Except if you are hoping your child will play their sport in college they usually (not always, but I’d say usually) they would need to be a varsity player as a first year, and in fact, best if a first year starter. College players are in the top 1-5% of all players, so they need to be impact players in high school. With the usual caveats that it is a bit sport dependent (e.g. this probably doesn’t apply to rowing).
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Maybe in run of the mill public high school (which has no ability to recruit) but there are almost no freshmen on any of the prep school boys’ teams in ice hockey, lacrosse, basketball or football in Founders League. If they are on the roster at all they are not starters, they may get some playing time in a blow out game, that’s it. With girls it is slightly more common but still pretty unusual. Even local catholic schools that send a lot of kids to D1 programs have them play JV first two years with few exceptions for sophomores. There is too big of difference between 14 and 19 yo boy physically that you can’t really make up with talent.
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I totally defer to your superior knowledge of those sports; my sons’ sport was soccer, and in soccer there are absolutely freshmen starters on prep school teams, and those happen to be the kids that go on to play in college.
Agree that some schools that are national powerhouses in their sport do a huge amount of recruiting and are a different kettle of fish entirely. Those schools have all/most of the players on the team continue playing in college.
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I think it is definitely school and sport dependent, but IME a lot of the schools are taking an easy way out and instead of developing freshmen they take repeat juniors or sophomores, plus PGs. This has been the case even for soccer at our school. So even if you sit on the bench for two years you may not play if they recruit someone above you. And organizing all you need to develop in the meantime (club, split season team or other out of season training) can be very challenging and costly, especially if you live far away. So I am just saying do your homework if this is a big part of why you want a boarding school. The fact they have a great team does not necessarily mean it’s the best place for you.
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@417WHB what would you call ‘sink or swim’ schools?
Schools where you are expected to hit the ground running and figure things out without much if any handholding. People are there to answer questions and provide help but you are expected to seek out the help if you need it and advocate for your needs in general. If you don’t, nothing is done till problems get serious, academic or otherwise, at which point it is much more challenging to change course. It can be something as basic as the course placement. At some schools the advisors reach out to the teachers to see if you are doing well before the deadline to change classes/drop a level and discussion is had about what to do. At others it is entirely up to you to realize you are above your head and should drop down. While some kids are mature enough to do this right away many are not. But it goes beyond academics also just checking on kids in general and making sure they are on top of things, looking healthy, making social connections and adjusting to boarding school life. Some of it is luck of the draw as some advisors are definitely more proactive than others, but general culture of the school plays a big part in it. And that includes when/if to bring in parents, or how to respond to parent queries. At some schools parents are viewed more as partners but sink or swim schools tend to keep parents at arm’s length as much as they possibly can. There are pluses and minuses to both but for younger kids more nurturing approach is usually preferable.
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