College sports is an activity that the student loves or wants to do just like robotics, debate or theater. I would equate it to a part time job OR the time commitment of any passion or serious interest.
My D will enter her freshman year this fall and will be playing a winter sport, she has already been sent workout and training required for the summer. It is pretty impossible for her to do the required training and work 40 hours a week, unless that is all she does. There have been weeks when she has had no choice, but she get very tired and stressed. I suspect once she gets to school, training will be her PT job. I would like her to earn her own spending money, but am expecting that she will be making withdrawals from the bank of Mom and Dad this upcoming year, once she depletes the money she has saved. I do not know if she is lucky we can help her out or if that is the norm, but I feel for the kid whose parents cannot help. And as others have said, playing her sport helps her destress.
I agree with OP, just go in with eyes wide open, ask a lot of questions of the coach and teammates, do those OVs (so helpful) and be sure athlete is a fit both academically and athletically. Nothing worse than going into a program and not performing well for the team. It messes with your confidence and affects your stress and anxiety for academics. Many times, training with a HS or even Club coach is very different from the college coach’s way of training and can lead to over worked athletes and sometimes injury. My son really wanted to do D1 and was a fit for lower tier 1 programs. Even at that level, it’s tough and he can’t hold a p/t job because of the demands of school and sport.
As I said my daughter was lucky enough to not have to work while in school and playing her sport because of the scholarship money, but several of her teammates did hold jobs. Some worked for the athletic dept in work study jobs but others continued their high school jobs at supermarkets, restaurants, etc. One of her teammates became an RA for second year. My daughter did babysit and other jobs near campus but no big bucks. She did work for a prof her final semester, when she was in season too. She really liked it and wished she would have worked during the school year in other semesters.
Every summer she had work out requirements and she did them all (at altitude while her school is at sea level). Some kids returned to campus not in shape. That was between them and the coach. My daughter has now graduated, and she’s still working out 2 hours per day. She likes it.
College athletics provide many positives: instant community that “gets” you, support, sense of purpose, structure for time management but if the kid struggled with this in HS in keeping academics at competitive level then I’d say pass on this experience. Being a student athlete at college isn’t for everyone and is certainly a huge step up from any HS comittment. For those who can manage it; time commitment, scheduling, pure exhaustion, it’s a big plus and provides huge life skills going forward into a professional realm. Nothing wrong with admitting you aren’t up for the course as a college athlete. It’s not for everyone…
I agree totally with @tonymom
My boys have gained so much more from their college athletic experience than they have lost
They both did work part time, just a few hours a week for spending money. Granted it was D3
Their conference, the NESCAC, does a great job with limiting the practice times so not to over burden the student athletes. My oldest had a few job and internship interviews specifically because he was a collegiate athlete.
In their sport, their time commitment has actually decreased. For them no more going to swim at 5 am and back in the pool at 3. Yes, they still might double but the hours are much better. The structure has prepared them for life after college
Playing a sport and having top grades can be accomplished. Not playing a sport or playing JV, does not equate to a bump in test scores or GPA. For many I would argue the opposite. These student athletes are so structured and have such small windows they get their studying done in a timely fashion and still are tops academically. All of these top academic schools are filled with these type of students.
But to each their own
@planit: While I mostly agree with your post #9, I can think of a few parents outside of the sport my daughter plays who were quite deluded about their kids’ chances…even through maybe freshman or sophomore year of HS?
@Center: I think the AP vs. sports is a bit of a false equivalency. Because the amount of time/money put into sports at a high level is far beyond taking one additional AP class. FWIW, I would not encourage anyone (my own kids included) to take X number of AP classes with the sole purpose of trying “to enhance their chances of admissions” either.
OP I understand where you are coming from and yes parents/athletes must be aware of the sacrifices student athletes must make.
Our D is competing at a D1 school and athletics has definitely been a positive for her. In high school she could not imagine sports not being part of her life and she was fortunate enough to be recruited in order to continue her love. She has made great friends, gets priority when registering for classes and has an academic advisor who walks her through the class sign-up each semester. Additionally they offer career advice, internship opportunities and other academic support that is only available to athletes. It is a full-time job and she has to organize and prioritize, but, for her college athletics has only enhanced her college experience. I will say that the spring semester GPA, when she competes, tends to be a bit lower but totally worth it in her opinion.
