From my experience in high school, sports were extremely difficult to join. These days, you won’t make the JV team if you hadn’t been playing since 5. I tried out for track, swimming, wrestling, and football early on in high school and basically got told off by the coaches. It blows my mind how so many others do it.
It is very dependent on the school, especially the size. Varsity sports teams have limited rosters – enough to play games and have some substitutes, but otherwise limited because of expense, facility/practice/instruction limitations, and playing time. So making a team in a high school of 2,000+ is a much different dynamic than a HS of less than 1,000.
It is true that sports have become more specialized, and to make varsity especially at large high schools requires experience at the youth level for high skill sports.
5 Likes
Our large ~1200 students high school has many No-Cut sports:
- track, wrestling, freshman football, etc
There are also many club/travel leagues of different skill levels.
Or you can pay a lot of money to join gymnastics, dance, and cheerleading teams.
I know a few families who pay a ridiculous amount of money for their daughters to be on these “elite” dance teams, traveling all over for competitions (and to be honest, they’re not even good). 
It depends on the size of the high school. At my kids’ school the entire class size is around 70 kids, and all of the sports are no-cut, including football, basketball, etc. Playing some sort of sport does look good on a college app, it shows that you can balance practices with academics. My advice would be to seek out other athletic opportunities- join a summer swim team, Taekwondo lessons, a pickleball club, etc. Have fun with it! An admissions officer might really enjoy hearing about how you got involved in a club team and fell in love with a sport. Good luck!
Our HS has about 1200 students, track, xc and football are no cut (although most football payers are just tackle dummies). I’m not sure about wrestling, all other sports are cut. All 3 of my soccer players made varsity sophomore year so never played JV (they had freshmen teams at that time, those have been eliminated). My daughter was the only girl on varsity who never played club (but played rec and travel since first grade), after she tired of sitting the bench she joined a year round club team, and was playing junior year, captain senior year. Four of my kids ran track, one xc, so glad it’s no cut, the kids are so nice and supportive of each other.
D24’s high school for 9th-10th was kind of ridiculous. You had to choose: sports OR performing arts (way to reinforce stereotypes and lose talent for both areas).
The beginning of school newsletter said contact coach@whatever for information. Well, that was way too late given that tryouts had already occurred in the summer, without any public notice at all. That must have caused an issue (or maybe something with COVID?), because additional tryouts were held for the one remaining spot…those theoretical tryouts kept getting cancelled/postponed. Eventually D24 took the hint and continued with the sport outside of school.
Maybe this sounds typical to those in the know(?), but the process was definitely not friendly to anyone who hadn’t done school team sports before.
Contrast this to cousins of D24. In their small school in a small town in a small county, sports were an EC for everyone, because that was just what everyone did (if you wanted something else on a competitive level, you were driving many hours weekly to the nearest big city). Seemed like the whole town showed up for games. No one got cut (not everyone got to play in games though).
Agree…depends on the HS. Some schools do not compete at a high level in all sports, many have some no-cut sports, some offer sports on a club level, etc.
3 Likes
Our HS does a sports fair for incoming freshmen in the spring. Before the kids can even go to captains practices they need to submit a sports physical to the AT (for 10 years straight my kids came home from the first one telling me they sat out, we’d go get one that afternoon). Between captains practices and tryouts, it was a pretty solid month, no vacations in august. All of my kids were in choir, and two of my athletes were in the winter musical every year. So glad they didn’t have to choose!
1 Like
It just shows how unfair the world truly is. Most people don’t choose which high school they go to, yet the opportunities available vary so much among different schools.
1 Like
Kids need to learn that. To quote Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest: “Ah, but nobody ever said life was fair, Tina.”
3 Likes
Every school is funded differently, has different student populations, different schedules and must comply with their State’s educational and sports safety requirements.
Our 3000+ school had most of its teams as No Cut.
They even encouraged students and parents to build new teams. That’s how LaCross, Roller Hockey, Frisbee, and skateboarding teams/clubs developed at our high school and eventually spread to other schools within the district.
Our high school had a lot of Section 8 families, as well as upper income students. If a student wanted it, the school athletic department had a form for new sports teams.
Have you asked if you can petition your school district to develop new sports teams? Have you looked within your county for sports clubs. It doesn’t matter if your school doesn’t have it because an EC can be done anywhere.
You don’t have to play high school sports to have an EC.
Lots of kids have part-time jobs that involved lifeguarding, Soccer refereeing, Little League Snack clerks, Starbucks, McDonald’s, tutoring, amusement park employees, Summer camp counselors, Mall employees, lawn care, and pet sitting business, etc. Our middle daughter created a Mother/Daughter Book Club.
If you are sitting around lamenting how unfair the world is, then build a bridge and GET OVER IT! College-ready students make their own way by creating what they need. You wont be ready for college, nor future employment, because the “unfairness” will continue to follow you instead of you doing something about it!!!
1 Like
Please note that this poster is a college graduate, not a high school student.
4 Likes
I guess Debbie Downer is real.
1 Like
Would gymnastics, figure skating, surfing, and synchronized swimming be considered sports or performing arts at this school?
One of my kids took tennis lessons at a club and through our rec department. And did skiing also through our rec department. Kid is a musician and was unable to do any after school sports because the times interfered with precollege programs, private lessons, etc. So his sports were done outside of school. Which was fine with us.
Our swim team was a no cut program BUT you had to show up for all practices once on the team, or you were not kept on the roster. Our second kid never missed a practice or meet even though she was never a starter or on the A string of the team.
Closing as this is a duplicate account
6 Likes