<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>I have a dilemma concerning sports. I'm currently doing varsity swimming, but the season just started so I can still switch. I'm thinking of joining JV winter track because I like running, but am not good enough to make varsity.</p>
<p>There seems to be a huge difference between JV and varsity in college's eyes. Do selective (ivy league) colleges really not care at all about JV? It just seems odd that they would write off something so time-consuming as unimportant.</p>
<p>As long as you put the hours in (which I don't know if you would do if you ran JV, but I play tennis and there's no difference between hours for JV vs Varsity) I don't think it matters unless you're trying to get recruited. Though this is just what I think, I don't know how correct it is, but it seems to make sense.</p>
<p>if you care about college admissions stick with swimming. putting JV on an EC list makes you look like a loser. it also doesn't look good to quit a sport.</p>
<p>Spazzity - from two seasons of running XC I have about 250 hours. The JV and Varsity train together, but run different workouts.</p>
<p>ChoklitRain- Varsity XC team is only the top 7 people, everyone else is JV. Do you think colleges know this is the case for running or they won't take it into account?</p>
<p>Putting JV does not make you look like a loser in the least. For most sports, JV is just as much of a time commitment as varsity. </p>
<p>Of course, colleges are looking for excellence in some area, so if you're on all JV sports teams, that may not be such a good thing.</p>
<p>Actually, now that I think about it, I think that all schools differentiate between JV/Varsity that way. So I assume that colleges would know.</p>
<p>Though you also have to take "passion" into account, if you hate swimming but love running, it may be better to just run instead.</p>
<p>OK, I guess I'll stick with Varsity Swimming. I've heard if we do XC for 4 years the coach also gives varsity - so that might mean 2 letters. In the grand scheme of things, how does varsity compare to other things one might put on an app? I mean, how helpful is it?</p>
<p>colleges enjoy consistency of activities, primarily over level.</p>
<p>it shows commitment of one's self, so stick with it</p>
<p>stick to swimming. most people who join track/xcountry just do it because it is easy to get on the team (most schools)</p>