<p>Hanna is so right. No one spends 1,000 hours on something without strong positive feedback, much less 10,000. A kid who spends 1,000 hours on a sport and can’t get off the bench and into the starting line-up is going to find something else to do in a few years.</p>
<p>It’s hard enough to keep the ones with talent and ability motivated and performing. Sure, when you have two people with similar talent, the one who works twice as hard is going to be much better. But someone without talent willing to work just as hard isn’t going to show up in any study, because he or she is going to wind up working that hard on something else.</p>
<p>I wonder how many of us, had we been Phelp’s mother, would have encouraged our awkward son with ADD to pursue a sport which involves so much attention to detail in terms of refining one’s movements nor so much repetition, ie. hundreds of laps back and forth. IMO, his disability did not predispose him well for a sport like swimming, though I don’t profess to know a lot about the sport.</p>
<p>I suspect the feeling of being in the water may have helped re-set nervous system, helped him focus, screening out a lot of the distractions.
But that is a wild guess.</p>
<p>I understand that martial arts are very helpful and attractive to kids with ADHD, btw: structure, physical energy, outlet, respect, manners, goals, way to handle emotions…</p>
<p>Why should I be addressing this? Probably the same outcome as a pianist or artist who has a debilitating hand injury or a singer who gets throat cancer…</p>
<p>Believe it or not, there are plenty of recruited athletes who have excellent grades. Just like every other applicant.</p>
<p>The Russian/Eastern European model of recruiting elite/Olympic level athletes wouldn’t work in the US and no one here is suggesting that we adopt it. However, there is something to be said for encouraging (not forcing) kids with natural ability/talent to get involved in sports where their natural abilities give them an advantage and working with these kids to develop those talents. That’s exactly what USA Gymnastics does–there are developmental programs where coaches/gyms identify kids with potential and they’re invited to special training programs. These programs are also great for motivating kids. </p>
<p>Sports like gymnastics (with which I’m familiar) require certain physical abilities for a kid to get to the elite levels. Not only physical ability–but mental ability comes into play as well. A kid can practice for hours and hours, but if he/she doesn’t have those natural (physical and mental abilities), he/she won’t make it to the top levels of gymnastics (both artistic and rhythmic gymnastics). IME most kids who have those abilities and want to go on to train for higher levels of participation recognize that natural ability isn’t enough and they’re going to have to spend a great deal of time training. That’s when it becomes a tradeoff and kids who aren’t willing to devote the time or who want to pursue other activities or interests will quit. Parents may want their kids to be superstars, but if the kid’s not willing to make a commitment to training and doesn’t have the natural ability, he/she isn’t going to make it.</p>
I think the “tiger mother” situations show this pretty clearly. Those kids get pretty good at the violin–they’re in the all-state orchestra. But most of them aren’t first-chair, they’re not getting in to top music schools, and they’re not really that good, except for technically. I suppose by some definitions, they “excel” at violin. But I think a lot of them have peaked. As Hanna suggests, most people don’t invest 1000, or 10,000 hours, if the returns don’t seem to be coming.</p>
<p>cobrat, in the interest of fairness, if you are going to talk about “a recent president’s” gpa, you really need to mention the academic records of Al Gore and John Kerry. </p>
<p>All three are excellent examples of rich kids whose family connections got them into schools their unconnected peers could never have gotten into with similar stats.</p>
<p>You say it’s not like that anymore? According to The Price of Admission, Al Gore jr also was admitted to Harvard with an “average” academic record so it’s safe to say, the tradition continues.</p>
<p>“there is something to be said for encouraging (not forcing) kids with natural ability/talent to get involved in sports where their natural abilities give them an advantage and working with these kids to develop those talents”</p>
<p>My family is putting this into practice with my nephew. He was born small, will probably always be smaller than his peers, and the rest of his family is unusually tall. But he’s built like a fireplug and physically fearless – perfect for gymnastics. I don’t expect that he has the personality of a superstar gymnast, but it’s so important for him to have a chance to excel. It’s one of the few places in America where short, fireplug guys have a real edge.</p>
<p>Hanna,
How tall is your nephew expected to be? I wouldn’t limit him to gymnastics if he is interested in other sports. As I provided earlier in this thread, both Stanford and Cal have more than several male varsity athletes who are 5’8" or shorter, in tennis, golf, baseball, soccer, diving and gymnastics. It is likely they have even more in cross-country, fencing, sailing, wrestling and track and field, but they don’t list heights for those sports.</p>
<p>“Parents may want their kids to be superstars, but if the kid’s not willing to make a commitment to training and doesn’t have the natural ability, he/she isn’t going to make it.”</p>
<p>Yes, and if the kid doesn’t have a parent, or two, willing and able to make the kid’s sport their passion and spend a great deal of their time on it, not to mention their money, he/she isn’t going to make it, either. We joke about soccer moms in this culture, but being a devoted athlete takes devoted parents who have the luxury of spending lots of time and money on one kid. It just isn’t true to say that anyone can be an athlete, even apart from any issue of innate ability; to be “committed” to sports is as much a privilege of economic status as any other activity except holding down a job while performing at the top academic level. While there may be programs to identify kids with potential, how do you think the kids get to the point where the potential may be demonstrated? And how many of those programs are there, compared with the numbers of kids who might have such potential?</p>
