College clubs unfairly exclusive?

[Anonymous]

Kid played club lax at school that did not have d1. The team was divided into a group who competed and a group who was just allowed to practice. They would play d3 schools and easily beat them. Many on the team were recruited to play d1 but chose the school instead.

[Anonymous]

My dd is at an Ivy with a competitive club culture. As a first year she applied/auditioned far and wide figuring she’d get rejected by most ( accurate), get accepted by a few ( also accurate) and find her groove. She participates in a couple of competitive groups and has a leadership position in an “everyone invited” type of group and it’s a good balance. The thing is these groups and clubs are all student run and some don’t have the budget or capacity to just take everyone. You can’t have 200 kids on the debate team or 50 a capella singers. She says it was a great growth experience for her to get rejected by some groups that were the college equivalent of things she excelled at in high school (slight ego bruise being part of the process) and there was a lot of growth in that time. Anyway the FB parents will get nowhere complaining to the college admin they don’t run most ECs in college the students do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC’s college parent Facebook page is blowing up with parents complaining their DC auditioned for theatre performance/music/improv type clubs, did not get callbacks and are accusing college of being deceptive (saying clubs are not inclusive like college promised in the tours) and kids want to transfer and
parents want to talk to the administration. Is this happening at lots of colleges as club decisions are made? To me, it seems unfair to the kids that do get accepted to the clubs, presumably based on their talent and hard work, not an expectation to walk on.

Anyone who went to college knows that most clubs ARE for anyone who shows up. Come on, though, we all know you don't get to be in a university-level theater production without showing you have singing/dancing/acting skill.

Read the Atlantic article. You're misinformed.

Colleges in the article: Yale, UCLA, Berkley, Georgetown, Harvard, Penn, Cornell.

They're the most competitive colleges in the country. If you think those are average, normal colleges, you aren't familiar with many colleges. Those schools are on a different level. For everything.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Activities that require talent have try-outs. How is someone finding this out for the first time in college?

+1. DD tried out for club soccer team at a big college (15k students). Team took 2 of the 45 girls trying out.

I can speak to this based on my kids' personal experience (and my kid made the team). It's not like club teams post their evaluation criteria publically, so the best a prospective student can do is email the students in charge and ask. However, even that might not get them true answers, because most club teams are student run, and students can change their minds about what they want the teams to be. My kid is on a team that apparently was low-key and accepting to a wider pool of talent when we first looked at the school two years ago. Last year, the club started to go in a more competitive direction, and it is even more competitive this fall. He made the team, but gets to play infrequently, which is not how the club sport was described when we toured last year.

For those blaming the students, we should all agree that it has become more difficult for this generation to connect with each other. Making activities more and more exclusive does little to help those struggling to find their people.

Club sports did not even exist when I was in college, I’d say there are plenty of activities available. There’s just too many helicoptering parents who never want to see their kid not get something.

Are you in college now? One of my other kids, who isn't a stellar athlete, was not good enough to play on a club team. Intramurals? You had to sign up as a team. So how are kids supposed to make connections through sports if they don't have a friend group to create a team?

You have to advertise, physically hand out flyers, tell everyone you know, word of mouth. There are probably a lot of students who would love to do a fun activity like intramurals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Activities that require talent have try-outs. How is someone finding this out for the first time in college?

+1. DD tried out for club soccer team at a big college (15k students). Team took 2 of the 45 girls trying out.

I can speak to this based on my kids' personal experience (and my kid made the team). It's not like club teams post their evaluation criteria publically, so the best a prospective student can do is email the students in charge and ask. However, even that might not get them true answers, because most club teams are student run, and students can change their minds about what they want the teams to be. My kid is on a team that apparently was low-key and accepting to a wider pool of talent when we first looked at the school two years ago. Last year, the club started to go in a more competitive direction, and it is even more competitive this fall. He made the team, but gets to play infrequently, which is not how the club sport was described when we toured last year.

For those blaming the students, we should all agree that it has become more difficult for this generation to connect with each other. Making activities more and more exclusive does little to help those struggling to find their people.

Club sports did not even exist when I was in college, I’d say there are plenty of activities available. There’s just too many helicoptering parents who never want to see their kid not get something.

Are you in college now? One of my other kids, who isn't a stellar athlete, was not good enough to play on a club team. Intramurals? You had to sign up as a team. So how are kids supposed to make connections through sports if they don't have a friend group to create a team?

You have to advertise, physically hand out flyers, tell everyone you know, word of mouth. There are probably a lot of students who would love to do a fun activity like intramurals.

This is not how it works now.