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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Well, you’d need to know how many 18s teams there are in CHRVA (62), and roughly how many of those are in the DMV (~30).  70+ commits is 20%, the final number is probably somewhere around 30%-40%, its higher if you add in players playing club volleyball in college.  30% is plenty for some clubs to focus on college recruiting as a primary marketing tactic.  While I don’t agree with never ending stream of social media posts about it—especially when a player played for other clubs for the vast majority of their club career—it is a business and there are enough players/families that want to pursue college volleyball in the region to make it possible to focus a club on it.[/quote]
Have you heard of "[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics]Lies, damned lies, and statistics[/url]"? Your statistics is a combination of selective bias, convenient sample size, and faulty correlations. You chose to ignore that most players stop playing before they reach the 18s age group. Have you heard of clubs with 3 teams at 14, 15, and 16 level that have trouble filling their 18s roster? I did. You are grossly underestimating of the number of volleyball players unless you purposefully define them based on how many are still playing club in the 18s teams. 
[/quote]
Not the PP, but I think you’ve lost the point of the discussion. If you don’t want your child playing volleyball in college, then tell them that. If a club is open about their college focus or travels too much, don’t play for them. There are lots of clubs that only play a regional schedule, if you need a list ask this forum. I’m sure people will be willing help.

But claiming someone is lying, misrepresenting data and biased when they were providing info on CHRVA clubs and doing so in a way that was reasonable just makes it seem like you want a flame war, not a productive discussion.

To your point above, in every childhood activity the number of participants drops as they progress through high school and drops again as they reach college. Pick any group of extra-curricular activities and you’ll see the same patterns you see in club volleyball. It’s very fair to compare senior year engagement with college commitments, as very few colleges players don’t play club volleyball their senior year.[/quote]

"[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics]Lies, damned lies, and statistics[/url]" is typically used to suggest that one can manipulate statistics to prove any point they want to. It is not necessarily accusing someone of lying. But if you use science to prove your point, you may have to deal with a scientist who knows a thing or two about statistics and doesn't buy your argument / interpretation. It is surprising that the paper linked to by the PP managed to get through peer-review with those claims. Even without working in the field you can tell that important caveats are missing from that study. [/quote]

Simple questions:  Why do 25% of students at MIT and Caltech play varsity sports? Why does Caltrech advertise that nearly 80% of students participate in some form of athletics?

Why does MIT say on their admissions page? “It is possible to be a student and athlete at MIT. About 25% of MIT students participate in varsity athletics, and on average, our varsity athletes have slightly higher GPAs than non-varsity athletes.”

You’ll also find numbers in the same range for virtually every high academic school including University of Chicago, Carnegie Mellon and Johns Hopkins and virtually every high academic D3. The numbers at high academic D1 schools are lower as a percentage of the student body, but that is largely due to there being a limited number of teams and much larger student bodies.

Over-identifying as an athlete—the cohort analyzed in your study—certainly has some potential long-term negative impacts. But in low-visibility female sports like volleyball (which it is in every conference except the Power 5), the athletes tend to be more  balanced. Those students aren’t clustering into easier majors, they are just balancing athletics and academics better. Hence MIT’s claim above.

As I said before, I don’t believe the focus of a few clubs on college recruiting is generally good for the player or the sport, but it’s understandable why they do so. If you believe playing college volleyball is bad for your child then tell them that and keep them away from clubs that focus on it. There are plenty of clubs who give players the chance to play without focusing on recruiting, and some of those teams are very good.[/quote]
Simple question: why do you talk about playing varsity at MIT as if everyone should be able to do it? How many students from this area make it into MIT? How many of them are good enough to play varsity sports at MIT? I am looking at this as a "dream on" type of a scenario. If any of the players in this area can do it, tip of the hat to them. The vast majority of volleyball players in this area will not achieve anything close to that. You are focusing on exceptions rather than the average player: you are above 3 sigma (maybe even higher) if you think in terms of a bell curve.[/quote]

PP started with MIT and then proceeded to explain that virtually every other high academic school has the same sports participation rate. Someone else gave you a list of conferences that are considered very good academically, which covers a large number of schools. Seems like they are doing a good job giving you data that proves the rule, not arguing the exception.

The only facts you provided were that students who over identify as athletes may have issues, which PP agreed with.

There certainly are volleyball players who over focus on volleyball and hurt their grades, but our experience has largely been the opposite. Most players on our DD club team were very good academically and specifically focusing on those types of schools, regardless if they were planning on playing volleyball in college or not.[/quote]

And by the way, I was not the one asking the question "High academic schools? Aside from Ivy League, what other conferences are you classifying in that category?" I don't really care because my DD is an average player who doesn't have the drive (nor the height) to play in college. What rattled me was the "science" that the PP used to demonstrate that student athletes have similar or even greater GPA and graduation rates than the non-athletes. [/quote]

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