My child will become a new sophomore at boarding school in just a few weeks. I know that many students go back early to begin practices for their fall varsity sport. However, since my child is a new student and is required to play a team sport in the fall, will she pick her sport once she gets to school?Since she is not playing a varsity fall sport, will she have to try out for a jv sport that she has never played before? Or are there no tryouts for jv? There has been no mention of the jv sports in any of the emails I have received from the school, they only talk about the varsity athletes arriving at school early.
Without knowing the specifics of the situation, I would assume she will find out the process once she gets to campus. The only new students that need to arrive early for sports are generally those that have been invited. no invitation - no need to get there early (and not an option anyway). But it’s certainly a question that she can email to ask.
This varies from school to school. At ours, varsity prospects from prior seasons were invited to preseason practices. In some cases, new students who were varsity prospects might have been invited too but that wasn’t a given. On the first day/week of class, tryouts were held and team rosters were posted. Some preseason kids did not make varsity, some new kids did. Some kids made jv or a freshman team, others did developmental (instructional) play. I believe that placement for all was determined by the tryout. Some sports had as many as 4 levels of play, others 1. In any case, your D should know which fall sport interests her (whether she has played before or not.)
Ime, schools that mandate play really want it to be a positive experience so regardless of the sport, how team placement is done, and her experience, it probably will be more fun than stressful.
Yes, she will pick her sport once she gets to school. She will have teammates that also haven’t played the sport much, if she hasn’t. Whether there are tryouts for JV depends on whether there is a third team (if there is, then yes) or if there are too many kids for the JV team but not enough for a third team. If that happens, she’ll find another sport. It will all work out.