<p>I can try to help. I have a daughter who is an alpine ski racer. Actually I have two who were but one gave it up and the other is now skiing for a college ski team. </p>
<p>Skiing for a college ski team....the answer is going to vary depending WHERE you are thinking of going to college. First, there are divisions. There are conferences in the NCAA and Division 1 there consists of the top ski teams in the country. To be on one of those ski teams, you must be TOPS in the US (or abroad), meaning along the lines of National Championships, Europa Cup, Olympic development team, and other top of the line ski racing experience and you would have to be recruited. Anyone remotely considered for those teams has at least attended a ski academy for high school. There are other divisions as well in that league. There are also divisions in the USCSA and my daughter skis for a Division 1 team in the USCSA (she goes to Brown University). She was NOT recruited. However, a majority of girls on her team attended ski academies for their high school (some were likely recruits) and ALL the girls on the team, including herself, have extensive years of ski racing in their backgrounds. My D did NOT attend a ski academy and only went to public high school though she grew up ski racing since she could walk and raced on the USSA circuit through 11th grade and skied for her varsity high school ski team throughout high school. She trained on weekends through a ski academy but was not a student at the academy and did not ski full time like ski academy kids do. In fact, in high school, it was almost impossible to compete on the USSA circuit and remain competitive if not attending a ski academy. She was competitive on that circuit until high school when the other hardcore skiers on that circuit mostly opted to go to full time ski academies. She was an accomplished racer on the state level for high school varsity racing, however. Anyway, every girl on her college team has a race background and most went to ski academies. While my D was not recruited, once she was admitted to the school, she was able to finally meet with the coach (though had emailed with her during senior year but she refused to meet with my D until she was admitted first). She met with her in April of senior year and tried to find out if she could ski for Brown's varsity ski team because if she could not, she would not have gone there because of her passion for ski racing and not being willing to give it up. She was told that she could and WOULD be on the team. And she was. </p>
<p>In fact, her experience on the team this year surpassed her wildest imagination personally! The team is tops in the east for USCSA Division 1. The rest of her team is like all excellent racers for this level (ski academy kids who did not go onto Div.1 in NCAA). It turns out that she did very well in races. Also two top racers on the team got injured during the season and between her personal improvement (great coaching....brand new coach, not the one she had spoken with when she was a senior in high school) and in fact, she was selected to be on the college team for Eastern Championships which they won and she even was selected to ski Giant Slalom at Nationals for her team (her team was second overall in Nationals, that is how good they are). Again, this is USCSA teams. She LOVED the team and all the experiences with them. It is time consuming but she loves it. </p>
<p>My feeling is that if you do not have a race background, it is going to be hard to make these varsity ski teams (depending on the college). I think most on these teams have racing backgrounds and the level varies a lot but they at least have that. </p>
<p>HOWEVER...what I think is a REALLY good possibility for YOU is this....many schools have a CLUB ski team. These teams also compete against other colleges and anyone can make the team. There are no cuts. There will be kids on these teams with race backgrounds (and who are good racers) as well but there will be some kids who simply love to ski and have skied a lot growing up but maybe not racing. In fact, at Brown, the Boys's ski team is a club team and they go to the same races that my D's varsity team attends. Many of these boys have raced before and some haven't but all have skied before. They have a great time but their team does not place well as a team usually. However, at Eastern Championships and at National Championships, some CLUB teams get to go (examples....Cornell, Penn State, Syracuse, Stanford were all there and those are club teams) but they tend not to be as good as the varsity teams for reasons I've given. But there are SOME excellent racers on some of those teams who opted to go to those colleges and were content with having a club team (like she would have been) so it is not rinky dink by any means. </p>
<p>In my own daughter's case, she simply wanted to keep ski racing in college so she only applied to colleges that had ANY kind of ski team. She was not a recruited ski racer as she is not high up on the USSA circuit and nobody is going to recruit someone from the high school varsity circuit no matter how good (in this sport). But she did not let ski team issues drive her college selection process, and she felt the school just had to have a team, any kind of team. If she had narrowed it to varsity teams, it would have affected her college list way too much (too narrow). It was already narrowed by which schools had any sort of ski team. So, of her 8 schools, 6 had a club team and 2 had varsity teams. On each college visit, she met with the club team captains to find out more about the team and she realized that there would be some kids like her with race backgrounds and some not (which is kinda like the high school racing circuit). She was fine with that. I already explained the situation with Brown and the other varsity team was at Smith and she met with that coach twice and hit it off and was introduced to the team and even went to one of their races and she got to forerun the race (Brown was there too). She was told she could ski for them if she got in and came. She was not recruited but she did meet with the coach to ascertain her chances of skiing there because it mattered to her in her college decision since it was a varsity team and you have to make the team which is not the case with a club team She did get in. In fact, being able to ski varsity for them was quite enticing and added to her interest in the school. (This year at all the races, she raced against Smith and in fact, became friendly with the Smith coach who cheered her on despite her not choosing Smith where she would have been ranked higher on the team than she is on Brown's team, but Smith's team itself is not ranked as high as Brown's....he is a classy coach and I met him at Nationals finally). When she found out she could ski varsity at Brown (at accepted student open house) she was ecstatic because while she was perfectly happy to go to a college that had a club team (such as faves Tufts and Yale), she was even more psyched to get to ski on a varsity team. But even with her race background, she'd have enjoyed a club team and that is where I think you will likely end up. </p>
<p>Which colleges are you interested in and do you know if they have a varsity or club team? Run them by me and I can help you further. I think if an experienced hard core racer like my D was happy to ski for a club team, you could be as well. It is the most appropriate or likely option for you. Racing is not the same as simply skiing. Yes, you have to ski well and carve your turns in free skiing but there is much technique and experience that goes on in the gates and is specific to that. Maybe this year you can do some racing where you live and try it out. Let me know if I can help you further.</p>
<p>Susan</p>