Just how impt are sports?!

[zephyrfist]

<p>I have never taken organized sports. (I bike regularly on my own though, does that count?)</p>

<p>BUT</p>

<p>I have a ton o' EC with music:</p>

<p>Cello - principal chair in and out of school, went to state level w/ my concerto solo, won a little scholarship, school awards, always high marks for solo rating "program," went to summer camp in Oxford, England and Eastman (School of Music in NY).</p>

<p>Piano - won many scholarships for music camps, attended Interlochen summer camp, high marks in another program, went to state level, music clubs, participated in festivals/etc</p>

<p>Also have 30+ volunteer hrs each year.</p>

<p>Fairly strong academics:
rank 3/350, GPA 4.2 weighted
SAT 1470 (M-750, V-720)
SAT II math2-740, writing-740, USHistory-630
AP: scored 5 for calc, lit/comp, stats; 4 for USHistory, gov't/politics</p>

<p>I applied EA to Yale (grimace). Working on UofM, Cornell, Williams, and maybe Duke and UPenn. </p>

<p>My chances are............(do I want to know??)</p>

[sleepisabliss]

<p>dont take sports if you want to go into a good school. ive learned that hard lesson, unfortunately, late in high school...sports are very tiresome. you could easily substitute a sport with 2 or 3 academic EC's like speech and debate, journalism, web design....</p>

<p>BUT, on a personal level, sports help you be in physical shape and are an irreplaceable experience. You can only play sports competitively during your youth!</p>

[thermodude]

<p>Many people get into Ivies and top 25's who don't play sports at school.</p>

[AndrewD]

<p>Yeah, I never played an organized sport for the school, but I'm a competitve cyclist so I made sure to note that. Hopefully that will improve my chance at Chapel Hill. Hopefully...</p>

[thicks]

<p>At my school we have to play a sport year round. (we get to switch 2x throughout the year.) Definatly an experience that I would not give up.</p>

[zephyrfist]

<p>bumpity bump.</p>

<p>And I do appreciate these messages already posted.</p>

[Tsunami]

<p>To rise above the ordinary is what colleges want.</p>

<p>If you can excel in sports while carrying a heavy workload in school, it will certainly help you and there's no way it can hurt you unless you don't carry it on for the whole 4 years.</p>

<p>However, your extracurriculars compensate for this lack of sports. Unless you're an underprivileged minority, it seems you've slim chances for Yale or Duke. Everything else looks bright, though.</p>

[zephyrfist]

<p>Looks like UofM for me. Unless...Cornell?? </p>

<p>Bah, I'm getting depressed at this.</p>

[anovice]

<p>The only thing with sports is that if you ever drop a class or don't do your best on an assignment because of sports(or any EC really) than I don't think its worth it. You are in school to LEARN- and this doesn't include learning how to play a sport. To some extent personal enrichment is worthwhile, but if it starts to impede on other things, than you need to step back and reconsider your choices.</p>

<p>Back to the question though-
I definitely don't think that sports are needed(although nice). I played softball/fieldhocky for two/three years and against all of my parents opinons, I quit both and got back into academics and other ECs which I found more value in. Everyone has sports- how many play instruments exceptionally? how many are extremely involved in politics? how many hold unique jobs/internships? There are so many other, more valueable things to do with your time..... but, by all means if you like sports than play them- but for me, I think there are more important things in life.</p>

[journogirl05]

<p>Sports are nice, but they most certainly can't substitute for grades, scores, other involvement, etc. Like anovice said, EVERYONE has sports. These people can only read about 300 field hockey players before their eyes cross. But how many national-level debaters do they get? Award-winning JOURNALISTS (not just Average Joe's working on Average Joe newsletters)? State-level violists? People fluent in three languages? Play sports for fun if you want to play them. But just know that at my school, most athletes that get signed do so for KU, K-State, or other in-state public school and JuCo's. Our biggest success story was a young man who recently went to Vandy to play basketball who shall remain nameless. BUT he also had top grades, scores, ECs, etc. Point is, most athletes play in high school and stop, because they don't have the talent or drive to play in college. However, MANY journalists, debaters, politicians, musicians, and artists kept up with their craft in college (top colleges).</p>

[azneverfrost]

<p>someone said that lack of ECs make up for sports...and it goes the other way too. if you have a sport or two, it could make up for many ECs because sports usually take up every day for a whole season. however if you dont play a sport then you should probably have some worthwhiles ECs to let admission people know you're doing "worthwhile" things</p>

[Tsunami]

<p>Colleges want athletes. It's very interesting to note that some prestigious colleges like the University of Chicago and Harvard actually put a bit more emphasis on this because they want to change their "Nerd School" image and get some athletes in there.</p>

<p>All people are different, it is true that some possess incredible abilities in other areas such as a music and writing; however, colleges want to see people participating in sports even if everyone plays them. It is definately not a hindrance to play sports, or rather, if you have the drive it shouldn't be a problem. For example, I continued to be a dedicated athlete even while taking 11 classes during my senior year in High School. This sort of drive is what colleges like to see.</p>

[zephyrfist]

<p>I commend your drive that I do not possess. What college do/did you attend?</p>