My son is a 10th grader at a large urban high school. He is doing well academically and plays on the JV basketball team. He is a solid basketball player but isn’t going to get scholarship and won’t start on varsity due to size and athletes they have there. Both he and I have grown tired of the extreme time commitments and politics of school sports. Ideally I would like him to do be able to spend more energy on academics and just play on his travel team. My question is how would quitting his school team but playing club ball look on his app? Are club sports looked at as a legitimate EC? I would urge him to replace school ball with something productive like some volunteer hours at a food bank. Also, his club team does travel and has competed in large shoe circuit tournament if that matters.
Of course. Anything not related to schoolwork is by definition an extracurricular; there is no expectation that it must be school-sponsored. If anything, club sports are viewed as more competitive than interscholastic sports.
Does his school team keep seniors on JV? Many schools don’t.
Like the above poster said it is an activity and can be listed on the apps.
I would imagine the way ECs goes for most admission situations is like this. The majority of kids do some ECs. Not all ECs are created equal, but kids do stuff. If you are kid that has virtually no ECs then it could hurt you. On the converse side if one of your ECs is something out of the ordinary and super special it might give you a leg up. For the most part kids all do similar ECs. I highly doubt it comes down to student 1 did the math team and student 2 didn’t, therefore we are going with student 1.
Kids should do the things they like and if they stop liking certain ECs then it is OK to stop doing them.
That is all my opinion.
Trying to imagine the illegitimate EC’s. Plucking limbs from small animals, perhaps?
Since you are in an urban area, are there any places nearby with after school/evening programs to teach kids basketball? Volunteering to help other kids while using your skills at the same time.
Lol I probably deserved that. I guess what I meant to ask is whether the school sports would be held in any higher esteem when listed on an app?
My kid was in the ski club which simply meant…he went skiing once a week all winter long after school. That was one of his ECs…absolutely.
Many kids do club sports because the high school level is not competitive enough (tennis, soccer, skiing).
Absolutely no difference in how they are perceived.
No difference. It’s about engagement. Where I live, many of the more elite athletes play for super competitive club teams (and hope to be recruited). The high school teams are generally very competitive but a step down ftom club and the next tier down from that play in a lively but not as selective rec league. For all but the ones being recruited, it’s simply an activity.
Are you sure the travel team won’t take as much time? How far will he have to travel?
@bopper - yes because I am the club coach :-). We have one 90 minute practice a week along with two optional hour training sessions on Wednesdays and Sunday in addition to the monthly weekend tournament. We also travel twice a year to either Las Vegas and Anaheim for big viewing tournaments and typically during school breaks. Luckily all the parents involved in the team are academically oriented so we are all on the same page.
@gpo613 Might want to check some of those assumptions, if any of this is about most competitive colleges.
Whether or not club sports are viewed as equivalent isn’t certain. It will be an EC. Legit. We can’t say how much weight it will carry. Make the best choicie for him.
What colleges?
If he can make varsity for his jr year even though he won’t start, I’d advise that, despite the politics involved. That way he shows at least three years of commitment. He can actually quit senior year if it’s that bad. Usually adcoms will see varsity and maybe AAU for basketball, as someone posted above, it’s not like club soccer which is known as the highest levels of competition. That being said, most clubs are shut down during the sports season, i.e. in California anyway, club soccer shuts down during high school soccer season (early Dec to mid-Feb), so you can actually do both.