<p>I am a junior and I was on the varsity men's volleyball team in freshman and sophomore year. This year, there are a lot of good incoming freshman and I think I will be bumped down to JV. Theoretically speaking, if I play midway through the season but decide to quit to focus on school, can I still put on my college application that I played 1 year JV and 2 years varsity? </p>
<p>After all, by the time senior year comes around, I will not be playing volleyball because it is a spring sport and by then I will have already applied for college.</p>
<p>Note: I am only playing for the E.C. not to be recruited to college.</p>
<p>Alright, what do you think is the bare minimum I can stay before I quit and have it count? I don’t really want to spend too much of my study time if I’m just going to play on JV. I hope I don’t sound too underachieving right now.</p>
<p>If you quit, you really shouldn’t put it on your application at all. </p>
<p>If you don’t want to play - just DON’T. You are hurting your teammates by trying out and then quitting, and you are hurting the kid that got cut in order to keep you on the team. </p>
<p>You can quit and put it on. No one checks. Why? Because unless you a recruit or really really good (you wouldn’t be quitting anyway . . . ) the college could care less. There are 15,000 volleyball captains in 15,000 high schools. It really doesn’t matter one bit.</p>
<p>My position is that you should be glass half-empty, glass half-full. If you feel like you phoned it in and quit early because you didn’t have any serious ambition, then don’t use it. If you put in a solid effort only to realize it wasn’t something for you, that’s a learning experience that you’ve benefitted from which is as valid as any other activity you stick with. </p>
<p>Of course, you can learn something about yourself from anything. You can join the skydiving club only to go to the first meeting and say “Um no not for me” - but that’s not the same as participating.</p>
<p>Did you provide anything of value along the way to others? Did you learn all you could about the activity before deciding it was not for you? If your glass is half-full, there’s something to be said to that, and as long as you could feel comfortable discussing why or why not it worked out for you, I think it would be a valid addition to your application.</p>
<p>I would absolutely not put it on your college applications if you quit the team. Guidance counselors will verify EC’s sometimes and I seriously doubt they would have a record of you being on the team, if you quit. </p>
<p>thanks everyone I will keep all that in mind. Just wondering, on the college app does 3 years varsity look better than 2 years varsity and 1 year JV? I mean if I’m not trying to play in college, it still shows commitment even though the skill level might differ.</p>
<p>Hmm, are you sure that you’ll be bumped down to JV? I mean, you might be able to stay on varsity. I know some coaches don’t really care about seniority (mine sure doesn’t) but I feel like he or she still wouldn’t move you just to make room for some newcomers. If you’re absolutely positive that your coach will make you play JV from now on, then maybe you could leave playing volleyball as a junior off your application altogether, and then just say that you played varsity for your first two years of high school before stopping to focus on schoolwork. </p>
<p>My friend has a somewhat similar story. She was a high jumper but quit right after midyear reports were sent out senior year since she hated it. On her college apps, she wrote that she did four years of track even though she technically only did three, since the season is in the spring. Still got into Caltech.</p>
<p>@Coriander23 I probably don’t have a good chance of making varsity this year because these freshman all play for good clubs and I haven’t really played much since last year. So basically the admissions offices didn’t really check the validity of your friend’s E.C.'s huh.</p>
<p>Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. It’s all chance.</p>
<p>There’s one thing for sure however: a student who has mediocre extracurriculars has far better chances of admissions that a student with great extracurriculars who has been caught with either (1) inflating his/her own position or (2) blatantly lying about their position. This is because once one extracurricular is called in question, the entirety of the CA is called into question, similar to the scenario when a student is caught with post-9th grade cheating.</p>
<p>P.S The difference between 3 Varsity years and 2 Varsity and One JV year is so minuscule, there’s no point in even “stretching the truth” about it. Even spending a week volunteering somewhere would have a bigger impact on your application.</p>
<p>You get into great colleges by doing something so amazing that others can’t fathom how you managed to do it. The same idea applies for your career, your relationships, your overall life. Don’t worry about the little stuff - it doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>There are all sorts of sanctioned/rec/club sports. Of course you can pick up something new and that’s a great thing. How about track, or Ultimate? You should be thinking about how you will feel not playing a sport. Good because of all the free time to study? Bad, because of not getting the exercise and socializing that comes with team sports? Is volleyball unpleasant for you if you sit on bench a lot? Or do you enjoy the camaraderie and practices despite that? Is prospect of being on JV humiliating? Do you have friends on that team so that you might have fun there anyway? You might get more playing time and end up liking it. Never mind college apps.Think about how these decisions affect your quality of life right now. </p>
<p>+/- one season sport or getting downgraded a team level or switching sports middle of HS is not going to be such a big deal on the apps all by itself.</p>
<p>So I’m officially on the JV volleyball team now, so what I’m going to do is quit after around a month in order to have more time for my junior year work load and NHS. </p>
<p>On my common app next year I’m going to put
Activity: High School Volleyball,
check off 3 years,
14 hours per week, 35 weeks per year
and then in write in Positions Held: 1 year JV, 2 years Varsity.</p>
<p>I really wouldn’t do it. First of all it really won’t make a difference in the eyes of admissions officers if you add that last year. Secondly, in the off chance they do a verification on your app you could be rescinded (a person in my school got rescinded from a top 5 school last year because they said they were an active member of a certain club when they really just signed up and didn’t get involved, which seems kind of like what you’re thinking of doing). And finally, wouldn’t it eat you up inside if you stretched the truth even a little on your app that got you into college?
You don’t have to take my advice but basically I think you should either not quit, or don’t put it on your app.</p>
<p>Follow up: I made the last spot on varsity and am planning to stay the whole season. I am still planning on putting 4 years varsity on my app even though I probably won’t play next year.</p>