<p>I'm not sure where to post this because there doesn't seem to be a general forum. For any currently enrolled or recently graduated DI athletes (if you ever come back here), or their parents:</p>
<p>What is your life REALLY like? Are you getting any down time to experience college life? Do you feel like you are in college or do you feel isolated, separated and like you are only going to work everyday?</p>
<p>Do you get to participate in any school functions, attend other of the school's sporting events?</p>
<p>Are you happy or are you miserable?</p>
<p>How is managing your workload: fairly seamless or extraordinarily difficult? Do you have to spend every free moment of your time making up work?</p>
<p>Is there faculty support of your participation in sports, or could your professors care less where you are, but only that you are absent and have missed a due date? </p>
<p>Do you have to miss classes for practices, or as a freshman are you able to arrange your schedule around them? If unable to arrange around a class, how is that received by the coach?</p>
<p>How often (and when) do you get to go home?</p>
<p>Even though I realize each student, coach and school will likely differ, any information along these lines would still be helpful to paint a general picture of the life of a DI student-athlete. If anyone is able to respond, please include your school and sport. Thanks.</p>
<p>D is at an Ivy playing a field sport. Something ( workout, meeting or practice) is scheduled 5 days/wk in most of off season, 6 days/wk in season. This thing takes anywhere between 2-4.5 hours including walking time. Never misses class for practice, but sometimes misses them for travel to games. There is no academic support, but she makes TAs/profs aware ahead of time and it hasn’t been a problem. D went to very demanding HS and finds taking 4 classes with syllabi that are followed closely to be quite manageable – not easy by any means, but doable with proper planning and organization. Kid loves the sport, loves being on a team, wouldn’t trade it for anything, but there have been ups and downs like with anything. D also loves the school. A few second guesses? Sure. During one of the down times considered all her options ( quit, transfer, stay the course) and couldn’t imagine liking another school or teammates more than she already does and couldn’t imagine life without the sport, so that was that. There is time to socialize and go to other games ( kid is a sports nut), just not as much as others might have. She hasn’t had much time to come home, but we go to see her. Experiencing college life? That’s a lot of different things to different people, but she would say absolutely yes.</p>
<p>Son is D1 golfer at public university
Definitely his life revolves around golf, it is the sport that misses more class than any other according to the academic advisors.</p>
<p>School functions- probably could occasionally but does not as he is not really interested in doing so, golf or school is where his time is spent.</p>
<p>He has been there 3 years and has been happy, but he wants to continue on and try to pursue professional career.</p>
<p>His college is very academic (A UC) so school is not easy, he breezed thru hs with honors etc and now he has to work hard to get a decent GPA.</p>
<p>Mixture of supportive and pain in the butt teachers, more on the supportive end. He has to be extremely disciplined about speaking with professors early on as they do miss a ton of school. I believe it is 32 school days missed for a starter who plays all events. </p>
<p>The guys get to schedule earlier than general student body so they generally can schedule around practice, however as my son is closer to being done, that is not always the case, he has had to take classes that conflict with practice but since golf is an “individual” sport he can train on his own and his coach has allowed that when needed.</p>
<p>S2 plays soccer for a large state school known for strong academics. He loves everything about it but it takes a lot of discipline and work. My estimate is 50-60 hour weeks during season and 40-50 hour weeks out of season (includes all academic and athletic time). Although the amount of time is manageable, he has to closely watch his diet and sleep because of the intense physical exertion (much, much greater than high school and club soccer)</p>
<p>He’s been able to go to a few games for other sports but it’s very tough during season. Lots of academic support and tutors supplied by the school. Professors have been ok with him missing class or moving assignment deadlines due to travel/games, but practices/lifting/PT are not adequate excuses. Athletes get registration priority so getting classes that don’t conflict with practices has not been a problem.</p>
<p>He generally comes home 2-3 times a year (during long school breaks) but keeps training.</p>
<p>It’s a lot of hard work but most of his teammates love it as well.</p>
<p>From a parent’s perspective, it’s been a major positive and a vital part of his overall education. Learning to put the team before yourself, as well as honing self discipline and time management skills, will be valuable long after he finishes school.</p>
<p>This was my daughter’s first year as a D1 athlete. As a parent, I have to say her year was insanely busy. She is at a small state school in their honors program. </p>
<p>Her sport is year round and she was on the travel team almost all year which meant she had to do a lot of school work ahead of time, including taking exams. She missed at least 12 days of class in the spring.</p>
<p>During the off season (Nov-Jan) the team still practiced and worked out on their own. Her social life revolved around the team and she met a few students in the honors program. Together, they attended other sports events. This is the college experience she wanted for herself and she was happy with her freshman year.</p>
<p>She is a type A person who thrives on being busy and challenged but it does concern me. She wants to go to law school and a high GPA is very important. Organization is key for a student athlete. As well as the ability to speak/negotiate with professors. It shows them your concernmfor their class.</p>
