I am seeking opinions on whether my son should try to join varsity tennis.
He came home yesterday from a tennis camp saying he wanted to try out varsity because he wants to play against good players. Some college players told him the best way to play against worthy players is to get on varsity team and stay below top ten. Apparently some of his friends got into Ivy League schools through tennis and tried to stay below top ten to avoid traveling. They put this idea in his head.
My question is even without traveling, how time consuming is it to join varsity? He is Ross preferred and plans to have a CS minor. I have heard CS classes are extremely time consuming. I don’t want him to over commit just because he wants to have some fun. If he joins varsity, can he drop out whenever he want?
there are only 2 hard courses for cs minor (280 and 281) and they are both manageable… tell him to take 183 first semester and 203 and 280 second semester that way he gets one of the harder courses done before the gpa reset.
his schedule should look like this.
First semester
Econ 101 (easy)
EECS 183 (should be easy, if its not dont continue with cs minor)
English 125 (not time consuming)
Math 115 or Some class to fill distributions if he placed out
Second semester
EECS 203 (discrete math…not bad but not too easy)
EECS 280 (harder than 183)
Econ 102 (harder than 101)
Bcom (250?) (preferred admit course)
If he does this schedule he would get most of the hard courses out of the way, and as long as he got above a 3.3 it doesnt matter what his grades are in those classes.
First semester would be decently easy and second would be a bit tougher but still not terrible compared to some majors/courses.
TBH I think tennis is a waste of his time… If he wants to do business he will need extra time for networking and extracurricular clubs, but business and cs minor is a good mix and the above schedule would set him up for a reasonably easy soph-senior year.
Thank you very much for the advice! His first semester classes were already registered. He did exactly like you suggested. He didn’t pick a math class since he had the AP credits, he just chose to take a psych class to fill the distribution requirement. He also has to take a business 101(a new thing for this year’s preferred).
What do you mean GPA reset? The GPA of freshman year does not carry into Ross? So the GPA for Ross recruiting only shows second year onward? That is very interesting! Definitely worth taking 2 CS classes the second semester if that’s the case.
I am going to discourage him trying out for varsity.
I don’t know if discouraging him is the greatest idea either.
If you don’t think it’s a good idea based on the situation, I would just lay out the situation for him and help him to come to a decision on his own.
While it may be very well be a waste of time when it comes to looking for a job post grad, it may be something for him that he doesn’t want to look back in 20 years and say, “I should have/could have played varsity tennis at the University of Michigan and passed it up.”
^very true if thats what he’s looking for… I would bet theres also club tennis as well.
And yes technically your gpa resets after freshman year. I have heard rumors that policy may change, however.
Im sure you could include your freshman gpa on a resume but im not exactly sure if how it shows up on a transcript.
I am assuming you are talking the NCAA Div. 1 men’s tennis team? I am not familiar with tennis specifically, but am guessing they have been recruiting players for a year or two for the coming year. It is likely it is too late to be recruited for the coming year unless I misunderstood and your son is younger. Just something to look at. He might want to look at the club team as they are often quite competitive and may travel less. You also may want to post this in the “athletic recruit” section.
Yes, I am talking about Division #1. He does not think club tennis is competitive enough for him. He did not actively look for recruiting in HS because he was stuck on the Ross dream, not willing to go anywhere else. He is not good enough to be a top ten player in Michigan, but he thinks he might be good enough to make the team. He is a Michigan state boy’s single Allstate player.
Club sports do tend to be very competitive yet less time consuming.
In some sports at some schools, you have to try out to be in club sports and some are cut.
I would not discount that as not competitive enough, depends on the club team at each school.
As far as varsity, I assume by top 10 you mean on the team but not traveling with the team.
Just going to practice with the team, but not make team trips ? Not sure how that works in Tennis,
but will that be satisfying ? Even so, varsity at a major university is so much more competitive than you realize, good luck trying out. It’s a long shot, but why not try, if only to learn where he stands.
If he makes it, your kid is right, if not, club is probably fine for him.
