In our high school, we also had the “A” Jazz Band and the “B” Jazz Band. A student had to be selected to be in the A one and I think any musician could be in the B one.
Personal story…
My D was a three sport Varsity athlete (soccer, ski racing, tennis) in high school. This story has only to do with soccer, which she played from K to 12. In high school for grades 9 and 10, she was the goalie on the JV team. For junior year, she tried out for Varsity as goalie. The V team always had had two goalies on the squad. In that year, there was one returning V goalie. My D thought she was trying out for the other spot. She trained over the summer to be in shape and attended the preseason (required). When the team list was posted, there was only going to be one goalie on the V team, the one returning goalie (now a senior). My D did all that for a spot that was never filled. She could have played JV, but NO juniors at our school still played JV. My D was out of soccer that year for the first time since K. Sure, it was disappointing!
She lived. She turned that into something. Instead, she spent that fall as an assistant coach for a grade 5/6 girls team and loved it.
Senior year came, and she tried out for Varsity soccer and was chosen as the first goalie for the team and was back in the game and took the team to the State semi finals. It did seem odd that in my D’s junior year, there was only one goalie on the team and not back up goalie, but that’s how it went. My kid survived.
My daughter wrote one of her college essays on this entire experience, in fact! She basically made lemonade from the lemon experience in junior year.
“In this particular case (from what I read) there are two squads–White and Black. The tryout for the higher Black squad required a score of 87. Only 5 or 6 girls made that cut off number. They wanted 10 girls to field a team so lowered the number afterward to 78. More than just one parent complained. By the time they went to the lower score it could have been very arbitrary as to who got on the higher squad. They basically changed the rules after the tryout. I’d be upset too no matter which side of the fence my kid was on.”
Not only does this new information change the discussion here IMO, it edifies that this team obviously isn’t that strong to begin with as evidenced by dropping the qualifying number so much.
Ditto what @labegg said. My son is on a D1 cheer team and it is incredibly competitive. It has to be in order for the members to be safe (the risk if injury, especially for the ‘flyers’ is significant if the ‘base’ is not proficient).
The school has to decide what the goal is for their sports team. A no-cut policy for the sports teams means that they will not be competitive and for some students, this will pose a problem.
Dropping from an 87 to a 78 in score is not necessarily all that much it could simply mean the difference between throwing a round off back handspring full to a roundoff back handspring layout or a standing full to a standing tuck. Or a choice of jump difficulty. Not sure that is edifys that the team is not that strong, lol. What would edify things is what the cheerleader who did not make the team scored and what she actually threw as her tumble pass, jumps etc. vs what everyone else threw for their tumble pass. For an average intermediate team everyone wanting a spot would have had to throw a running series bhs to a tuck. Anyone not throwing a tuck was not going to hit a score high enough to qualify for the team.
I don’t know enough about their selection process to say that 78 isn’t good enough to compete. They were rounding out the team. The top members might be enough to carry them. But declaring it a no cut sport certainly isn’t a good harbinger for the future.
The most competitive MUN teams absolutely cut people, though I agree that most don’t, you’ll just never get to compete. Same for the math teams, etc.
No cut is difficult in some sports - even a sideline cheerleading squad can’t be too big. In our HS, like others, track and XC are no-cut and many (but not all) freshman teams. There are also less popular sports like bowling where most that show up can play. With over 1600 kids in the school, it just isn’t possible for every kid that ever kicked a soccer ball to make the soccer team. It is silly to say that winning should not be encouraged in sports (or activities like MUN or mock trial or Fed Challenge). On freshman teams, if there are over 30 kids how can the coach manage all of them safely?
There are tryouts for the top choral groups and music ensembles and many kids are disappointed when the cast lists come out. Not every kid can take an honors course if they don’t have the ability. If there is no cut for athletics, should there be no try outs for the musical? How many kids can be crammed on the stage?
While there are elite opportunities for kids to play sports beyond HS, there are also lower level opportunities for kids to play sports outside of school. It also doesn’t make sense for a kid to spend hours at practice to sit on the bench and never step on the field during an actual game. That kid would be much better off choosing a different sport or choosing another activity.
It used to be that if a kid stuck with the team until senior year, there were no cuts for seniors at our HS. However, that was changed recently especially for some of the boys teams. The argument was the coaches did not want to cut a marginal kid as a junior as boys are still growing and developing and may be good enough to play by senior year (especially for fall sports). I think it is pretty unfair for a kid to go all the way through and then not get to be a “senior” on the team, even if they were/would continue to be a bench sitter.
I have kids that made the team/band/chorus/cast/sport and kids that got cut from their chosen activity. They all survived and found something to do. For the one with a cut from JV, he came back the next year and became a full time starter.
@roycroftmom School cheer squads do compete and the tumbling and acrobatic skills are amazing. My wife was a school principal and browbeat me into going to the state competition; I was amazed and glad I went. Cheerleading is a college varsity sport, with talented students recruited just like quarterbacks.
I’ll note that a family friend has a son who just really really needs to play a sport right now…he was on the no-cut tennis team the last two years…he’s no good but he loves it and it binds him to the school. Starting this year, they decided that only good players could be on the team because it was taking too much coach time…and i see the point but it’s been really sad to see my friend’s kid without a sport and without a good tie to the school…
I went to a high school with over 6,000 students. Cut sports would have meant that only an extremely small fraction of students would be able to do any sports.
