Junior D is thinking about dropping her V sport (not a recruited athlete) next year and instead taking an additional AP class her senior year. Her schedule would be:
AP Calc AB
AP Stats
AP Gov
AP Lit
AP Art History (instead of V sport)
Student Government
(she is taking Physics college course in summer before senior year)
My concern is that she has played her sport for the last 10 years, year round, and will be an EC and likely one of her essay topics on leadership, commitment, etc.
Do colleges care if you played your HS sport 4 years vs. 3 years?
If it wasn’t for this class, would she continue to play? Is she a bench sitter or true participant? A possible captain? i thnk she has to decide, but there will be plenty of oppotunities to take academic classes in college, but not the chance to be a senior in the sport you have played for 10 years. If she is done with the sport, that would be different.
I can understand the desire to drop the sport class , especially if the AP is weighted and this would benefit her. Can she continue to play her sport and not be in the class? My DD18 dropped Volleyball class after the season (had to be in class to be on team) in order to drop an unweighted 100 off her schedule. She had 5 AP classes already so the extra time was actually a bonus. She participated in Track without being in class and that was not an issue as she just practiced after school. It really depends on the school as far as what they allow. If she still wants to play I would explore the alternatives if any.
@thumper1 "Why does she need to take AP Art History? "
She doesn’t really need another AP, she just wants to take it as she thinks its an interesting elective. I think she is burnt out on her sport, will be only be 1 of 2 seniors left on the team (i.e. her teammates she is very close with will be graduating this year).
I hear you about the commitment/dedication comment. I don’t know what she will write in her essays but when you play a sport year round since you were 5YO until you are 17YO, I think there is a personal story about sacrifice and all of the hours to excel at her sport over the years that may give AO insight into who she is? No?
For a non-recruited athlete? No, provided that it is replaced with another EC or the time is spent putting additional hours into an existing EC. To drop it to concentrate on academics strikes me as a little too one-dimensional. But it also depends on the colleges she is targeting and what her major/career plans are. Personally, I think statistics and/or art history are better taken in college.
Yeah, I gotta agree with @thumper1 on this one. If she opts to drop the sport, fine and dandy. But it’s a bit disingenuous to make an essay about her sport.
I’m not sure how she can really work this to her advantage. “I was really dedicated for 12 years round the clock, was an effective leader, and then I got burnt out.”
Don't write the essay about sports. Even if she's done the sport since she was in the womb. Waaay to common an essay topic. She'll be one of thousands writing about sports. She should pick something unique to her. See the threads on CC about a student writing about thrifting, and another about a music business.
Yes, it's fine to drop the sport. If she's not playing it in college, it's not important.
@mom2and “f it wasn’t for this class, would she continue to play? Is she a bench sitter or true participant? A possible captain? i thnk she has to decide, but there will be plenty of oppotunities to take academic classes in college, but not the chance to be a senior in the sport you have played for 10 years. If she is done with the sport, that would be different.”
The AP class isn’t critical to her, just something she would take to round out her schedule if she didn’t play the sport. In her sport she is a starting pitcher but they have other pitchers as well they can use if she quits senior year. Her team does not give out “Captain” positions. Lastly, the team is not very good, many players drop the sport after sophomore year (HS requires gym / PE class thru 10th grade).
I really think she is done with her sport and I just wanted to get your collective wisdom if there was a compelling reason to encourage her to stay on the team through senior year?
I’m with the consensus. The typical answer is that it is fine for a non-recruited athlete to drop a sport if he/she has other meaningful ECs. However, if the plan is to highlight the participation/leadership/commitment to the sport throughout the application then she should stick with it senior year. And I don’t see AP Art History as a class that will move the needle on any admissions decision.
FWIW I’d say that any applicant should stick with any EC a he/she plans to particularly highlight in an application during senior year – the fact that it is a varsity sport is not really the important thing.
