Joining New Sports as a Junior

caffeineandpens
Sat, 16 Jul 2016 04:33:56 +0000

Hey guys. Long time browser and first time poster here.

This year I am planning on pursuing cross country for the first time as a junior. I also want to participate in either tennis or track during the winter. I recently found out that I am actually a pretty good runner. Running and playing tennis are both activities that I genuinely enjoy partaking in, but I’m scared that colleges will think that I am playing both sports to improve my college application. I’m not going to lie… part of me wants to play these sports because they’re activities that I can add on the Common App. I actually played varsity lacrosse as a freshman but played on the JV team this year. I am most likely going to be on the JV team again as a junior if I decide to continue with lacrosse. Not necessarily because I’m a bad player but because I’m mediocre in comparison to the other players with years of experience behind them. I don’t want to be on JV as a junior because I would find it humiliating. My times on the track are good enough for varsity and there is no JV tennis team at my school - only a varsity team that is not hard to get on.

Any advice? I am interested in joining these sports mainly to get fit and make more friends, but I also want to know if joining them will hurt my application more than improve it, especially since I’m going into junior year. Thanks.