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

[Anonymous]

Being the captain of a team shows that you are developing leadership, collaboration and communication skills, and are learning to strategize and make decisions under pressure.

All red flags for college admissions. Who wants people like that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Being the captain of a team shows that you are developing leadership, collaboration and communication skills, and are learning to strategize and make decisions under pressure.

All red flags for college admissions. Who wants people like that?

I think you mean green flags lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless your kid is recruited, admissions officers do not really care about sports. I know a kid who has perfect grades and a 35 ACT who was a captain of the varsity football and lacrosse teams (and was class treasurer, NHS president, volunteered, and did part time work), and he got rejected from every remotely selective college. The Ivy Leagues, Notre Dame, Michigan, Duke, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, UNC, and UVA all rejected him. Many other kids who are two or three sports athletes have similarly bad results.

At most top schools, the students will tell you most people there did not play sports outside of the recruited athletes. Most of their extracurriculars were centered around the major they want to study. Sports are time consuming and take away time from these more impactful extracurriculars. For sports like basketball, baseball, or lacrosse, you are easily spending 20+ hours per week on an activity that ultimately won’t help you in admissions.

And it doesn’t help that in the DMV area, you have to be super talented or spend years playing a sport just to make into the JV team. You have to spend a ridiculous amount of money on sports. Sports are just a waste of time for most kids

I agree, along with the fact that there is a high likelihood of lifelong injuries from playing high school sports. Broken legs, arms, jammed up fingers and toes, tore up knees, concussions, beat up ears from wrestling. I know so many kids of friends who sustained all kinds of sport injuries in high school for no good reason.

I encouraged my kid to play an instrument and that's worked out great.

There is not a “high likelihood of lifelong injuries” from playing high school sports.

Seriously. Christ so many different sports too. Track, swim, tennis, row,,,,

It is great for a kid’s mental health: exercise

My kid and self get seriously blue without exercise.

[Anonymous]

Is it easy to lie about sports on the application? Is anyone going to check whether you play tennis twice a week?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it easy to lie about sports on the application? Is anyone going to check whether you play tennis twice a week?

errrr... it's pretty easy to lie about trivial stuff like this. but the stuff that's easy to lie about will never move the needle for college admissions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it easy to lie about sports on the application? Is anyone going to check whether you play tennis twice a week?

errrr... it's pretty easy to lie about trivial stuff like this. but the stuff that's easy to lie about will never move the needle for college admissions

sure. but playing tennis twice a week, for example, still takes time. it's trivial in terms of accomplishment but it's not a trivial commitment, actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP's mistake is viewing childhood through a single lens: college admissions. Big mistake.

This. You all are insufferable and your kids are box checkers with no imagination.

[Anonymous]

It’s probably true that many families over-emphasize sports with their kids in the hopes it yields a recruitment offer. There are all sorts of reasons that can backfire, from injuries to not spending enough time developing other useful skills. In the overwhelming majority of cases, those students don’t get recruited and perhaps an opportunity was lost to explore non-athletic interests. But OP took it too far. A kid can play sports just for fun with no eye on recruiting and still get the physical, emotional, and social boosts needed to be healthy and happy, which can in turn drive academic success, though that’s not as important as their health and happiness.

[Anonymous]

Participating in sports can help kids feel more connected to the school community, which in turn, can help them be/stay motivated academically.

[Anonymous]

Notre Dame specifically loves athletes and constantly brags about the percentage of their enrolling class that were team captains in HS (it's over forty percent)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless your kid is recruited, admissions officers do not really care about sports. I know a kid who has perfect grades and a 35 ACT who was a captain of the varsity football and lacrosse teams (and was class treasurer, NHS president, volunteered, and did part time work), and he got rejected from every remotely selective college. The Ivy Leagues, Notre Dame, Michigan, Duke, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, UNC, and UVA all rejected him. Many other kids who are two or three sports athletes have similarly bad results.

At most top schools, the students will tell you most people there did not play sports outside of the recruited athletes. Most of their extracurriculars were centered around the major they want to study. Sports are time consuming and take away time from these more impactful extracurriculars. For sports like basketball, baseball, or lacrosse, you are easily spending 20+ hours per week on an activity that ultimately won’t help you in admissions.

And it doesn’t help that in the DMV area, you have to be super talented or spend years playing a sport just to make into the JV team. You have to spend a ridiculous amount of money on sports. Sports are just a waste of time for most kids

lol
😂
Mine played division 1 lax and soccer

You are incredibly stupid

Neither of mine played travel
Neither of mine spent years playing their sport they both started in 8th grade.
Both are great students top academically

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My buddy was a really good HS basketball player but not good enough a basketball scholarship a big team. He got free tuition NYU on merit aid if he on a “handshake” deal agree to play on team all four years.

How do you think IVY league schools get teams if no athletic scholarships?

Do you really think Ryan FitzPatrick who was Harvards starting QB before going pro NFL had the same grades as a non athlete?

Fiction

[Anonymous]

Most of these schools only take a handful of kids from large schools and even less from smaller schools. So, there may have been kids from his school that better fit their diversity.

[Anonymous]

Athletes in general are better at overcoming adversity, working as a team, and pushing themselves to the limit. I would love if I could only hire athletes and even better athletes who are not only children. Ha.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless your kid is recruited, admissions officers do not really care about sports. I know a kid who has perfect grades and a 35 ACT who was a captain of the varsity football and lacrosse teams (and was class treasurer, NHS president, volunteered, and did part time work), and he got rejected from every remotely selective college. The Ivy Leagues, Notre Dame, Michigan, Duke, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, UNC, and UVA all rejected him. Many other kids who are two or three sports athletes have similarly bad results.

At most top schools, the students will tell you most people there did not play sports outside of the recruited athletes. Most of their extracurriculars were centered around the major they want to study. Sports are time consuming and take away time from these more impactful extracurriculars. For sports like basketball, baseball, or lacrosse, you are easily spending 20+ hours per week on an activity that ultimately won’t help you in admissions.

And it doesn’t help that in the DMV area, you have to be super talented or spend years playing a sport just to make into the JV team. You have to spend a ridiculous amount of money on sports. Sports are just a waste of time for most kids

lol
😂
Mine played division 1 lax and soccer

You are incredibly stupid

Neither of mine played travel
Neither of mine spent years playing their sport they both started in 8th grade.
Both are great students top academically

The OP is a clueless idiot but you are lying.