BS vs athletic scholarship for college

@laenen, are you asking me or @GoatMama?

If you are asking me, BS was a wholly different path from her previous plan, which was moving to upper level sculpture/ceramic courses at a local university because she has nearly exhorted them at her community college. It would mean spending 40~60 hrs per week on ceramics studio, with some upper level GE and art history courses. She would spend far less on studio art at a BS, no matter how heavily she would concentrate on visual art.

Even as until last Spring, she took two studio courses each semester totaling 13 hours class time and equal or more hours on after class work, in addition to doing her own polymer clay art.

She could get BFA in Spacial Art by 15 from a local state u, then continue with MFA or Atelier. She could go to a law school in between too. There is an opportunity for her to partner with a senior attorney for part-time solo practice as backup income plan since she doesn’t want to teach art.

Until recently she had studied deductive reasoning instead of traditional math for LSAT logic games section, which was why her SSAT math score was low. She already does fine with LSAT reading section and has perfect college GPA. So going to a 2nd tier law school at 15 with full scholarship seemed quite possible.

It seemed as a good life as any. Until her art history prof. and retired elderly classmates at community college art classes convinced her to try BS.

For us, BS helps to break away from a culture exclusively focused on college athletics. It’s hard to pull away from it when you’re in the epicenter of it. She is good at several things and wants to do them all, but this is not actively encouraged where we are. On the contrary, way too many times she has been told that she needs to quit A in order to focus in B. When we visited schools and she realized that BS kids are encouraged to do all they want and can handle, that sealed the deal for her.

@GoatMama just fyi for comparison it looks like (based on web pages) BS varsity volleyball teams (Class A NEPSAC) are playing 16-18 games a season plus a few early season scrimmages. Assuming they practice 5 days a week for 2 hours that’s 10 hours of practice per week.

I feel your pain, however! My daughter was a nationally ranked athlete in a newer sport. From 7th-9th grade, she spent 20 hours a week training (and coaches would have liked to see her spend even more time with them), and competed year round. Comps were all day affairs across several states. She loved her sport, so did I!, but there was no way it was compatible with BS and no boarding school offered the level of training or facilities she needed to stay competitive.

Once she arrived at BS, I was worried she would be homesick for her team (I knew she would be fine without us!) but she quickly met friends who were “retired” near Olympic level figure skaters, ballerinas, gymnasts, and others who had made the same choices as Goatiekid is making. My daughter called me missing her sport exactly 1 time after she arrived at BS and it was her whole social life before she went away. 3 years later she has no regrets. She has the option to compete in college next year at some schools but it isn’t a priority for her in choosing her college - she plays a new JV sport now (BS Varsity teams are often all recruits but JV teams are sometimes open to newbies) and may play that at the club level in college. Playing at the club level will allow her to still take advantage of all the other things she wants to do for the next 4 years vs being a varsity college athlete which would probably mean reverting back to her old lifestyle in some ways. Even though some of her former teammates are now competing professionally around the world and having a ball, I know my daughter has no regrets, so I say go for it Goatiekid! Her instincts are right.

Not directly on point, but for anyone who doubts that boarding school athletes can end up competing at the highest levels in college, I would point out that Yale just beat #5 seed Baylor in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Yale has 4 boarding school grads on its roster – 3 from Hotchkiss and 1 from Choate. Makai Mason (Hotchkiss '14) scored 31 points in the game. I don’t usually root for Yale, but I made an exception in the circumstances!

Also two NMH boys on the Yale team (one starting, one injured)

Would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the Providence Friars have St. Andrew’s alum Ben Bentil on their starting 5. They eked out a win vs. USC last night after I fell asleep…

@chemmchimney, my bad for not pointing out the NMH boys! I saw that on the roster, and then just plain forgot.

Love hearing about NMH successes. I just love that school. I wish kids would stop using it as a safety.

^ Guilty as charged. Of course, they sniffed us out… GoatKid would tell you that the NMH AO was the most thoughtful of them all, taking the time to get to know her and ask all these great questions that made her talk and talk to no end. He also had a to-die-for sense of humor. Great interview all around!

I think I’m gonna post a long one on interviews (N=12) if I ever find myself sitting under a beach umbrella with another one in my drink.

