I think that children will always have an optimistic view of their own talents. It is up to parents to decide how to focus the children on the right path. Parents have an obligation to really stop and consider how much talent their child really has and help guide their child to the right priorities.

Here are some numbers:
http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/estimated-probability-competing-college-athletics
https://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/Recruiting%20Fact%20Sheet%20WEB.pdf

In general, with only a few exceptions, well under 10% of high school athletes will compete at the NCAA level. And of those, only about 1/3 of those will compete at the Div-I, Div-II and Div-III levels. And of those, only about 1-2% will go to compete at the professional level. In soccer, the numbers are about 6% of high school participants will play NCAA and about 1.4% of those will play professional. So that means out of 440K high school soccer players, less than 400 will play professionally.

So, do you want to prioritize the sport or academics? Yes, it is important to have balance, but moving from a higher rated school to a lower rated school just to play athletics to get into a collegiate athletic program is not wise. Instead, why not stay in the higher rated school and play a lower level/tier of athletics. Your child will still get their balance from sport/academics and will have a better foundation for college.

And if you want to know why this is significant, go look at the thread about the shortage of "economically attractive" men. Ex-college sports stars who are making less money because they focused on athletics instead of academics are a dime a dozen and are less attractive for marriage, so if having that job, family and stability is important, then they may want to reassess their priorities.

My nephew did make the one decision that made sense. He was a cross-country runner. He went to a good high school and still competed. He did go to a school on a track scholarship, but he deliberately chose a school with a good engineering program and a lesser NCAA division track team so that he could focus on academics at the collegiate level. He found the pressure to compete less intense so that he could still compete, but the sports program did place an emphasis on maintaining the academics and made allowances for athletes around their academic requirements, which was exactly what he wanted.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many history majors become historians?

I'm thinking you probably didn't go to college.

I think you are bitter that athletes with no AP's are going to Brown, Stanford and Dartmouth.

Different poster, but all kids recruited to Brown, Stanford, Dartmouth etc. who actually get admitted have taken APs or the private school version of rigorous classes, and they will need to have maintained decent grades and achieved either good test scores (for a highly sought after recruit) or great ones.

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, the thing I don't get is doing this for soccer. Great, so they get an MLS job for a few years. Then what?

It could make sense for basketball or football, for rare athletes.

Investment banking, dentistry, and consulting to name a few: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/soccer-insider/wp/2018/03/03/they-were-top-mls-draft-picks-but-when-their-soccer-dreams-changed-they-walked-away/

I think you underestimate how attractive a pro sports career looks on a resume (at least a career in a sport that doesn't typically lead to traumatic brain injuries). A lot of former pros go into finance, marketing, or commercial real estate, but the short answer is that taking a few years off the traditional career path treadmill to play sports is as likely to be a career booster as not, regardless of which direction you want to go in.

So a tangential question:

What do you think is more valuable to a top school.

DA player and a B+ ish good student.
or
'Travel' (i.e. not DA) player and a top student (i.e. one of the top honors grad)

Anonymous wrote:Off topic, but our private school has gotten waivers for all of its da players (single sex school). Are these kids still expected to attend all da practices during school's soccer season?

Our school gives sports waivers to DA players so they don't attend the school sports while playing for the DA

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Enjoy the lighter course load while you prepare to play in college. Once you are done, my kid that didn't make the cut to play college soccer, will send you his U9 for you to coach. The numbers don't lie, less than 3% will make it to college, less than 3% of those will move onto a pro career. I say "pro" as in MLS which means you not getting those Million dollar contracts.

Why does everybody think of million $$ contracts.

Some people hate fraternities and love a sport. So they go to college... D1, they get some playing time junior and senior year... never go pro, have a college degree and friends from their sport... and they enjoy it.

What don't people understand.

So you got a degree in English and you will never write a book... or you got a degree in chemistry and never published a paper... who cares!

Ikr. Chemistry degree or soccer degree. Same difference. Lol.

You act like the soccer player isn't getting a major... give me a soccer player with a degree over a chemistry major any day. Teamwork, hard work, dedication...

Off topic, but our private school has gotten waivers for all of its da players (single sex school). Are these kids still expected to attend all da practices during school's soccer season?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many history majors become historians?

I'm thinking you probably didn't go to college.

I think you are bitter that athletes with no AP's are going to Brown, Stanford and Dartmouth.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many history majors become historians?

This is a stupid analogy. The big question is what will these "athletes" be doing after they graduate or drop out of their no name school. Even the kids who get rides to d1 schools often never play.

Work in finance, wall street, get an MBA, go to PT school, work as a manager for a sports team, work in communications for a sports team, announcing for a college team ....

That is just to name a few athletes I personally know.

Anonymous wrote:Balancing academics and DA in high school is a delicate and challenging balance, but can be a path to elite colleges. This year's Bethesda U19 team commits include Stanford, Brown, Cornell, Georgetown, Air Force, and Colgate.

Yes, and last year's Bethesda U19 team includes kids who are now at Stanford, Dartmouth, Penn, Georgetown, Colgate, and a bunch of other great schools. The club has several years worth of commitments to highly academic schools, and a number of the kids in DA were attending top area privates while playing DA. A lot of PPs on this thread seem to know kids who have squandered their academic potential in order play their sport in college, but we know a whole lot more (inside and outside soccer) who have used their athletic talent to help them get into reach schools.

I also agree with a PP that years of balancing HS classes and a DA schedule makes for a relatively smooth transition to balancing college classes and sports.

Anonymous wrote:How many history majors become historians?

I'm thinking you probably didn't go to college.

The assumption is always that taking AP classes has a direct affect on college success at all.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/04/26/study-ap-program-isnt-all-its-cracked-up-to-be/?noredirect=on

Anonymous wrote:How many history majors become historians?

This is a stupid analogy. The big question is what will these "athletes" be doing after they graduate or drop out of their no name school. Even the kids who get rides to d1 schools often never play.

How many history majors become historians?

"Reducing the academic load to play elite soccer." is one of the most stupid things a parent can allow a student to do.