Apologies if this is covered ground, but I’m wondering about the kid that is recruitable in two different areas.
Hypothetical as follows: Say a kid is both an Ivy-ish recruit-level athlete (D1 but not Alabama) and a great musician who has positively interacted with both the Coach and Conductor at a school or schools. The natural thought would be that its good to be wanted by different groups in the school who could provide the application attention in the admissions office. But it also occurs to me that an unintended consequence could be a coach with a limited number of slots could say to themselves “I can save my chit for this kid because they’re getting support from the Music Department.’ I may be wrong, but I suspect that the music or arts departments have less pull than sports coaches. If enough of those coaches go that way, the kid could be SOL for commitments and ED.
Do the coaches and arts departments talk about a candidate and coordinate support? Is it better not to tell the coach you’re a Principal cellist at your well-known orchestra and lean on the athletic support? Are these the stupidest questions ever asked on CC?
Curious.
May be the same as getting love from two sports. Not sure how different it is in these cases.
Parent of a D1 athlete and I have no idea how she could have also added another commitment on top of her sport, classes and some free time. Free time then filled with networking and other interesting school events/speakers as the school years went on. Not sure if this is helpful, just pointing out if it is even doable to do both - hopefully a parent/student with experience in both areas responds.
I’m with @coffeeat3 I have a D3 athlete and at that level it’s already hard with time management. My ‘27 is looking to go D1 and already in High School she barely has time as she trains 6 days/week, doubles 3 days/week, and the shortest training day is a 3h long practice. Not to mention meets and travel meets.
I agree with this. I would assume a Principal cellist would need to be available for concerts and travel. I don’t think its impossible to study and practice music at a high level, but as a personal pursuit, not as part of a formal organization like the school orchestra. While Ivy coaches are very understanding of academic pursuit, and the schedules are generally designed to minimize conflict between the two, at the end of the day, they still expect you to physically show up 100% of the time.
In my experience Ivy coaches will not let a recruit they want go through admissions unprotected. I don’t think there’s a risk in telling them of other interests and, as you say, music doesn’t carry the near guarantee (to the coach) of a supported recruit who has passed a pre-read.
I’ve known a few recruited athletes who were musicians at the level you mention and Ivy coaches were aware and offers made. A few D1s basically said continuing music wouldn’t be realistic but Ivies did not. But these were track kids so training scheduling was easier for them than, say, hoops. (ETA: as others mention and you probably know, it’d be a lot to juggle as a college athlete but it’s something that can be discussed with the relevant folks. I honestly don’t know how the music path turned out in college for the recruits I knew of In that position)
My D3 athlete and serious musician decided between his sport and music during junior year. With hours of sports practice and travel for matches, IB classes, school music commitments, private lessons, youth orchestra etc. – my kid couldn’t find enough hours in the day. Plus there was tension between the sports and music leadership about who was getting him. I’m sure there are other kids who could make it work – more talented, different sport involving less travel. We did meet with music faculty for his instrument at schools where he was being recruited as an athlete by to discuss options short of music performance major and those conversations helped him in interviews, essays etc. Music was always the “extra” in his application, never something which was going to get him into the school.
As others have said, it’s unlikely that a coach would risk a serious recruit’s admission by trusting the kid will get in as a regular admit. At a non-conservatory school, musicians – like other amazingly talented kids – are in the regular bucket used to create a diverse and interesting class.
My S27 is in a similar boat, though maybe just a bit below the hypothetical stated in the OP in terms of his recruitability in both music (which he doesn’t intend to major in) and his sport. He, like @Midwestmomofboys is also leaning much more into the athletic side of things right now as a junior. I think the music is still important to him as he is still doing youth orchestra, chamber music, and lessons on two instruments in addition to his high level school orchestra. He is good enough that he essentially is “coasting” on his music though because he is a great sight reader and has so much experience. His ability to stick with all these things may change as he is experiencing his first real academic challenge with all the AP classes he is taking this year.
This spring and summer when we met with a several D3 coaches (UAA and NCAC), one of the questions that I asked was whether it was possible to do a music ensemble in addition to the sport. All said that they had team members doing such things, though one coach made it clear that they expected first year students to focus on just academics and their sport for at least the first semester until they figured out the whole time management thing. This seemed like a pretty good policy. At some schools, orchestra really seemed laid back and only met for 1 hour a week (though I am guessing that kind of place is not likely to be recruiting a principal cellist?). Anyway I found the conversations about this with the coaches useful, even if ultimately my kid decides it is too much to do both.
I think we need some clarification about “Ivy-ish.” Academically, I know what you mean by Ivy-ish. However, for athletic recruiting, there are exactly 8 Ivy League schools.
The Ivy League has some very specific rules about coach support so an athlete is really either on the finite list for coach’s support or they are not. This process is very proscribed league-wide, so there is no room for a coach to negotiate to go in halfsies with a music program on an admit. In the Ivy league, recruiting is all about the slots, with a small number of athletes getting in on their own.
For most other D1 programs recruiting is about scholarships (and now NIL-type) money and roster slots (especially for minor mens sports). Admission “help” that is available might vary from school to school and sport to sport, but it’s not driven (too hard) by league rules. A D1 swim coach I was speaking with recently told me he has and wants no pull with admissions. I am sure the basketball coach has a different story, though. Being recruited at Stanford will require strong academics, but that’s separate from what the ACC requires.