And no offense to anyone, but most varsity players in most sports major in business, economics, poly sci and even less challenging majors. You don’t see engineers, pre-med, science majors on D1 varsity teams for the very reason you say, too demanding with academic requirements. But business school ?
If you son is Preferred Ross, he is smart and can handle the work with time to spare for other things.
The question is what those other things should be, sports or socializing or clubs etc. He wont be able
to do them all, he’ll have to choose. Personal choice. I don’t agree with the comments above that networking and such is so critical. In business, when we interview graduates, most hiring bosses know that D1 varsity athletes are serious organized persons if they managed the workload, got decent grades and stuck with the sport for 4 years. If they got good grades and had other EC activities, that’s fine too. I would not penalize a good student for using their spare time for sports over any other activity.
I think there’s no harm in allowing him to meet w/the coaches and display his talents. They’ll be honest with him about how and if they have a slot for him. I have a good friend who graduated as a mech engineer. He was a pretty good HS footballer and even though he was clearly at UM for the schooling, being away from the game started to get to him. Before his junior year, he approached the football team and pitched himself. They were frank with him – that he’d be very deep on the depth chart and very little resources could be devoted to him but he was welcome to walk onto to the team – even one as established as the Wolverines. In the end, my friend opted not to disrupt his life so dramatically but never regretted asking and was pleased by the polite yet honest reply by the coaches.
Taking EECS 203 and 280 with a varsity sport may be tough. I know the GPA reset is a big plus, but it will only apply if he gets a 3.3 or above to keep his Ross spot, if I am not mistaken. I would recommend spacing out the minor requirements throughout his college career. 1 CS class each semester with a relatively “lighter” course load is the best way to go, IMO.
Tennis is extremely competitive at Michigan. I know someone who was #1 singles in his state in high school and was cut from participating in intramural tennis, which is lower than the club team. Ridiculous, I know. You should ask this question on the University of MIchigan parents’ Facebook group. You’ll get excellent advice there.
I would definitely encourage him to take a look at the club team. Depending on the school and the sport, club teams are often extremely competitive with very talented players. Like I said, I am not familiar with tennis (son plays soccer) but at least in soccer, we found that there are players on the club level teams who are talented enough to make a D1 team but have chosen not to because they didn’t want to make the time commitment. Club sports usually travel less and practice less than an NCAA sport (although can still require a lot of time). The other difference is that while there are no additional costs to the player on an NCAA team (uniforms, travel, food, etc.), club players pay their own expenses. It is worth at least checking into as an option for the D1 team.
I would definitely take 203 and 280 together. The school recommends taking them together. If he is worried about it being too hard just move econ 102 to the next semester and take it P/F and take some distribution course instead. However I think he would be fine if he got a good >3.6 gpa first semster, which he prob would.
The school recommends taking 203 and 280 together because they are are both prerequisites to 281 which is a prerequisite to upper level CS classes, and 280/281 are seen as the prerequisite courses for CS internships. Since OP’s son is doing the minor, and not the major, taking those two classes together is not necessary. There is a little bit of overlap in material (like recursion, some algorithms), but not nearly enough to warrant taking two EECS classes together while a Varsity athlete.
I think you guys are overestimating how hard 203 and 280 are…They are not THAT bad and neither are THAT time consuming…281 is the hard one, so he needs to make his schedule easy when he takes it.
I disagree. 203 is known as being pretty bad, and 280 is very time consuming, especially the projects. People can check the EECS workload surveys to see for themselves. Sure, 280 is not bad compared to many other courses EECS majors may take, but the OP’s son is doing a minor. There is no point in doing it the difficult way and risking his Ross spot.
I kind of talked to him about not trying varsity, but he was stubborn. My husband told me to leave him alone. He probably has no chance of getting on the D1 team.
I am still interested in knowing the GPA reset deal. Is it true only 3 years of Ross’s GPA matters? If so, he might take 2 EECS classes for the second semester if he does well the first semester. He can postpone E102, just taking another distribution class to make it through.