Reply to Advice from Ivy Coach re not listing sports on college application

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was disappointed to read this article from Ivy Coach that says that if your child is not going to be a recruited athlete, your child should not include their sports on the common app.  I see the argument that it's not going to help my DC to stand out from the application pool and therefore, DC needs to focus on other ECs, but to say that an activity that takes up over 15 hours a week of DC's time each week (my DC plays on two school varsity teams, but isn't good enough to be a recruited athlete) seems like bad advice to me.  I've heard this from other college counselors too, but I am not going to have DC quit sports - exercise is good for physical health and mental health and has enabled my otherwise quiet DC to become friends with lots of terrific kids from DC's school.

https://www.ivycoach.com/the-ivy-coach-blog/college-admissions/playing-sports-college-applications/

Does anyone here think that DC should actually leave two varsity sports teams off DC's college application?  I have otherwise appreciated Ivy Coach's articles but now I'm really questioning their judgment and thinking it's bad advice.[/quote]

Abject, unmitigated idiocy. Participation in HS athletics is often the great differentiator for the exceptionally high-achieving students, and not just at the recruited athlete level. Think of the time commitment, resolve, and grit that are necessary in individual and especially team sports - we're seriously going to pretend that membership or participation in the NHS, the Key Club, SADD and a random Rubik's cube competition are the signals that AOs are looking for ... ?

Student A: 4.00 unweighted, 15 AP classes, all 5s and 1 - 2 4s, 1600 SAT and/or 36 ACT, [b]along with 12 - 15 ECs / awards[/b] that mostly align with their college major interests and help to achieve a cohesive narrative in their essays, [u]plus they are a four-year varsity athlete who served as captain senior year and won a state title[/u].

Student B: 4.00 unweighted, 15 AP classes, all 5s and 1 - 2 4s, 1600 SAT and/or 36 ACT, [b]along with 16 - 20 ECs / awards[/b] that mostly align with their college major interests and help to achieve a cohesive narrative in their essays.

Student A absolutely trounces Student B in the eyes of AOs ... arguing otherwise is just absurd at this point.[/quote]

The flaw in the above is that there is only room for 10 ECs to be listed. The article argues that basically ALL if them should tell the same story. If you have room to list a sport you should list it, but if you have room to list a sport you may be in trouble anyways when admissions offices want spiky applicants.

I've been an ivy interviewer for a few years. I've seen hordes of well rounded students bite the dust, and only one *extremely* spiky student get accepted.

The article is extreme, maybe too much, but so is this admissions climate.[/quote]

Regarding the space available, the common app provides room for up to ten ECs and five awards, as I recall. UC app provides 20 spaces for both, combined.

The way my son dealt with these limitations is by consolidating his HS team, regional and national club teams, and [b]USA baseball appointment[/b] to one EC slot. He also consolidated awards similarly. It required a little extra work, but it allowed him to demonstrate significant time commitments in both research and athletics that aligned with his intended major and that complemented his overall academic profile.[/quote]

How is your kid not a recruited athlete?  I don't know a single USA Baseball appointee that isn't...some of those kids are going in the first couple rounds of the MLB draft.  Nearly all are Power 5 D1 commits.

[/quote]

Actually, there were a few issues that went into the process of withdrawing his commitment and closing his recruitment altogether. He had sustained serious injuries after committing early, and during the lengthy recovery, he began to prioritize identifying a Top 5 program in his area of interest, at a Top 25 university, but one where he would have an outsized college experience, too. The list of “perfect schools” became small.

Those injuries and a realization that the time commitment necessary to continue playing at a high level would prevent him from pursuing a major that he wasn’t willing to bypass (and that is related to his injuries, ironically) were enough to course correct. He was told specifically when committing that certain majors would be off limits. He didn’t take that seriously at the time (my theory) or realize how much that would matter.

Prioritizing academics is a difficult choice when you’ve been devoting that much time to something outside the classroom, and I wish it would have worked out differently, but life is full of trade-offs. D1 programs would have consumed his college experience. D3 programs wouldn’t have even provided the college experience he wanted for himself. Knowing that he had to make a really tough choice, we were not terribly surprised that he made what will probably turn out to be the smart one.[/quote]

Got it.  I am not espousing this...but assuming he could claim to have recovered from the injuries, he could have gotten recruited to a top school and then just decided not to play once he showed up.  I think your kid falls into a 3rd category...it's like someone who wins the Olympics but suffers a career-ending injury...you are in the top 0.5% of all athletes in your sport and would be coveted by every school on the planet if you wanted to continue playing.

Now, maybe the school is CMU...which has no baseball team.  Obviously, the school has to have your sport in order to get recruited for it (or you are an Olympic gold medal ice skater and the school wants you because you are world famous),[/quote]

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