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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I did a sport at UNC a generation ago, and concur that this generation takes this stuff way to seriously. I got about a 1/3rd scholarship in a men's non-revenue sport which was at the higher end of the range, and that number was subject to going up with some performance during the 4 years. I finished at about a 40% of tuition scholarship in the final year.

I think the points made questioning the strategy of spending tens of thousands on club sports and tens of thousands more on private school tuitions are the wrong reasons to be spending money to have kids do sports or go to private schools. It's kind of a shame parents today are making sports a business for their kids.

I also was a trustee at a NE boarding school until a couple years ago that has sold its soul to patronize sports related PGs and repeat 11th graders. A generation ago my alma mater prep took less than 5 PGs a year, always boys and always sports related. Now the school is taking 30 PGs a year and is basically also taking 30 new juniors a year who are mostly repeaters for 11th grade and almost all of these are sports related as well. The other big difference besides just the growth of the numbers is about half these PGs and repeaters are girls repeating for sports reasons. This is a school on everyone's prestige list and it has basically sunk to the level of making the school a business model to take tuition paying families who want to max out a kid's college sports placement.

I think the prior poster showed some manners problems but made some valid points. How many parents today who have kids playing club or also the Gonzaga, PVI, Prep, Landon, etc. can honestly face themselves and say they are doing all of this because their kid is passionate about a sport and wants to have fun? If parents were more self reflective, boarding schools and prep schools wouldn't be preying as much on them for a second mortgage handed over to play a sport. Kids used to go to Andover, Deerfield, etc. because they were great schools and only took great students. That isn't the case anymore there or here at the private schools in the DMV. Why not just drop all pretense and send your kid to the IMG academy where he or she can get a high school equivalency on Skype and be the best that way?[/quote]

Thank you for the thoughtful post.  The background on the prep school world is interesting, and I loved this phrase: "the prior poster showed some manners problems."  What a civilized way to put it![/quote]

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