My daughters roommate is a scholarship athlete at a d 1 school. It’s 20 to 30 hours a week minimum. Shorter breaks. Early to school in fall. Leave two weeks after everyone else for acc tournament.
And none of the super perks like the holy trinity. Football basketball or men’s ice hockey.
It’s a drag. Even if you love it.
@privatebanker D1 sports are definitely a big commitment, but many top athletes train that many hours anyway, and they’re used to juggling training, competition travel, and academics. Plenty of other students work part-time jobs while attending college, and there aren’t many p/t jobs that will pay an 18 yr old anywhere from $25/hr to $100/hr, tax-free, to do something they love. (Plus athletes get “paid” even when they’re sick or injured, unlike hourly employees.) There are definitely disadvantages, too, but for many kids the advantages significantly outweigh the disadvantages.
It’s not tax free if it pays for room and board (which my daughter’s did). I agree it was the best ‘job’ she could have had as a 17 year old and allowed her to go to the college of her choice.
There are perks just like the football and basketball players receive - clothing, snacks, shoes, work out times at the gym, activities like community service. My daughter’s boyfriend was also an athlete. I don’t think I ever saw him in clothing that wasn’t given to him by his coach - sweats and jackets and 1000 t-shirts.
@twoinanddone That’s true, any portion of the scholarship that goes towards R&B gets taxed. But the $140K or so that covers tuition/fees/books is tax-free, along with a lot of free clothes and equipment (S gets at least $1000 worth of Nike swag every year, x 4 years), free food, free tutoring if needed, etc. Not to mention all the “free” coaching, training, and travel that we used to have to pay for out of pocket!
Son started an unusual and expensive EC in second grade. Once a week we had to go straight from school to the EC, eating dinner on the road and returning home at bedtime, all with his little sisters in tow. The commitment became greater as his training progressed.
He’s now a business owner, doing exactly what he started training for at the age of 8. I don’t think he can imagine himself doing anything else. I’ve wondered what he’d be doing today if way back then we’d decided it was too much, which would have been a perfectly reasonable decision.
S22 is already living this life, as is our family, because he’s too young to drive.
A normal week of training and competition includes 9.5 hours on the field, 2-4 hours in the gym and 10-13 hours of travel time(21.5-26.5 total hours per week). The last two weeks were anomalies because his team traveled a great distance by bus so he was gone from early Friday afternoon until very late Sunday night. Ironically, when he travels with the team we get to stream his game, but we, as parent, essentially get a free weekend to get other things done.
He/we can’t always vacation when and where we’d like. It requires very advanced planning to work around his 10+ month schedule.
If he were to make a D1 squad 3 years from now I’m confident he would be adequately equipped to acclimate to the training and travel requirements while maintaining his academic standards.
Once he gets to college I’ll have so much free time I may get a second job…
just today neighborhood kid got a “likely letter” or whatever for a major sport at a HYPS school. Kid is phenomenal athlete; and smart. kid has played three different varsity sports in HS, never on any major travel teams, parents absolutely haven’t gone broke, but is Very Athletic, and Smart. Parents are in disbelief!!! and Thrilled!!! my point: pure athleticism and smarts can go a long ways. Practice, training and hard work all go into it as well.
He probably just passed academic pre-read and got a promise of a likely letter as the actual LL cannot be issued before October 1st of the Senior year and it requires submission of a full application. (S procedures may be different).
Stanford is a ‘regular’ D1 school and the student commits, academically, on the early signing date. They can issue any type of admission letter they like, but no scholarships until early signing date.
I don’t think the Ivies do early reads until July 1.
ok; I"m getting curious about this all now (please see post 146) . neighbor kid now has another “offer” as s/he terms it on twitter from another HYPS school. That’s 2 out of those 4. Kid is not being recruited to top D1 sports programs; kid is more of a regional lower D1 recruit; our local paper has a whole recruiting section so I can see those schools.
So - how does kid get an “offer” from HYPS schools? super high test scores and low D1 abilities? And why does family call them “offers” if they are not really a true thing?
Yes, I know another kid who is finishing his Junior year and according to mom he is going to Princeton to play lacrosse. And this family should know, the dad is a private college counselor with actual college admission experience.
The coaches at the Ivies know who they can get in and what is needed. Several years ago there were sophomores ‘committing’ to the Ivies, and sometimes even a few freshman, in lax. They officially deemed it ‘committing to the process’ because admissions hadn’t (couldn’t) admit them or even do a financial aid read. But everyone announced that they were committed, posted it on laxpower, and bought the t-shirts. And most of those kids DID go to those schools. The coaches could tell them “I can get a 3.9/34 ACT admitted” and would also tell a 3.7/28 that they couldn’t get in unless they were All American skill levels. Many of these kids have siblings, parents, coaches who attended these Ivies. They know what they need.
Nothing was official, the offers were verbal, and the commitment wasn’t enforceable. I’d say your neighbors are in this group - coach has offered support through the process, the students have said they want to go and are calling them offers or commitments.
Now the timeline has changed, can’t discuss recruiting until Sept 1 of junior year, but there are still juniors committing and announcing, long before the admissions offices get involved.