We had some cut teams and some no-cut teams. My best friend happened to play for one of the no-cuts (lacrosse) and it was an awesome experience for him. He would never have made a cut team but it turned out that he was good at some position (it’s been a while and I know nothing about lacrosse).
The idea that this is snowflake mentality is nonsense. I swear, some “adults” never miss an opportunity to mock and belittle kids.
My kids’ middle school performed a musical each year and any child who was willing to attend the rehearsals was included. Lots of tone deaf, 2 left feet kids who could not act…and it was fantastic!
The kids selected for the leads were very talented but the director included everyone as extras and in the big numbers. Every kid got at least one line and wore multiple costumes. I can not begin to tell you what a terrific experience it was for everyone involved. The kids got the joy of performing, learned about the hard work of putting on a show. Who was harmed? I don’t see this as “ everyone gets a trophy “ at all. Neither of my kids had great singing voices ( although D can dance) but they got a lot of good out of this.
I’m the case of cheerleading, why not let everyone be on the squad and have the opportunity to cheer on the teams. A group of the more talented kids can be selected from within as the competition team if need be.
This is not a response to the original post about a particular team but rather a response to some perceived notion here that everything centers around school… It simply doesn’t. And not everything costs money.
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You could do what we did when we didn’t get on a cheer leading team (or even want to) or didn’t make a sports team…
You got together with like minded (and similarly less than elite talented) friends and did it anyway on your own.
We practiced cheers endlessly and tried to do splits etc. for FUN. We made up new ones.
We hit tennis balls against a wall even though we weren’t on a team. For FUN.
We played basketball. For FUN!
We sang songs and recorded ourselves even though we weren’t in the choir. For FUN (and we got pretty good!)
Just because you aren’t on a school team is no reason to NOT do something and enjoy it,
Off topic (sorta but related) : My main concern these days is the limited access to facilities. We had access to school play grounds on weekends to kick or hit balls around ,access to community tennis courts, hard ball courts, basketball courts. You could go to the school grounds and run the track on your own. We actually had some open area to play on our own. Now it seems everything is fenced in and off limits unless you ARE on a team and able to use it under strict supervision.
@fallgirl I agree this is a model that deserves some investigating! But there is a limit to the number of kids you can have on the sideline too. When I was in HS we had football and basketball and wrestling cheerleaders some cheerleaders were on all squads others just one. There are ways to divide it up so many can have an opportunity. I know my cheerleader would have enjoyed sharing the load. Having to cheer all varsity football, boys and girls basketball and girls volleyball games plus prepping for competitions meant there was little time left to pursue other interests.
@FallGirl --“A cast of thousands!”
I think it’s great to give kids a chance to do something they’ll never get to enjoy otherwise.
In this scenario, it’s wonderful! But the leads still got their part based on actual talent.
Ay yi yi…and we wonder why colleges are pretty much in a blizzard of snowflakes right now.
There can be teams, there can be clubs, etc. Everyone doesn’t get to have their way all the time. When did it become not mortifying for parents to be so meddlesome?
True story - I grew up with very little money. My gymnastics lessons were a homemade beam my dad made me, a branch sticking out sideways out of a tree in the backyard and me my and my sister practicing gymnastics in the back yard. I did take a county baton twirling and some dance lessons. Going into high school as an unknown I tried out for the team. And I was one of 4 freshman from my jr high to do so. It was the thrill of my young life. Is that experience less important? If everyone made it I wouldn’t remember the experience. I wasn’t some privileged character - it was a lifetime of playing and practicing.
Cheerleading is a full time sport, that could just have watered down the experience for those interested in it as a sport and not standing with a humongous and uncoordinated group.
“Special snowflake “ would be giving everyone the “ top cheerleader “ award. Letting more people participate is just giving opportunities for more kids. It doesn’t reflect real life? Well the kids I referenced above learned some great lessons in teamwork and participation, etc much like how it works on the work world. Some people are the executives and some are managers and some are staff but everyone has a part and it gets done.
FWIW one of my kids attended a HS which had a philosophy of excluding as many kids as possible from sports and activities and my other kids school ( which was actually larger) had the philosophy of including as many as possible. I will go with the latter.
And I go for hard work, earning your way and finding other activities outside varsity sports if you aren’t skilled enough to make the team.
This from a mom whose kids were terrible at sports.
Y’know… there really are some things in life that anyone can sign up for and participate in. It’s not like every single thing you do after high school is cutthroat and competitive.
Yes and sometimes it is a funding issue. Not all schools have adopted pay for play. At my kids’ school the golf team had a limit to how many foursomes could be on the local country club course and they had an van allocated for away play. That limits have many kids can be on a team. Making the team is based on the score over x number of rounds. One of my sons missed it by 1 as a freshman. Sure there is disappointment. Sure the coach felt bad enough to write him a note. He made the cut as a sophomore. He stills plays golf regularly in his mid-twenties. If a school can afford “everyone gets to sit if the bench or swim or play” them so be it but I do not think it is essential for a young person’s mental health.