<p>At least on the account of gaining admission to Harvard…Al Gore’s SATs according to that source place him at least in the bottom-end of the typical Harvard admits back in his day. In fact…his combined SAT of 1355/1600 would place him well within the average range of the student body at my NYC specialized high school when I attended it in the early-mid’90s and be considered above-average to excellent at most US mainstream high schools. </p>
<p>Can’t speak to Kerry as his SATs aren’t present. However, at least he didn’t have the dissonance of being admitted to an Ivy grad school despite his mediocre grades and yet, being rejected by UT-Austin School of Law despite being an in-stater as opposed to a certain recent president. After all, BC law is a far cry from HLS…especially back in the '60s/'70s. </p>
<p>Moreover, I never said this practice admitting mediocre students from extremely wealthy/well-connected families has stopped. Rather that the practice is no longer as blatantly open as it was in the days of Kerry, W, and Gore and that it is hidden better to minimize negative angst/scrutiny.</p>
<p>“and they’re not really that good, except for technically. I suppose by some definitions, they “excel” at violin. But I think a lot of them have peaked. As Hanna suggests, most people don’t invest 1000, or 10,000 hours, if the returns don’t seem to be coming.”</p>
<p>That’s a description of a Suzuki trained violinist, and has nothing to do with ability or hours practiced, most likely.</p>
<p>cobrat - depends on the school. Harvard no longer needs the money unless their endowment starts shrinking due to bad markets or bad decision making to build too many buildings at once. About 3 years ago WSJ published a story stating that Brown wanted kids of really really rich parents who could raise money for the school (not donate, raise). OTOH, Yale was interested in students who were famous or parents who were famous. WSJ listed examples of who went where but I forget the names (I hate to admit I watch gossipgirl now and then and remember the dean of admissions at Yale telling Blake Lively that they wanted her as a well known socialite but didn’t care for her billionaire friend and thought back to that WSJ article). </p>
<p>You just need 50 students each year who fit that bill of what the schools want in terms of money or prestige.</p>
<p>This is true for some athletes, but definitely not true for others.</p>
<p>The situation with athletes is no different than that of the pure academic kid. Some come from average backgrounds and excel on their own, while others are tutored in every subject including SAT tests, to the tune of thousands of dollars. But colleges don’t ask about how applicants got their great grades and test scores; they take top students regardless of how they got there. If most kids get into top colleges because their parents helped them along the way, why should you expect anything different from athletes or judge them differently because their parents helped them?</p>
<p>It turns out that Yale does list height stats for some of its fencing team members, if you click on each individual profile. Some don’t list height, some are quite tall, but there are two 5’8" fencers, one 5’6" and one 5’5" fencer. So I guess you don’t necessarily need long arms, or at least if you do, they do not need to be attached to a tall body.</p>
<p>Bay beat me to the point that except in rare cases, children’s academic success also requires parental commitment, so why differentiate athletics as being especially dependent on parental involvement? </p>
<p>As a family we’ve made countless micro and macro decisions which have prioritized academics. These included simple decisions like not watching TV or listening to the radio whenever D was doing homework downstairs because the noise would distract her, not planning a lot of outings on weekends or cancelling recreational plans once the kids had significant schoolwork and long term projects, making time to supervise and check homework in the early years, taking the student to the library or store for materials when needed, etc. </p>
<p>An acquaintance of mine was lamenting that her youngest is having trouble getting his homework done because the family spends so much time traveling to and watching the older son’s football games (he was playing both JV and varsity for a private school). Neither she nor her husband was willing to be the one to miss the fun by leaving a game early in order to get the little brother home in time to do his work and get to bed.</p>
<p>Because the barrier of entry for someone of limited socio-economic means is far lower for those with a wider spectrum of academic abilities who emphasize preparations towards academic success* than someone trying to be recruited to many Div I sports unless the latter are highly naturally talented/built and are lucky enough to be spotted by recruiting scouts. Moreover, certain Div. I sports such as Football, Fencing, Lacrosse, etc require a sizable outlay in equipment, traveling expenses, and special practice camps/schools with such sports at all/competitively enough to be viable for Div. I recruiting. </p>
<p>If a given family doesn’t have the finances for that outlay and no one in the school community is willing/able to run a fundraising sale…you’re practically out of luck. You’re also sometimes out of luck if the schools in your area doesn’t host that sport from earlier ages.</p>
<ul>
<li>For most of the academic achievers I grew up with from elementary school to my NYC specialized high school…all one really needed was a library card, a curious mind, an intellectually independent spirit, willingness to seek academic help when necessary, embrace learning opportunities as they arise in any part of one’s life, and a willingness to buckle down to study/get homework done for some hours at a stretch as needed. Most of the above could be had for nominal cost or in most cases…are free.</li>
</ul>