Even at D3, the off season training can be substantial, though for many of these kids, that is what keeps them grounded and sane and is a welcome responsibility, not a burden. For my D3 soccer player, there is off-season lifting and speed work, and then a spring season, with practices plus lifting and speed work. They are encouraged to do indoor soccer during the off season if their class schedule permits, though it is not “mandatory,” and they are supposed to be playing and conditioning during the summer. For D1, we always heard it was the equivalent commitment of a full time job 35+ hours per week, when you include film work, game travel, training, etc.
There are parents who think the huge sacrifices they make, in terms of time and money, will translate into an athletic scholarship. But in my experience, those tend to be parents of kids younger than 15 or so, at least in soccer, who haven’t gotten deep into recruiting. They haven’t realized yet that D1 soccer has the equivalency of less than 10 scholarships to spread around a roster of 30 guys so that soccer is not going to pay the whole bill. Or don’t realize that D3 – which may offer merit money but never athletic scholarships – may be the better balance for their kid, and that academic achievement can help open up options because their kid will be an “easier” admit or may be eligible for more merit.
Most of the people on this board are already in the process and understand the parameters. And of course, we were able to navigate my kid’s recruiting process relatively smoothly precisely because of the experience of posters here who had shared their sport specific experiences.
Haven’t read the whole thread. Definitely pros and cons to both. As a parent of a very good (not great) FL baseball player (HS), I can simply tell you how sad it is to watch and listen to kids focus so much time on athletics for the purpose of getting recruited , resulting in attending no name colleges in the middle of nowhere. They’re in programs that get very little attention and their schools (I’m sure they’re fine) are not ones that will catch a corporate recruiter’s eye.
Attended many team meeting where coach would make a point of saying, “Every player on this team can play in college , just a matter of where. Some will be able to stay in FL, others will have to go up north, but you can all play.” He wasn’t far from true. A high percentage of the starters could easily have played (and many chose to do just that). More than a few went to JuCos somewhere in the midwest (playing at a FL Juco is very challenging as it’s a feeder to the MLB draft). Almost all of them are back home, transferring to local state U, etc.
At some point, these kids need to realize it’s time to focus on their future in the real world.
@rickle1: I think your point about kids attending “no name” schools because they were recruited there is a good one. However, I think it can be both a pro and a con. A con if the school is academically lower than where kid may have been able to get into if sports were not a factor. A pro because I think it sort of takes the focus off going to the handful of “name” schools that everyone on CC is trying to get into.
@SevenDad in defense of @center, as you know the student athletes are told to take the most challenging courses in high school if they want to be recruited into the elite schools. Taking easy classes and getting good grades, especially in sports like fencing will not increase their chances of admissions. One of the Ivy coach told an all A student that more APs and honor classes should be taken to show they can handle the work before he can consider them for admission.
I would agree that the vast majority of parents on this site are pretty savvy in terms of understanding the cost/benefits (money, time and opportunity) of pursuing high level competitive sports pre-college in order to obtain scholarship money and/or an admissions edge. What has frustrated me through the years is trying to open the eyes of the parents of some of my kids’ teammates. If they were looking for a financial return in terms of scholarship money, they would have been better off banking the team fee’s, travel costs, unpaid vacation time and private coaching fees (and maybe applying some of the time and money to academic tutoring). On top of this, for many of these families, their single minded pursuit of the sport left their kids ill prepared for college. The vast majority of my kids’ teammates (HS and travel ball) who even got partial scholarships were out of school within a couple of years because they could not hack the rigors of academics and sports.
I am convinced besides not applying rational thought, many of these parents were injecting their own ego and were trying to relive their “glory days” through their kids. The youth sports business clearly fans this. While most travel teams and their coaches are “good people”, as parents we have to understand that paid travel teams are a business. They have an interest in keeping your kid on the team and they have an interest in filling the pipeline for future teams. They can be a good resource for recruiting, but it would be very rare for the coach/organization to give any consideration to “academic fit”. They are looking first for the high profile schools and then to feed whatever pipeline they may have established with lesser schools. As parents, we have to drive the decision to find the optimal school in terms of both athletic and academic fit.
@starwars1: My point to Center was that his/her equating doing sports to taking APs as a means of enhancing their chances of admissions is not necessarily apples to apples. And even if it is, I don’t know that I’d recommend “maxing out” on APs solely as an attempt to make a difference in admissions…there are plenty of kids who did as many APs as possible and ended up at the same school as others who did not.
