@greeny8 I hear you about injuries. My D20 is the gymnast, and spends a lot of time in xray and PT. No wonder she is interested in Exercise Science and PT/PA area. D17 just had her first LAX injury, on the other hand, and doesn’t know how to deal with it. She’s such a whiner! Gymnastics/Cheer seems to be much more dangerous.
@2muchquan - Debate and public speaking are great skills to have for anyone. I didn’t have that opportunity when I was a kid. My S wasn’t interested in S&D in the beginning since he is all about STEM. I convinced him to try it and find an event he is comfortable and no pressure to show any results. Fortunately he found advocacy (CA event) and performed better than expected. Same skills helped him with Robotics outreach and nomination as Dean’s List Finalist. Speech has 10 different events so kids can find some thing they like if that want to try. You should encourage your younger child to look into seriously.
DD does PF debate too, or Congress when her partner is not available. Yes, @srk2017 , it is very difficult for them to even qualify for States. She hasn’t been going there much with varsity swimming and robotics, spending more time on FBLA where she is the president. She just led her chapter to great success at states while doing great herself. I am not sure if college look at the speech/ debate top 3 vs. FBLA competitive/popular events top 3 in the state the same way? Do we have more FBLA kids here?
@SincererLove - Your D leading her FBLA chapter to success is more valuable for colleges than individually qualifying for debate or speech. Kudos to her. In general S&D seems to have more value than FBLA, but it what you achieved probably carries more weight. Our school also has FBLA.
@payn4ward We have a thread in the engineering forum, that touch’s on the different ways to be admitted to a engineering major. TAMU’s “entry-to-a-major (ETAM) process” is discussed, as well as several other colleges.
DS’s summer plans…
At least 6 days a week, he’ll run with his HS cross country team. He’ll spend a week in June at Boys State (Florida), and a week in July, with his cross country teammates, at a camp in Georgia (a chance to run up and down real mountains, in Florida, you’re lucky to find a small hill).
The rest of the summer, he’ll spend volunteering at a local senior citizen retirement home/services center. Over the last two summers, he’s worked with the memory unit (Parkinson’s Specialty Care). He’s also helped put on a summer play for the residents, hopefully, he can do that again this year. Then again, we’re toying with the idea of him working a part time job and fitting that into his schedule.
Otherwise, after a stressful Junior year, he should get a chance to relax and enjoy his summer break. 
Just got a note from youngest’s school. Apparently she’s getting an award of some kind. I texted her in school and she has no idea what it’s about. In any event, it’s going on her applications. Lol.
DD is not a natural public speaker and has never taken any speech/debate classes. She has, quite unexpectedly, gotten exposed to public speaking by her science research. Through her various science fairs during the past couple years, she has gotten more comfortable at presenting her project in various settings: one-on-one judging, judging sessions open to audience, formal poster presentations, classroom of kids for outreach, even one session with a panel of company executives asking her tough questions during Q&A at the end of her presentation (with me sitting in the back sweating bullets!). She is still a little nervous when it comes to public speaking but now her audience does not know it This EC has been a great enrichment opportunity for her.
"Anyone have a Sports kid? "
Sadly, no. I’m the only athletically inclined person in my family (two athletic letters in HS, still play tennis on two teams each week). Older D did equestrian until the coach and much of the rest of the team proved to be bat**** crazy, and younger D did swimming until she got tired of getting up so early for it.
Younger D’s bf plays lacrosse, and older D’s bf plays baseball, so I’m hoping they might decide that it’s not a bad idea to get out in the sunshine and run around, but as the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make her play a sport…
Dd used to be a figure skater until she got so sick and lost her energy. But, in a way, I am glad that she isn’t skating anymore. She has “sticky” elbows and wrists that lock and cramp from how many times she has fallen over the yrs. She broke her foot doing an axel off-ice. She, otoh, misses it dreadfully. She says there is nothing like gliding across the ice and flying through the air. She definitely glows when she is skating. Her heart shines through.
"Anyone have a Sports kid? "
DS did volleyball in 9th (it’s a boys sport too in CA), but he’s not destined to be tall or to jump high. He’s still happy to play vball on the beach with our group of grownups. Before that, he did fencing and loved it, but his birthday is nearly the worst possible birthday; he was always 1-2 years younger than his opponents.
