<p>Now, reading my previous post again, I realized that might have sounded like a mental breakdown. But I guess I will just have to thank CC for allowing me this confession. College Confidential is sounding kind of like College-holics Anonymous right now. ;)</p>
<p>Thank you all once again for just being so helpful and supportive!</p>
<p>You may not necessarily be “recruited” to play a sport, but they may want you as a female athlete for the reasons I previously mentioned.</p>
<p>Georgia Tech is a Division I school. They are also one of the top engineering schools. If you can get an athletic full ride scholarship, you should seriously consider it. Think of the 30 hours a week you put into your sport as your work to pay for the degree.</p>
<p>Also, for men (not sure about women), they may be recruited to boost the GPA of the team. Not so much GPA, but they are given so many “under achiever” spots that they must balance with “high performing” students. The school doesn’t care if the high performing student is a bench warmer. The coach just needs to fill the spot.</p>
<p>Other top engineering schools that may also be Division I: Purdue, U of MI, U of IL</p>
<p>Even if it takes you 5 years to get through, if 4 are paid by scholarships, it is not a bad deal. Plus, you get to keep up in your sport.</p>
<p>Hi ellaloo! I do not mind one bit shifting the topic of this thread, it has served its purpose to me and I love sharing my college search experience as it was rather unique I guess.</p>
<p>A few things, first. 1) I’m female. 
2) My particular sport is not recruitable and has no possibility of a “hook” type thing.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t have traded my high school path for anything. For me, pursuing academics in high school would have meant going to private school - in 9th grade one of my friends went to Exeter and I strongly considered applying for a while. But looking back, I am thrilled with my choice. Life is long. There is plenty of time to take classes, acquire knowledge, do research. You have a limited time to be young, live with your parents, and physically be able to pursue sports. I simply view it as a 5 year project I undertook. Bear with me here, but I would even describe it as a career, if you will. Now, I am ready to shift my focus, go after a different type of goal, but I feel that my time in the sport has prepared me incredibly well to do so.</p>
<p>One thing I do want to make clear though - my sport is atypical. I had opportunities through it that I don’t believe are possible in the majority of high school activities, and I think that that is one of the main reasons it was attractive to the colleges I applied to. The key is, that no matter what you do, you need to do it in such a way that you can get out of it if it is not a terminal career path. Specifically, you need to be able to present a respectable college application; you need to convince these schools that you are going to succeed. </p>
<p>If you can do that, if you can get in to MIT, I think Mollie is on the ball when she says “being a “good fit” for MIT is more about wanting to do the things necessary to be an outstanding scientist/engineer, not about being one already.” I did not feel at all out of place at CPW. There is a beautiful array of people at MIT, everyone is interesting, and everyone is different. Since everyone is different, no one is an outsider. Which is awesome. I hung out with an ISEF gold medalist, science fair winners, USAMO qualifiers, talented musicians, and so many more people. </p>
<p>I would be surprised if anyone reasonably outgoing had ANY difficulty making friends at MIT. In fact, I felt more comfortable at MIT than I had in high school or even in an athletic setting. In high school I was known as a great student who did this little activity on the side. At sports events people knew my athletic achievements, but weren’t aware that I actually took rigorous classes, had good scores, etc. About half of me “fit” the mold in both places and got along great. But at MIT I can be a good student (who isn’t, it’s MIT!) AND have something awesome on the side. It’s a given. Everyone is incredibly multifaceted, and friendly.</p>
<p>One thing I will mention, probably the only negative thing I experienced, is that there is some subset of people who think that <em>only</em> STEM achievement in high school should be rewarded in MIT admissions. That school of thought is also prevalent in this forum some places. But honestly, it wasn’t a big deal.</p>
<p>Good luck. Let me know if I can clarify anything, or you want more info.</p>
<p>PS I’m mad sleep deprived from CPW still so, fair warning, this may be incoherent.</p>
<p>Don’t quit a sport prematurely just because you should be spending time in a research lab or in some other academic EC which you feel will be more related to your career. The one exception is if you actually <em>feel</em> that you want to do the academic EC because it is an experience in itself. That is, would it be more emotionally thrilling for you to do the academic EC well than the sport? I was faced with this decision, and for me, I was more interested in the academic EC. I wanted to reach for the stars with one activity rather than just be good at both. </p>
<p>If you feel like you aren’t getting the most you can out of your core classes because of your sport, then that is something else entirely. In that case you are going to have to make your own decision. </p>
<p>If you are actually not getting A’s, then in terms of college admissions, that can hurt you pretty quickly. More than one or two A’s, or non-stellar SAT’s, and you start to seriously handicap yourself at getting into top 10 to 15 schools (unless you are actually recruitable.) MIT does seem to make exceptions for athletes who are intellectual but whose stats have more than a few blemishes, but this is hard to count on because admissions is so tough. But like I said, for a lot of other places, you just shot yourself in the foot by getting B’s. Obviously, there is no strict cut-off, but you get the idea. For instance, I think a candidate with 4 B’s would have a much harder time getting into a school like Duke or Northwestern compared to someone with 2 B’s.</p>
<p>A B+ isn’t the end of the world, either. I currently have a couple B+s in classes that are hard to ace (AP Lit and AP Chem), although I think before this semester I had one or two B+s in the past. But they were in the hardest classes available and were essentially the highest grades in the class, so everything in context :)</p>
<p>Thanks for all of the replies, everyone! I don’t want to give away too much, but all of your responses have been so helpful. I love how you can get all sorts of POV’s that you normally wouldn’t get on here. </p>
<p>@OperaDad: Wow, I really like that point. I guess considering the sport as a job would make a lot of sense. In fact, that would be an extremely well-paid job (considering the price of tuition). I’ll definitely check out the athletic aspect of the schools you mentioned!</p>
<p>@UniCameral2013: Thank you so much for your response and for sharing your story. I definitely won’t be quitting my sport at this point, especially when I’ve put so much into it, but your message reaffirms my hopes. MIT’s clearly not the only school I’m considering, but its message has been the most inspiring out of what I’ve seen. From what I’ve heard from MIT students and the admissions blog, MIT seems to really value diversity, but other people tell me that I would never fit in there. I heard that it’s expected that MIT students hack into their dorms when they forget their key. More wild stories say that everyone’s a math AND science International Olympiad winner who cured 3-7 types of cancer and invents solar powered flying cars in their free time (it makes me feel like a loser who wastes her life…playing a sport?). Thanks again for sharing your experience, it definitely inspires, even if (especially because) it’s not identical to my own. I like how you think about things in life as chapters, and I think that I’ll look upon this chapter in my life fondly as well.</p>
<p>@collegealum314: I definitely agree with you! I probably made my grades sound too horrible. What I mean is that I am generally academically qualified, but my grades aren’t anything to speak about in such a qualified applicant pool (pretty average in comparison). My sport doesn’t interfere with my grades at all, but I do miss out on a lot of things that I wanted to do because of practice. (Oh when I was a freshman, I wanted to do so many things.) I guess either way you gain something, and you lose something. Thanks for sharing your decision!</p>
<p>@luisarose: Thanks for that inspiration! I’ll always regret that B+ in a certain class (especially because it was 0.02% off from the grade cutoff…AND the teacher bumped up someone else’s grade 0.20% off…) but I honestly learned a lot in that class, and don’t regret taking it. I, too, was among the highest grades in the class, but my school only provides straight letter grades (no rankings etc.), so I can only hope that colleges don’t scrutinize things like that too much.</p>
<p>Thank you all again for your responses!</p>