FWIW, having been through the process with one of my kids, I agree that the coaches at the more selective fencing schools expect the kids to take a hard course schedule — and to get good grades regardless. I was not recommending taking a light schedule for prospective athletes (or anyone else for that matter). In fact, when we were considering high schools for my daughter, I asked an Ivy coach we know if it was better to go to a more rigorous school and get lower grades or go to a less rigorous school and get higher grades…he didn’t even wait for me to finish the question and said “Given the choice, always go to the more rigorous school.”
Here is the thing if you have a kid that is “all-in” for their sport and cannot imagine NOT competing in college then I do not see a problem at all helping them figure it out. Even if they end up at "no name school"at least they had the opportunity to pursue their dream and will not look back and wonder what the road could have been.
Certainly their are many parents trying to live vicariously through their children, but, by the time a kid is a junior/senior in high school the drive must come from the kid… it is just too difficult to do all of the training based on parental pressure IMO. Our D gave up several more academic schools just so she could be in a program that had the best coaching for her sport… no regrets. She can always go to graduate school later.
@SevenDad , my primary point is the only reason these kids attend school X (no name school ) is to play their sport. They would have no interest in attending that same school for academic or other reasons. In most cases, they’ve never heard of that school. So you have a kid going to a school strictly to play ball. Their focus is on the sport (which it really needs to be in many college programs) S/he’s not going pro and probably transfers from that school once they figure out this isn’t what they want. Others stay and get a degree (that parts good) but perhaps at a lesser school in terms of opportunity in their major or part of the country, etc. They would have been better off going to their state U (or higher level academic institution) , getting a good education and moving forward. It just pains me to see how unrealistic both they and their parents are. I get it for the kid, they have a dream. But parents need to know where to step in for guidance.
Let’s face it, if you can’t hit a curve ball (or a 90 mph fast ball) in high school, you’re never going to play meaningful ball in college So what’s the point of going to a no name school, working your tale off to get spotty playing time,e tc when you could have gone to a strong school (for your major) and focused on starting that life (while enjoying intramurals, club, etc.)
My daughter definitely could have gone to a more prestigious school using her sport to get in (teams were not good). She could have gone to a higher ranked instate school using academics to get in, but no team to play on. We looked at schools we’d never heard of, some might have been a good fit and others not so good academically or athletically, but all students have to decide if the free ride at supersmall LAC in Tennessee is better than low instate tuition at huge flagship or if it is worth it to go to a school with a great choir or just the major.
Two of our friends played soccer at Rhodes. I’d never heard of it before, but now know that it’s a pretty good school. Not for my daughter, but for her friends. Some great colleges I’d never heard of before recruited my daughter, like Kenyon and Rollins. Now I love Rollins, but it wasn’t the right school for my daughter at all (love the coach too).
@rickle1 What is wrong with a kid who is a lower level talent going to a school to pursue their sport? Who are any of us to judge whether one college experience is better than another? We know many kids who went to the “right school” and ended up transferring (had a hard time balance academics and fun) or found out that they really wanted to pursue a different major not offered at the school they got into etc. There are life lessons that everyone learns at some point. I will say my D would never have considered the school she is going to but for her sport. Turns out it has been a great fit and she is at the top academically. I am not sure the pressure of the “elite” big name school could have given her the confidence or allowed her the flexibility to really bloom. Just our experience.
^ fair enough. Glad it’s working out for her. What I’m really referring to is the obsessive pursuit of being recruited and watching the dream go from D1 to D2 to D3 to unknown, never heard of school. Spending thousands of dollars every summer playing all the showcases because that’s what you do if you want to play in college. Basically doing nothing but playing baseball (or any sport) your whole life up to that point. At some point, you need to turn your attention to the next phase of your life. At least that’s my approach.
Different strokes…
Many kids choose D3 over D1, so it is not a dream killer to be in a different division. My daughter was in D2 and it was perfect for her. She had offers at the other schools in the other divisions. She did spend a lot of time playing her sport from 8th grade through college, but she’s now walked away. Really unlikely she’ll ever play again. And that’s fine. There are other sports out there that she enjoys.
There is a school out there for everyone. Just because you’ve never heard of a little school in North Carolina doesn’t mean it isn’t a great little school. We looked at some of those little schools and I wanted to go running for the hills the second we pulled into the parking lot, but my kids actually liked them. I just steered them in another direction but honestly I wouldn’t have picked either school my kids picked, but there are a lot of schools I wouldn’t pick for myself that they would have enjoyed.