Thanks, I’ve looked into club teams before but they’re pretty far away - and I think their time commitment is probably as rigorous.
Where we live the commitment level for club teams is greater than for the high school teams. They tend to be very demanding and only for those who are quite serious about the sport. It’s also harder to make a club team than a high school team.
We have rec level teams for some sports that are open sign up and just for fun. I would check to see if they have anything like this in your area.
If my kids stuck with things just for the sake of college apps S would still be in Tang Soo Do (got his black belt), D would still be in HS Marching Band and in Girl Scouts. The reality is we all change and grow and the beauty is that we have the opportunity to try new things, especially in our youth. As long as your child is doing something that they truly enjoy, they are golden.
An update: The school musical was last weekend and she was so happy and excited all weekend. The school play (a drama) began rehearsals Monday. She wanted to do the play in the worst way. We talked to the theater head, who said she would still be on track for stage manager even if she did lacrosse, and that he wanted her to do lax; that it would be good for her. He was fine with her missing the drama production; it’s not nearly as big a deal at the school…
So we asked her to at least attend the first day of lax practice, just to make sure of her decision to quit. She went, but she was mad at us and vowed that she would not go back the next day…
…wait for it…
She came home glowing. She LOVES lacrosse. She has a chance to make the varsity team. She got great interaction with the coach, performed really well against the upper classmen (including a senior who was regional player of the year last year - she blocked a bunch of her shots on goal, which really thrilled her) and was beaming and literally dancing around the house.
…
I have whiplash. I have no idea whether she can keep both things up for all four years, but she’s certainly thrilled to be there this year, at least.
@Gatormama what a wonderful and supportive theater head, she is very lucky and what a fabulous outcome all around!!!
@gatormama wow! Sounds great!
@Gatormama awesome news. Just when we think we have our kids figured out …
@Gatormama Well done! You make me chuckle…we’re having a similar quandary in our house…Dance vs Soccer. It’s been very hard on DH. He didn’t want her to give up HS soccer in order to be on the dance team. Unfortunately we don’t have “understanding” coaches, so a choice had to be made. It’s tough!!!
@2019hope So, so tough – all you can do is cross your fingers, try to figure out what they will be caring most about in a few years and hope that’s the direction they opt for now. LOL. If I could actually do these things with any degree of certainty I’d be a day trader.
My biggest disappointment in high school for my three kids is they way everyone is pressured to specialize so early. If you do marching band you can’t do science olympiad or drama, etc. because so many practices and competitions overlap. Some people with great effort make it work but most coaches/directors insist that a child must schedule their life around their activity. Plus at least in my school each activity is done at such a high level that kids have to be really gifted to participate. What ever happened to opportunities to explore different interests? In fairness my kids attend a large public school in a very high pressure and competitive school district.
No athletes here. Both my sons have participated in Science and Academic teams which I’m extremely thankful that there are some alternatives for non athletes.
My daughter’s school is really small – ~75 kids per grade. So they are desperate for warm bodies to fill out the sports teams. I think that had a lot to do with the theater head’s willingness to “share.” 
In general I think we are pretty lucky at our school with support for multiple activities. If the child is especially gifted at a sport or in a key role for drama or music then it can be hard but typically they try to make it work. Scheduling is the driving factor most of the time and they really don’t have a lot of say on it. I have a harder time with club sports not allowing/wanting the kids to participate in their HS sports, that really bothers me when it happens.
The team has its first scrimmage tonight against another school. D is going with the varsity team. Gulp. Could be the nightmare-awesome scenario I envisioned.
Loved your story, @Gatormama! These 15-year-olds don’t always know what they want, do they? And they certainly don’t want to be told that they don’t know what they want, either! Hope the scrimmage went well.
Great news for our state. My state which is currently on a 7 point rating scale is going to a 10 point rating scale to be able to compete with most of the surrounding states making our students more competitive for scholarships.
@carolinamom2boys I just have to ask for an explanation for your post because I have no idea what it means. What is a 7 point scale? What is a 10 point scale? Why does the scale make a difference for scholarships? And your whole state has the same scale?
If you are talking about grading like A=4.0, then are you switching to A=10.0? Here the grading system is determined by the school system, not the state.
@me29034 Our state has a uniform grading scale for public schools throughout the state. Right now in order to get an A a student needs to get a 93, a B is 85-92, C is 77-84, D 70-76 and anything below a 70 is an F. So if a student gets a 90, that’s a B . In most schools a 90 would be an A. So the student in the school system that gets an A for 90 would have a 4.0, in our state currently it would be 3.0. Their GPA would be lower even though their numeric grade would be the same. So in order to level the playing field for scholarships, our state has decided to revise the rating scale.
@carolinamom2boys Thanks for the explanation. In our system we have 100-93=A=4.0, 92-90= A-=3.7, 89-87=B+=3.3, 86-83=B=3.0, 82-80=B-=2.7, etc., so its sounds like that is similar to what you are moving to. But, like I said, every school does it differently so there is a report that accompanies the transcripts that explains to colleges how the grading system works. I assumed that colleges took that into consideration when evaluating for scholarship purposes.
ETA- weird thing just happened when I posted. It posted a draft version in stead of the final. I just changed it.
@me29034 It certainly makes it confusing , doesn’t it?