Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid and many of her friends at UVA made the same decision. Is the grind really worth it, if they end up a lower academic universities just to play their sport?

You believe that they were all recruited to play sports? I doubt it.

Did I say “all”? I said, “many”. And yes, small D3 schools seem desperate to fill their rosters. What kind of high academic student would want to go to an in the middle of nowhere college of 1,200-1,800 students, with an 80% acceptance rate to play a sport that will give them little to no advantage in their professional life over attending UVA? Add to that, they might even end up paying more than the UVA in state tuition.
Our own daughters never made recruitment videos, or reached out to coaches, yet were contacted multiple times by small colleges. They were good players, but not amazing, and were not interested in missing out on a traditional college experience. Now, to each their own too. Some of their club teammates did end up at small colleges. Some are still playing, others transferred to bigger campuses, and quit the sport.
We loved being club sport parents. The experience, we believe was excellent for our daughters as well. We supported their decisions to quit the sport after high school. There are always intramurals and adult leagues.

Anonymous wrote:Most top athletes do not end up selecting lower tiered schools. Either they play at Ivys, or Hopkins, Chicago, military academies, or they play at Duke, Wake, W&M, UVA, Michigan etc.
Most top athletes are committing to top tier schools.

If the athlete is a nonstarter at club.. that's when this decision level comes in.

This is moronically false. Truly top athletes will select schools with usually the best athletic teams and they don't care much about the academic quality of the school.

The UVA baseball coach left to coach at Mississippi State and the bulk of the UVA team transferred with him (because the new coach from Duke brought all his Duke players with him to UVA).

The top Ivy athletes in football and basketball are increasingly transferring to Power 4 schools where they can earn serious NIL $$$s. New flash...it's not Duke or Stanford but places like LSU or Ole Miss.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid and many of her friends at UVA made the same decision. Is the grind really worth it, if they end up a lower academic universities just to play their sport?

Plenty of top academic D3 and D1 schools.

The top D3 academic schools did not contact them and or did not offer money. UVA was a better deal. One of the friends had a walk-on option at an Ivy. Still chose UVA. Ivy was too expensive.

Yes. Daughter started her sport late (middle school) but worked her butt off. She was recruited by several D3 and a few bottom conference D1 schools. She ED1 to her best fit high academic school and was lucky enough to get in. She was in communication with the coach there, he told her she would have a spot, but then a grad student with a year of eligibility remaining who is better than she was offered the spot. She decided to remain with her ED1 school, which we had been strongly encouraging. It was a tense time the past few months bit as I kept telling her, how lucky are you to have these options??

I am a tiny bit worried about next year. Her sport consumed her life the past few years. Academically it was outstanding for her, taught her time management skills and kept her out of trouble. She has jam packed days, a little less now but shes still competing in high school as its a spring sport. It will be a huge change when she’s across the country with 2 or 3 classes a day, no 5am wakeups and tournaments a few times a month. She will have to figure it out, hoping she doesn’t party too much and gets involved with other things.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most top athletes do not end up selecting lower tiered schools. Either they play at Ivys, or Hopkins, Chicago, military academies, or they play at Duke, Wake, W&M, UVA, Michigan etc.
Most top athletes are committing to top tier schools.

If the athlete is a nonstarter at club.. that's when this decision level comes in.

That is a big generalization. The top athletes that were also top scholars got recruited to some top ivies. If they didn't have the academics for the top ivies it was a no-go. Some of those lower academic athletes, I saw go to the military academies.

You do not have to have top scholar credentials to be recruited at an Ivy. You do have to be a pretty good athlete. This is especially true with sports like football, basketball, baseball. Strictly from an academic standpoint, I found that academic standards are lower at Ivies than at schools like Hopkins, Chicago, MIT, Carnegie Mellon. On the other hand, athletic standards are higher at Ivies.

Michigan is not even in the same realm bc the athletic standards are generally much higher, and there is an actual chance at NIL $, depending on the sport. The military academies are not a monolith; some are D1; others are D3.

Anonymous wrote:My kid and many of her friends at UVA made the same decision. Is the grind really worth it, if they end up a lower academic universities just to play their sport?

You believe that they were all recruited to play sports? I doubt it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This happens quite often with high academic student athletes choosing a Top 10 or Top 20 option over D2 and/or D3 offer(s)

Forgot to add: if your child is interested in a difficult major (think, pre-med or engineering) and/or studying abroad, the possibility of playing a major D1 team sport is really unusual. If both (rigorous major AND study abroad), I’m not sure any D1 program would allow them to do that - in my experience, they wouldn’t be a viable recruit in most, if not all team sports. There’s just too little time to accomplish all of those goals.

You can leave the sport after getting recruited.

I know - a family member did just that. It’s an effective strategy for highly competitive privates (i.e., most T10 schools) and certain highly competitive public schools that have OOS acceptance rates below 10% … but it still seems a little scummy to me, to be honest.

DS had offers from D3 schools but chose UVA instead. Definitely the right choice.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. DD was a 4-year Varsity athlete. She was even a section-leader her senior year, which is important to demonstrate leadership.

She earned admission to a public Ivy, but won’t be pursuing her sport in college.

Academics come first.

What is a public ivy?

It’s a term that’s been in common usage for nearly fifty years.

Not by anyone who wants to sound sane.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. My daughter was recruitable at several top LACs but decided to ED to another school based on her broader interests. She was top 10 percent in her graduating class, high rigor, 1590 SAT, NMSF, strong ECs (besides sport). No regrets: got accepted and will play club.

Why didn't she recruit to her ED school? Was it D1?

No, her top school was D3, but the top D3 for her sport. The standard for her sport was higher at the ED school than her level.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This happens quite often with high academic student athletes choosing a Top 10 or Top 20 option over D2 and/or D3 offer(s)

Forgot to add: if your child is interested in a difficult major (think, pre-med or engineering) and/or studying abroad, the possibility of playing a major D1 team sport is really unusual. If both (rigorous major AND study abroad), I’m not sure any D1 program would allow them to do that - in my experience, they wouldn’t be a viable recruit in most, if not all team sports. There’s just too little time to accomplish all of those goals.

You can leave the sport after getting recruited.

Anonymous wrote:My kid and many of her friends at UVA made the same decision. Is the grind really worth it, if they end up a lower academic universities just to play their sport?

Plenty of top academic D3 and D1 schools.

Anonymous wrote:Yes. My daughter was recruitable at several top LACs but decided to ED to another school based on her broader interests. She was top 10 percent in her graduating class, high rigor, 1590 SAT, NMSF, strong ECs (besides sport). No regrets: got accepted and will play club.

Why didn't she recruit to her ED school? Was it D1?

Anonymous wrote:Learning a lot about recruiting and college process. Did anyone's child decide not to play based on where they were recruited? My kid is extremely bright and not sure the stars will align, especially having to commit before all acceptances come through.

If your kids is bright and recruit material, they should just find an Ivy or academic d3 they like and target it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. DD was a 4-year Varsity athlete. She was even a section-leader her senior year, which is important to demonstrate leadership.

She earned admission to a public Ivy, but won’t be pursuing her sport in college.

Academics come first.

What is a public ivy?

It’s a term that’s been in common usage for nearly fifty years.