldn't put the stress of making JV or Varsity vis a vis college admissions into that equation.

Lastly, I do understand your frustration around every sport not offering a Freshman team. As other posters have mentioned, there are more than seemingly fathomable trying out for teams (baseball and basketball at our HS come to mind) and I can imagine it is so hard when something that brings such joy and kids have put so much into isn't offered at the Freshman level.