NMH is definitely not a safety for the basketball players though: “NMH has been ranked among the top ten teams in the United States for the past 12 years and the top 5 for the past 7 years including #1 rankings in 2013 and 2014. NMH has made the National Championship tournament for 7 consecutive years making it to the 2010 National Championship game, quarterfinals in 2011 and 2012, Final Four in 2014, 2015 and 2016, and won the National Championship in 2013. In 2012 and 2016, NMH won the NEPSAC AAA Championship…In 2015-2016, NMH will have almost 2 dozen basketball alums playing NCAA basketball including 11 in the Ivy League. NMH will have 2 players on the rosters at Harvard, Yale, Brown, PENN, Dartmouth and one at Princeton.”

But NMH is a great choice with a more forgiving admit rate (somewhere below 30%) for many kids and I hope new applicants will continue to show the hoggers some love :@)

So, sorry for being off topic - who says schools with lower Ivy matriculation rates have fewer students with special hooks? Looks to me like in schools with lower Ivy matriculation rates it’d be even harder for students without hooks to get in because recruited athletes together with however fewer (?) legacy and other hooked would take most of the already few spots. No?

I dunno? I think the varsity teams include the same number of students every year regardless of how good the team is or how many kids apply? The kids on the teams don’t want to ride the bench after all. So I would guess hooked athletes take about the same number of spots each year at both Ex-Over-iss as at NMH, Berkshire etc. Not sure though. I do know the NMH bb players do the same academic work as all of the other students, and BS players academic ability is one of the main reasons they are popular recruits on Ivy college teams.

Out of all the BS players that are D1, I think it is important to note if they are a PG or a 4 year turn out.

Yale’s Makai Mason’s dad stated that when his son went to BS instead of AAU travel that Duke recruitment dropped off the radar.

@GoatMama I was just catching up on some threads and I saw your comment, “For us, BS helps to break away from a culture exclusively focused on college athletics. It’s hard to pull away from it when you’re in the epicenter of it. She is good at several things and wants to do them all, but this is not actively encouraged where we are. On the contrary, way too many times she has been told that she needs to quit A in order to focus in B. When we visited schools and she realized that BS kids are encouraged to do all they want and can handle, that sealed the deal for her.”

Our local publics are sports frenzied and school is second to sports. The coaches would at the last minute call for earlier or later or longer practice times. Further it was all age biased not skill. Further, the minimum grade requirements were pitiful. While I wont deny that my kid would love to play a sport in college, academics are first.

@Goatmama, sounds like you know way more about how the V-Ball recruiting works than all of us, but I would suggest, if Goatkid is playing at BS and enjoying it, that you see if there’s a way that she can participate in summer clinics with coaches at schools she likes. If V-ball is like many of the other sports (in terms of when coaches start locking down the players they like), if you do that this summer and/or next, she’ll be on the everyone’s radar. It may be harder than you think for her to play with a local club, but that’s something you can check out at re-visit days. (The logistics of getting to and from practices and tournaments, especially with Saturday classes, can torpedo the best of plans.)

With that said, I’d think that with her academic abilities and athletic prowess, she will probably be of great interest to a number schools, especially D3. (You know, the schools everyone on the college boards is trying to figure out how to get into!) As you’ve already worked out, this is a different path to a different destination. Same general direction, but not the same place.

Looking forward to hearing which lucky school gets her.

@gardenstategal Great ideas, thanks! Very helpful and will keep in mind during revisits. I’ll also make sure to ask the NCAA scout about summer camps.

Our current club has almost weekly visits by college coaches, and she may remain involved during summer and other school breaks. Short-term high-intensity clinics while she is home may be helpful to maintain and improve technique (provided she stays in shape in BS… some of her application essays were all about food!!!). Then again, maybe all she wants to do when home is sleep…

@goatmama, the kids on DS’s soccer team who have continued to play club are either day students or boarders who were “recruited” onto the club teams of day students (who had driving parents.) The BS coaches might be able to let you know what the opportunities along those lines are. It’s so different from wanting to take, say… gamelan lessons, which merely require renting an instrument and finding a teacher to show up weekly…

Looking back on this thread, I am so grateful we choose BS over four more years of high-intensity club sport for a potential college athletic scholarship. Although BS hasn’t even started yet, I am certain it was the right decision. With the season almost over - just the Nationals left in a couple of weeks - it hurts to see how emotionally drained, physically spent, and exhausted from travel these 14-15 years olds are. We have done four years of it, and it only gets more intense from here on. I fail to see the benefit of such pigeon-holing so early in life at the expense of all other experiences and talents.

@GoatMama You’ve mentioned that your daughter’s writing has been published and that she has earned many awards for it. Would you mind sending info via PM? My kid loves to write, but we are not aware of any appropriate contests, awards, of places to pursue publication.

@CaliMex, will PM you.