<p>D learned the hard way making freshman mistakes. After returning from a tournament, she learned that her speech class was having impromptu speeches. Of course, she was called that day. Her prof refused her request to postpone and she went on to talk about her sport and received an A. Another time, she didn’t receive full credit for an assignment because she missed an important class. It was a difference between an A and a B on her final grade. </p>
<p>This fall, she will have to practice alone two days a week because of her class schedule. The coach wasn’t thrilled but knew D had no choice.</p>
<p>She came home 3 times this year. Next year, she plans to visit a friend for Thanksgiving instead of coming home and in the summer, she will have an internship OOS for at least a month.</p>
<p>D’s experience seems similar to most of the above. As the old joke says, ‘athletics, academics and social life: pick any two’. But in reality there is time for a social life, but joining extracurricular organizations that may interest you will be difficult.</p>
<p>Also, I think freshmen can get overwhelmed by the demands of school and sport. Sophomores and Juniors know the drill pretty well and seem to be able to handle it without too much stress. But Senior year can be really difficult for spring sport athletes. Grad school/internship/job interviews are usually scheduled on spring weekends and trying to reach that balance between being 100% committed to your sport and planning the whole rest of your life can be a challenge.</p>
<p>D1 D at past National Champion school,academic and athletic powerhouse in football/basketball and her sport…</p>
<p>She enjoyed freshmen life, that included working on the presidential campaign, meeting both the President/ and the major candidates–her coach also met the President thanks to her. She did well taking a 15 hour load and matriculated into her College with a 3.7,she was at practice every day(moreso than the stars who failed to repeat as National Champions)</p>
<p>downside,the coaching staff failed to breed a competitive team, because he pretty much assigned spots on the team versus having the athletes compete for spots, so those with athletic scholarship money athlete can be controlled through the sport, while academic money athletes have a different set of priorities and since my daughter was in that category she didn’t do a lot of NCAA competitions, but she got all the perks. </p>
<p>So it really depends on the program and the competition level------since the sport was important to my daughter she put it into perspective.</p>
<p>Just to add to the wonderful feedback you’ve gotten so far. Oh course you can research all that stuff until you are blue in the face (to reduce risk) but you’ll never be 100% sure it is the right school until they are there. It is going to be a leap of faith at some point. As a parent, you will be swallowing hard the first few months.</p>
<p>There is very little you can do to prepare your son or daughter for college life. This is the part where the little bird leaves the nest. I think every parent worries and hopes their kid makes good decisions and figures it out. There is no syllabus for college life for your son or daughter. You hope and pray they are able to prioritize with what is important.</p>
<p>My (rising senior) son loves where he is, but he’s had his moments of stress which are always academic. College baseball is his release and haven. He enters the clubhouse and it is a different world to him. He really enjoys his teammates and his coaches, but doesn’t necessarily agree with everything they do off the field. He would never say so publically, but that is the bond of a team.</p>
<p>Son’s Ivy has no academic support that isn’t offered to the general student population. Coaches monitor academic progress especially for freshmen (every Friday in the Fall). My son knew engineering and college baseball was going to be a tough road. He’s handled it extremely well, and will graduate on time next Spring. He already has an open ended job offer with presumably more to come in the Fall.</p>
<p>Professors vary in their cooperation, but he has yet to have any serious issue or conflict in 3 years. There is very little down time during the school year. He came home for the summer last week, and it has take him a whole week to get back to normal as he was exhausted from finals week. He seems to be enjoying himself now as he is finally decompressing.</p>
<p>I think you’ll find different answers based on many criteria. The two biggest in my mind are your son or daughters major and the season they play in. I think there is a slight advantage to a winter athlete (hockey, basketball, etc) because you would be playing while school is out for 3 weeks at my son’s school. Every situation is different. I hope that helps.</p>
<p>Thank you all so very much for all of your replies. They are incredibly helpful and thank you for your blunt honesty. </p>
<p>It is a trade-off, and a very personal decision that has to be made with very careful consideration.</p>
<p>I think this thread topic is great for parents and their student athletes who are trying to decide what each division level really means commitment wise. Even those of us who aren’t there yet know DI is very demanding. But to hear the real stories? Well, that is more meaningful and valuable than anything we may think we know, or may speculate about.</p>
<p>I hope any members with a story to tell or insight to give will continue to add onto it.</p>
<p>Also adding, at K1s ivy, like mentioned above, there is no extra anything for the athletes that isn’t available to the regular students…
no tutors etc, no preference on housing, scheduling etc. That would be available at a D!, just not the ivies. </p>
<p>Also K1 doesn’t come home during breaks except for Thx and Christmas. Spring break is training.</p>
<p>I tend to agree with much of the above - Our D is just graduating after playing D1 for 4 years at a large public U and she is very glad she was in a fall sport as she got to at least have a pure student experience for much of her senior year. </p>
<p>I would caution that you are only receiving mostly positive experiences so far - and not responses from the student athletes (or parents) of those that had a miserable (or less than positive) experience. When we look back over the last four years and compare notes with many of her peers that started down the path at the same time there is quite a variety of experiences - many (most?) good, but several not so good. It is a huge commitment and many do not have the skills needed to succeed at being a student (and) althete.</p>