If I were a coach, my concern would be about scheduling conflicts. Are rehearsals the same time as workouts? Is the conference tournament the same weekend as the fall concert? These concerns might be show stoppers or nothing-burgers.
When my D went through high-level D3 recruiting, she always asked “are there any majors that are not compatible with being on this team?“ At one school, she was specifically told by the coach that anything theater related would be a conflict, because the shows are on weekends, and that is when athletic competitions would be. At another school, she was told by the coach that he thought every student should be involved in another activity in addition to the sport, and specifically suggested orchestra. (It’s worth noting that neither this particular sport team, nor the orchestra seemed particularly competitive.). At yet another school, she was told by a captain that most of the athletes didn’t take “hard majors.”
When she was deciding between a few schools at the end of recruiting, she connected with a senior on the team (at each school) in her major (or similar) to ask detailed questions. In her case, we understood that being a STEM major meant labs sometimes interfered with evening practices. And she wanted to see how that played out.
It would be very appropriate for your student to ask the coach, the captain, and/or others on the team about conflicts with majors and other activities.
Thanks so much for these responses. You’re all awesome.
She’s early days in high school, so we have a ways to go, but she’s pretty good at track (Nike, New Balance Nationals, etc.) and hasn’t really trained hard. We expect a nice uplift with real training five days a week. So by Ivy-ish, I’m talking comparable level sprinters, like Tulane, Vanderbilt, BC-types @LurkerJoe . Maybe Patriot League, which I take to be similar.
But again, a good musician who is in a top youth orchestra and has worked with conductors of Ivy schools in camps. While music is her first love, and she is absolutely committed to youth orchestra through High School, I could see her dropping it in college and just doing school and track. If forced to decide now, however, track would get the boot.
She’s at a very rigorous school now and is already challenged with Symphony and Chamber at school and Youth Orchestra outside, so totally get the difficulty of doing it all in High School, much less college. But our thought was that the relationships and visibility she’s getting in music could be useful come admissions time a couple of years from now.
Kinda feels like you’re saying her “First love” is a nice EC, but that track is the real door-opener for selective schools in D1. This may inform how much time she spends on school orchestra to your point @challengingvenn . But she loves to play. Fortunately we’ve got some time to work through it.
Yeah, no need to decide now but in theory sprinting would be on the easier end of the sports spectrum in terms of combining with another interest in college (probably easier in college than HS honestly).
But yes, when the time comes it’s hard to beat the strength of athletic recruiting for Ivy admission. I don’t think many or any of those coaches would balk at a sprint recruit considering both.
Well, that is because it can yield a guarantee of admissions, but nothing prevents her from showing up on campus and choosing music instead.
This is fine, but if it’s a real possibility, make sure she is not following athletic money. I know kids that wonted out of their sport for one reason or another but were beholden to the scholarship. I know someone (older than me) how has a complicated relationship with their sport. They were on the national team but ultimately were resentful of all they had to give up in college to do that, but were in no financial position to walk away from the scholarship.
I heard (and read here on CC) that some majors aren’t allowed by coaches. That may be true at some schools, but at other schools engineering, pre-med, accounting are encouraged by coaches. If STEM majors weren’t allowed, some schools like Colorado School of Mines or MIT or Johns Hopkins would have no teams.
My daughter was in engineering and played a sport. As an athlete, she had priority in registering for classes, so she got a choice in sections, especially labs. Only once did she have a required course that conflicted with practice, and by then she was a senior and the coach was okay with her coming late to practice once a week (school took preference). She was at an engineering tech school, and if the coach had banned STEM majors she’d have had a very short bench!
I think your daughter can do it all if she wants to. Every school or coach may not allow it, but somewhere will. When looking for schools, check out the travel schedule for the team. Are they doing multiple away weekends per semester? That’s hard. Do they have teams they play against that are close so a meet may only be one day, not the whole weekend? It makes a huge difference.
There may also be running clubs that meet her need for a sport with a major that is time intensive like orchestra. My other daughter played club hockey and that allowed her to be on campus all day to go to classes or work, as club hockey ice time is late (late!) at night.
That is a pretty common perk for athletes, even at DIII schools. Since many afternoon sections will conflict with workouts it is important to have first pick of schedule to register for those coveted morning sections.
Do most ivies have this? Or even Nescac/UAA schools? I remember asking about it at Hopkins when the coach was talking about extra perks that trickled down from D1 Lax and he said no. Also not at the Ivy my kids play at. But then again, for the most part, the academic day and athletic hours seem to be purposefully designed to minimize conflicts.
It wasn’t a thing at the Ivy my son went to, but then again, neither were sections filling up. He had to miss some workouts when a course he wanted to take was only offered during workout times (I think there were 2 semesters this happened) but as far as I could tell he never got shut out a class or section. But that’s not the way things work at most schools.
Because of a registrar’s error, my daughter couldn’t register for her second semester on the first day (a Friday night! registration was over a weekend). By the time we resolved the issue on Monday morning, the lab section she needed was full and the only one she could get into was right during her practice time. She called me all upset and I said just register for it and tell the coach there was nothing you could do. Within an hour, a miracle occurred and a spot opened up in the full lab section.
Yeah. I feel like at these schools it’s an academics first, to a certain degree, and coaches know their audience.
Plenty of athletic perks at many programs, but often they come with expectations. The coach of the athlete we know at Stanford seems to have a lot to say about if and when his athletes can sign up for classes.