<p>Does it matter to them?
Every asian plays tennis, or cross country or something like that. You don't find as many in football, wrestling, lacrosse etc. </p>
<p>Do colleges look at this? I'm thinking about dropping tennis for lacrosse and wrestling (some of you may have seen my other thread) for a change in sports, not to look good to colleges.
But how will this affect me? I'm a junior next year, will they see me as different or wishywashy (can't do anything very good)?</p>
<p>They should because let’s face it, it’s harder to maintain a high GPA while you’re on the varsity football team as opposed to the varsity golf team.</p>
<p>As someone who took up Wrestling after a few years in High School, I think that even if it doesn’t help your application, you’ll get quite a bit out of those sports that you won’t get out of a sport like Tennis.</p>
<p>It’s not going to hurt you. And in my opinion, it will help you far beyond your application.</p>
<p>^yeah, that was another reason 
Want to build some muscle, tennis isn’t exactly the sport for that -_-</p>
<p>You’re going to start a new sport your junior year? What are your chances of making Varsity without having competed in those sports at the JV level? You’re going to be up against guys that have been competing in those sports since they were little kids. </p>
<p>In my opinion, you’re better off sticking with your current sport and moving up to the Varsity level. You’ll have a better chance of showing commitment and dedication. </p>
<p>If you want to start a new sport, do it because you want the experience and not because you think colleges will view one sport above another. Unless you’re good enough to be a recruited athlete, colleges look at your sport EC’s strictly as a way to show dedication, ability to juggle sports with academics, character and leadership skills.</p>
<p>I suggest you stay with your sport - to show commitment.</p>
<p>do what you want to do. Its a sport, not classes. You should play the sports u’ll enjoy the most and not worry about how schools view it</p>
<p>I should hope that they take it into consideration. It seems that by practicing an obscure martial art (or just do something that nobody in the area does, like fencing), it’s incredibly easy to pick up honors, awards, and go to national competitions. On the other hand, sports like running, skiing, cycling and the like require incredible effort for fairly few titles, let alone the chance to compete at the national level. </p>
<p>It strikes me as unfair that a lesser amount of effort in the former should lead to greater merit than more effort in the latter.</p>
<p>The way to impress colleges with your sports is to be an athlete that colleges want to recruit. Consequently, you’ll accomplish more toward your goal by improving your tennis game than by taking up new sports your junior year.</p>
<p>Picking up new sports your junior year just to try to seem to be different in the applicant pool is a silly idea. The few colleges that try to recruit an active student body – places like Harvard – will wonder why you dropped tennis to take up some totally different sports that you haven’t accomplished much with.</p>
<p>You’d be better off following in depth and with high achievements your own interests.</p>
<p>I totally disagree that collleges are only impressed with athletes they want to recruit. Athletics are a major time committment and making varsity is a pretty impressive achievement in most major sports.</p>
<p>If youll be on varsity, I dont know why it would hurt you. There actually is a reasonable chance you could wrestle varsity, for example, if your team is small and you fill a need for a weight.</p>
<p>I’m not doing this simply for colleges. My friends are all doing lacrosse/wrestling, and I’d want to join them. Plus, tennis season sort of sucks because of the coach. And there’s no chance of HS varsity, only 2 graduating (out of 10 total varsity spots), 3 extra freshmen that made JV this year, but sososo very close to varsity (only because the coach didn’t want to kick any of the returning varsity players out of the team). And then you have the incoming HSers.</p>
<p>I’ll be playing varsity lacrosse automatically as a junior, even if I’m just sitting on the bench (or so my friend says).
@MSauce, that’s interesting. I’m 118 lbs right now, though there’s already someone in the 120 weight class. I could easily drop 3 lbs though…</p>
<p>If those are sports you really want to play and you’d prefer playing them to playing tennis, the go for it. Just don’t do it assuming that your participation will make a big difference in your college admissions.</p>
<p>Being an Asian guy who’s mediocre at wrestling/lacrosse (and since you’re starting those so late, I’m assuming you won’t be a standout by the time you apply) isn’t likely to make a difference in your college apps.</p>
<p>
I agree 100%. You can’t live your entire life preparing for your next life stage. Enjoy where you are.</p>
<p>It seems to me that colleges should just see that you are in a sport and appreciate that. It is impossible to make a blanket statement that varsity is impressive and jv isnt. At some schools, you automatically make varsity, while at others there are literally no spots. Thats just the way it is. So I say do what you want, it wont matter that much.</p>
<p>Do they do it by five pound increments where you are? You might end up at 110. I thought I was a reasonably skinny, strong kid when I weighed 158 during Football season, and I ended up dropping to 140 to fill a spot on my team during Wrestling. You can easily lose 4-5 pounds in water weight if you know what you’re doing.</p>