He rides his bike to school most days and some days also to the UC for research. So, that’s 8-12 miles per day. He goes for a 4 mile run occasionally, but nothing official.
It’s Signing day for recruited athletes at his school today. Not sure who we have this year; some in men’s vball for sure. At least one to Stanford vball.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek So sorry that she can’t figure skate despite missing it so much. That must be hard for you and her.
S inherited my side of the family’s genes. Not super sports inclined. He does Tae-Kwon-Do (2nd degree black belt) and plays at golf. But the joke is when my family gets together we all end up reading…together in the same room. That’s our sport. D15 was a competitive skier. She skied varsity in HS and also raced with her club regionally. She can claim she was (and actually still is) nationally and internationally ranked. She is going to college in the southeast where there is poor skiing and really no racing.
I’m a former all-state volleyball player and H played football for one year in college.
Our daughter hates sports. Probably the best day of her life was when I took a deep breath, stepped back and let her quit club volleyball.
@SincererLove – My DS is at FBLA now - he’s doing tech related competitions / tests — Mobile App Dev, Network Design etc. – it is a great experience for him. he won at states last year & placed high at nationals in Chicago in his competition. Congrats to your daughter - being President & competing successful is a lot of effort - the students who do FBLA learn so much - public speaking, problem-solving, teamwork, resilience for to dress professionally and more - very pleased with the program.
I used to do gymnastics and my husband played soccer throughout college. only 1 D does sports (cheerleader) and the other is a champion couch potato. Like @mtrosemom she’s an avid reader (we all are though). She had such potential and tried a plethora of different sports but it just wasn’t her. Oh well.
My current family does not excel at sports. My father was a national champion volleyball player and would no doubt have been in the Olympics had vball been an Olympic sport at the time. Sadly that skill has skipped a few generations.
DS loves sports and he played soccer for years, but he was just okay. He’s a tall kid with huge feet and often looked like a puppy falling over it’s own feet on the field. We realized about the time he was in middle school that he did have a real talent for football, but Max nixed that right out of the gate. DD did quite well in Taekwondo, competing on an international level. But trips over a blade of grass, a talent she inherited from her mother! 
Maybe it’s me, but I just don’t get the whole sports signing day thing.
My D17 used to play basketball. She grew a little early and was a post player; then she stopped growing. Not much call for a 5’6’’ center at the varsity level. She played freshman basketball and one season of AAU where she tried to convert to a wing. But she gave it up. Easy for her to give it up, harder for my wife and me to accept. She gets all her exercise at the hippotherapy center where she works/volunteers. She usually walks 10+ miles on full days there.
My S14 played football for 5 years in grade school and 4 years in high school. We have a big high school, so he struggled to get playing time (8 or so of the juniors and seniors when he was a senior play D1 college football). He still loved it. He does club ultimate frisbee now in college (B team) and that is where he has found most of his friends.
S20 played football for 7 years in grade school and Lax for 6 years in grade school. Even though he is a better natural athlete than S14, he is giving up football for Lax. He has big dreams for Lax, but he’s not even in high school yet. He was one of the go to guys on his football team, but since S14 studies neuroscience in Pittsburgh (and does research on TBI) I guess I should be pleased he won’t play any more football. I played football and I must admit I have mixed feelings that he won’t play anymore.
No sports (genes) here either. I got C/Ds in PE (when grades didn’t matter in stone age and the teachers were honest,) and I was the better one among my siblings.
DS19 got a B in PE in 7th grade, so I told him no more PE beyond mandatory credit as his GPA will take a hit. :))
Since no sports meant a lot of free time when my kids were younger (after they graduated peewee soccer and tadpole swim groups, figure skating lessons, not good enough for any later sports teams,) they did lots of science camps, scouting, music, math club, etc.
DS19 did Destination Imagination, Odyssey of the Mind, First Lego League, & MathCounts competitions. These were his “team sports.”
Both boys will be quite qualified in e-Sports
DS17 made it into Mindcraft Spleef WorldCup for couple of years, and this year he did Moody’s math challenge (although unsuccessful.)
My D is luckily adopted, so she missed out on my sportlessness, and my ugly feet.