Reply to Friend just announced her junior DD has committed to play lax at a top school

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[quote=Anonymous]OP is allowed to vent, and I think it's human nature to be envious of families who appear to have an easy time getting the possibly out-of-reach thing you want for your kid.  It's not admirable, but college admissions in affluent, striver communities can seem very high stakes and bring out the worst in people.  If venting here helps OP act like a better person in real life, I'm not going to judge.

I'll add my family's data point to the discussion.  When my DD was a rising senior and DS a rising sophomore, we visited DD's dream school so she could decide if she really wanted to gamble on playing her early admission card there.  DS was already nationally recognized in his sport, and we had reached out to the coach to see if he wanted to meet up (this was allowable under NCAA rules at the time).  He ended up taking us on a tour of the campus in a golf cart--it was really a fantastic experience.  We had chatted about DD's college plans, stats, etc. on the tour, and the coach told her that he thought it was unfair in many ways that she, despite having a perfect SAT score, perfect grades, perfectly fine, but not standout, ECs, had almost no chance of getting admitted while he'd almost certainly be able to arrange to have her brother admitted if he stayed at the same level in his sport, kept up with his grades, and did reasonably well on the SAT or ACT.  He also repeated the common coach saying that D1 athletes have time only to focus on two of the three main things you can do in college (the sport, academics, social life/partying), and that if you play for him, the sport will be one of those two.

We counseled her not to waste her early card, but she applied to the dream school and was rejected, as were all of her other brilliant, unhooked friends who took the same risk.  She ended up at a fantastic school, as do all the high stats, hard working kids, in my experience.  Everything about her college experience was wonderful.  She had plenty of time for hanging out with friends, day trips, club sports and other fun campus activities including occasional partying, and her academic work.

Our DS ended up at the dream school. When he was accepted, after an extremely simple process that people could quite reasonably envy, she was excited for him, but worried too, given that her friends who were playing in college had found it to be more miserable than not.  I'll be curious to hear how he ultimately views in when his playing days are done, but so far, "more miserable than not" sounds about right.  All the kids at these kind of schools are used to putting in massive amounts of time into their sports, but balancing it with very high level college academics is not easy.  He has almost no time for anything other than the sport and school, and training for the sport is virtually year round.  We see him over winter break and for a little more than a month in the summer.  At least in his case, the trainings and environment are structured just like a professional sport (we know a few pros) only with fewer breaks.  The pressure to perform well and compete for playing time is absolutely relentless, especially for athletes with pro-level ambitions and abilities.  I think it's common for the athletes to have far too much of their self-image connected to their performance, and DS and many of his friends get very down after a bad game.  It can be hard to find the resilience to keep going during a rough patch, especially if you are on the outs with your coach, and coaches have an unhealthy amount of control over the athletes' lives in very many cases.  All of these stressors are worse for the kids from low-income families who are hoping the sport and/or a good degree will make a difference for their entire families. DIII sports are much better in this regard IME, but sports there are still a big time-commitment.

There are many positives too, which are more a subject for a thread in the sports forums, but I think most of the anti-athlete posters have no clue how hard the athletes are working.  Also wanted to point out that my kid did not "take a spot" that should have gone to an academically talented non-athlete.  He's there because he had something the college valued in addition to the threshold level of grades and scores they have decided demonstrate the capability to succeed academically.  And he has exceled academically, as have almost all of his teammates, several of whom have done so while majoring in CS, physics, or various engineering disciplines.  All of the bitter folks should focus on their kids' successes and not spend time putting down other kids and their contributions.  Bright kids with good family support will do well in college and in life, and it's ridiculous to think any one college or university is so exceptional that it's going to make or break a kid's chances to succeed. [/quote]

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