23 second 50Y free for a 13/14 yr old is a AAA time by USA swimming standards, which is a very good time.

My child was a starter on the varsity tennis team for 4 years at one of the schools that won 3 of the past 4 tennis state championship. He earned the varsity letter every year including his freshman year.

Anonymous wrote:Excuse the stupidity but I imagine this letting talk is for individual sports, right? If you’re varsity on a team, you letter no matter what, right?

It still depends. You have to earn points, which most of the time you can get automatically for being on a varsity team. Still you need to show up on time, be in good standing, not have any discipline issues on or off the field/court, etc.

Plus Freshman aren't always automatically put on the varsity team, even if they are talented. It depends on the coach. Some coaches want Freshman to earn their spot by playing JV for at least one year.

Basically, simply lettering in a sport provides zero "edge" in college admissions. The question is whether the letters represent something about the person. Are they a high school athlete and how has that affected them as a person? My kid played soccer in college. She lettered 4 years in high school (back pre-DA) and, for soccer, it would have had zero impact as that is all about club play.

If you had 5-10 letters and still did well in school -- now you have something. What did it teach about time management, focus, determination, etc. . . Although, for big schools it still probably means little to nothing if the grades and test scores are good, and the kid is not playing a college sport.

Anonymous wrote:

Nobody wears a letterman jacket anymore so they don't mean much.

Does this mean, not really big deal for college submissions? as long as the kid is involved in sports and all-around-well-rounded, varsity letter doesn't have an edge on college resumes?

Yes, it provides an edge. Sorry.

Excuse the stupidity but I imagine this letting talk is for individual sports, right? If you’re varsity on a team, you letter no matter what, right?

23 seconds for a swim age 13, 50 free, is very fast. I'm also in Texas and I just looked at our 13-14 and 15-18 yo (my kids are younger). Our top 15-18 yo are swimming that fast - 23+change seconds for a 50 free - but only the top few. They do swim club as well as summer league for fun.

I think your nephew is fast and if he keeps dropping time in high school and wants to continue, I bet he can!

That's awesome.

I went to a fairly large midwestern high school and lettered in Cross Country and Track, but not till Junior/Senior year. My senior year, a few very talented freshmen came in and knocked me off of Varsity XC down to JV - they were really good! They ended up lettering. It happens!

It is very school dependent.

I've had kids in two different high schools, one public and one private, and they were both swimmers.

The public high school required a try-out for the swim team. The coach had a requirement that the swimmer be able to swim the 500Y Freestyle in 10 minutes in order to make the team. The private high school did not require any type of try-out, other than being able to swim across the pool. Anyone who wanted on the team, just had to sign up.

The public HS team used a point system to determine if the swimmer earned a Varsity Letter. If the student was also swimming for a club team, he/she only had to attend one practice a week. If the student was not a club swimmer, they had to attend something like 75% of the practices. So they had to meet both requirements in order to letter. 1st through 7th place earned points and as long as you swam in every meet and came in at least 7th place in both events (or higher in one event and 8th in another) you would Letter.

The private HS did not use a point system for earning a letter. That coach said if you qualified for a championship meet, you would earn a Varsity Letter. Their championship meets had time cuts. So as long as you were either on a relay in the championship meet (and that meant being one of the fastest swimmers on the team) or had a time that the meet dictated, you were considered a "Varsity" swimmer.

Both of my swimmers earned Varsity Letters in swimming their freshmen year. My older one who went to public HS was not a super strong swimmer but he was on a weak team. So he easily scored the minimum points required his freshman year. It was more difficult to earn a Varsity Letter at the private HS - my older son would not have been able to "letter" if he had gone to that HS because he wasn't fast enough.

And I agree with everyone else that a 00:23 in the 50 Free is very fast. Good luck to your nephew!