I don’t understand why she’d need to drop the sport to take an academic class. Does the soccer team practice during the Art history period?
Don’t know what kind of schools she’s applying to, but many have a limit on AP classes they will give credit for.
The AOs will read dozens of essays that say very important and I’ve been playing soccer/baseball/football/lacrosse since age 5, but who stayed through senior year, became a captain, earned scholar athlete awards. If she really doesn’t like the sport anymore or doesn’t want to play without the older kids, that’s her choice but it’s going to be hard to explain why something that was so important to her suddenly wasn’t important anymore
My vote is to let her drop it - she’s done. She doesn’t need to explain why she dropped it; they won’t care. Either way, her essay should be about something other than sports.
I guess the hard part for me is that she has put in 1,000 of hours into her sport for many years, week in, week out and to just walk away senior year and not mention it when applying to college just seems strange to me. She is very competitive, athletic, team player, and leader in many ways, I thought she could weave this into her personal story of who she is and what strengths and skills she would bring to the college campus but maybe she needs to go in a different direction with her essays?
btw - someone asked which colleges she likely would apply to: several of the UCs, CPSLO, UW(seattle), a few private universities in-state and OOS. I lot depends on her ACT scores this fall.
Can she talk about those qualities that she possesses and use sports as just one example? Soooo many students have put in thousands of hours into a sport. Instead of writing about what she has done, write about who she is.
@mathmom “I don’t think she needs to take AP Stats and AP Calc.”
Thanks for the feedback. I think she likes to challenge herself and so far has been able to handle a fairly rigorous course load. Her HS offers 16 AP classes and wants to make sure she takes as many APs as possible. She will have taken 10 by the time she graduates.
She may also change her mind when she attends the senior ceremonies this year, sees all her friends get the awards, knows she will be a captain next year. It’s all a big deal. It’s fun to be Queen for a Day.
If she doesn’t play senior year, at the last game of her junior year, it will END. Often with a loss in the playoffs. And 11 years is over just like that. All her senior friends will have been feted, walked across the field with their parents on senior day, been given flowers, had posters made by teammates and tied up with balloons.
You might think those things aren’t important, and they may not be to you or your daughter, but just be prepared for an enormous let down when that last game is over.
Can she continue to play the sport recreationally or on a club team? Could the essay be about why she decided to walk away from the sport (with a positive spin of course!)?
I get where your daughter is coming from. I have a child who plays a sport that our high school is just lousy at. She’s played competitively elsewhere (club) and isn’t motivated by losing game after game at school. There are only 3 seniors left on the varsity team and I now completely understand the high attrition rate. She loves this sport and has spent a lot of time (and our money!) on it, but I don’t see her staying with it through all four years of high school as sometimes these things just aren’t worth it.
I think the strategy of taking AP courses for the sake of taking AP courses is a flawed one. It’s not an arms race where the one with the most APs wins. The point is following a course progression that makes sense.As an exampleof what colleges say:
If she wants to demonstrate leadership then I would have her continue the sport. Leadership is stepping up when times are tough and everyone else is quitting.
I also agree with mathmom about the reasoning behind taking both calculus and statistics (and, personally, I would place a great deal of weight into the math opinions of someone whose user name is mathmom). At both DD’s former and current high schools, the counselors meet with the students to determine their future goals and have them take one or the other. They encourage the math and engineers to take calculus and the others to take stat. FWIW, both her former and current school are national known for rigor.
My daughter is a current senior. She plays volleyball and has since she was little. She wanted to quit this year. Coach told all of the seniors this summer that they won’t play much (he is distracted by the tall underclassmen!) She and her friends lamented over quitting or staying.
She realized that this is the last time she will play a varsity sport. The last (and only) time to be honored on “Senior Night” The last time to be the first ones to load the bus as seniors. The last time to get to sing the school song on the court.
Mine didn’t quit and she is having a great time as a senior (even though she doesn’t play very much)