Sports-4 questions.

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

<li><p>Do you need to be good at a sport that the school you are applying to offers? Does it help very much if you are good at a sport, but the school doesn’t offer it and therefore won’t get any benefit from having you on the team? (because there is no team)</p></li>
<li><p>Do you need awards and captainships to get any benefit out of sports?</p></li>
<li><p>How impressive are JV sports? What about bronze medals in small things like regionals (in otherwords, small awards) would they help very much?</p></li>
<li><p>How impressive is a sport that you have done for a long time, but havn’t competed in? (For example, getting a black belt, but winning no awards because there are no significant competitions besides small intra-school ones.)</p></li>
</ol>

<p>I might as well say it, my athletics consist of 3 things.

  1. I like to run long distance. I ran the Chicago Marathon. There are a lot of people and there is no way I even placed near the top.
  2. I’m a 2nd Degree Blackbelt in Tae Kwon Do. I have some small awards (various gold medals)
  3. I run track. I’ve been on the team for 2 years and this will be my 3rd. I was on the JV team, and hopefully I’ll be on the varsity team this year. My best award was a silver (or maybe bronze) medal at the JV regionals. (When I was in 6th grade I won bronze at state but that doesn’t help)</p>

<p>What do you think? Thanks all!</p>

2

<p>If you want to be recruited on the basis of your sport - and expect an admissions edge - then you obviously have to be good at it. The coaches want people who will be potential varsity performers.</p>

<p>If you are a participant, but without significant achievements, then your sporting activities are the same as other EC's --- evidence perhaps that you are well-rounded, and may possibly participate in intramural athletics, but not a real "hook".</p>

3

<p>state champion at a sport is a hook.</p>