Anonymous wrote:Falls Church City (Meridian High School) -- most of the sports you mentioned are VERY easy to make.

Do some research before buying here for the sports. It’s a very small district and that’s why it’s a lot easier to make the teams. That’s good. They don’t compete with a lot of local schools and spend a significant amount of time traveling. Make sure you are okay with their IB program and standards based grading.

Otherwise, you have lots of other options where your kids could participate even if it’s not on the school team. We are an area filled with rec and club sports.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At APS (Wakefield, W-L, Yorktown) no cut sports are ultimate Frisbee, crew, swimming, track, and cross country. As someone mentioned, no cut doesn't mean that they will compete in all the meets. For CC, for example, only fastest runners compete at Sat meets but everyone can compete at weekday meets. There are other sports that are pretty easy to make the team, depending on school. I think almost everyone makes freshman football. Basketball is tough at all the schools. Baseball is easier at Wakefield. Yorktown is probably hardest to make for all sports

Crew at Yorktown does have cuts.

Do they have a no-cut freshman team?

All teams have cuts. They can only have as many kids as the seats in the boats allow (plus a few alternates). The number of coaches is also taken into account. They can't have more kids on the water than they can safely manage.

Go on your school’s activities website and see what it says about the sport. (Our FCPS high school activities site has lots of training and tryout details).

At our FCPS high school, cross country runners must complete 2 miles in under 15 minutes to make the team.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At APS (Wakefield, W-L, Yorktown) no cut sports are ultimate Frisbee, crew, swimming, track, and cross country. As someone mentioned, no cut doesn't mean that they will compete in all the meets. For CC, for example, only fastest runners compete at Sat meets but everyone can compete at weekday meets. There are other sports that are pretty easy to make the team, depending on school. I think almost everyone makes freshman football. Basketball is tough at all the schools. Baseball is easier at Wakefield. Yorktown is probably hardest to make for all sports

Crew at Yorktown does have cuts.

Do they have a no-cut freshman team?

Ready to put in the work, that is n

For track or cross country, you don’t have to be in great shape or very fast, but you can’t be out of shape and make the team, usually.

Example, I think kids have to be able to run two miles in about 19 minutes for tryouts. (Pretty slow time)

You should also be running at least 30 minutes at least 5 days a week for 6 to 8 weeks before tryouts, and then realize you will be running 5 or 6 days a week for 2 hour practices on weekdays and then meets with events and longer runs on weekends.

Just be sure your kid is ready to out in the work.

Anonymous wrote:At APS (Wakefield, W-L, Yorktown) no cut sports are ultimate Frisbee, crew, swimming, track, and cross country. As someone mentioned, no cut doesn't mean that they will compete in all the meets. For CC, for example, only fastest runners compete at Sat meets but everyone can compete at weekday meets. There are other sports that are pretty easy to make the team, depending on school. I think almost everyone makes freshman football. Basketball is tough at all the schools. Baseball is easier at Wakefield. Yorktown is probably hardest to make for all sports

Crew at Yorktown does have cuts.

Anonymous wrote:We are at West Springfield HS: I believe track and field are no cuts, but everything else is. Our swim team is very competitive and there are multiple cuts made each year.

West Springfield track and field do have cuts.

At APS (Wakefield, W-L, Yorktown) no cut sports are ultimate Frisbee, crew, swimming, track, and cross country. As someone mentioned, no cut doesn't mean that they will compete in all the meets. For CC, for example, only fastest runners compete at Sat meets but everyone can compete at weekday meets. There are other sports that are pretty easy to make the team, depending on school. I think almost everyone makes freshman football. Basketball is tough at all the schools. Baseball is easier at Wakefield. Yorktown is probably hardest to make for all sports

Anonymous wrote:OP again. I’m sorry, this was a poorly worded question. (Yes, I am from the U.S., but you might be surprised to know that this varies tremendously across the U.S. just as it varies right here in the DC area…) we are looking at the following high schools:
Yorktown
W-L
Wakefield
Meridian
Woodson
Robinson
West Springfield
Marshall
Lake Braddock

And my specific query is - is swimming no cut? I know at some of these schools it is cut throat. Running? Crew? Dive? Tennis?

Again, my kids aren’t terrible, but they are not currently Olympic level but I still would like to buy a house where they have a prayer of competing. Thanks for any help.

To help you, you can find the results from the district meets here: http://pvswim.org/hsresults.html
Yorktown, W-L, Wakefield, and Marshall are all in the Liberty district.
Woodson, Robinson, West Springfield, Lake Braddock are all in the Patriot distict.

In the APS high schools, Yorktown, W-L, and Wakefield swimming is a no-cut sport, but at Yorktown and W-L it is still very competitive.

Robinson:

cross country (no cuts)
track (no cutes)
tennis (very competitive)
golf (very competitive)
swimming & dive (definitely cuts, not sure how competitive though)

No cut sports exist at every high school that offers sports. The thing to keep in mind is that “no cut” does not mean “everyone plays”. The effects of not playing very much differ from kid to kid. If not playing makes participation not much fun then absolutely find another activity. I tell the tale all the time that my oldest entered 9th grade as a baseball/football kid and by Senior year he was a singer. (Graduating with his masters in Choral Conducting this coming weekend.) The difference in high school is that there are many more activities to participate in.

So - back to the question - in high school no cut sports typically are: (Fall) football, cross country, swimming (May also be a winter sport depending on the State and sex). (Winter) Swimming, wrestling, (Spring) Track.

Individual schools may have some physical requirements to participate in particular sports in addition to the medical physical, ie need to be sble to run a mile in under 10 minutes kind of thing. Mostly this is just to make sure kids are willing to put in a little effort.

Individual schools may also have limits on numbers for what would otherwise be no cut sports, because they lack supervisor coaches. You can’t have 120 cross country runners and 2 coaches.

Individual schools may also be looking for kids to participate in particular sports so have not cut anyone in ages and recruit hard to get interested kids.

At Yorktown, Cross Country and Track are definitely no-cut, although there are certain meets that only the best compete at. Swimming is similar I think.

Track and field at most high schools.