@VickiSoCal Mt. SAC in a couple of weeks I assume? That will be a good barometer for her. Has your daughter ran there before?
@youcee she’s brand new, run in a grand total of 4 races but her coach is pretty excited about her freshman performance so far. Not banking on it or anything but given she’s been running for all of 4 months she’s off to an amazing start . She’ll be at Mt Sac. She won her freshman league race easily and was in the top 10 at Woodbridge for freshman.
IMO, it’s important to mention the NPC. Are you implying that Vassar’s FA package is likely to be much more generous than the figure the NPC kicks out?
I don’t want to contribute to magical thinking. Just apply! You never know! No, actually, you DO kinda know.
@VickiSoCal Wow, that’s great! There are so many people there that it can be an exciting/overwhelming experience - at least it was for me as a spectator. The start is really fast, then they hit a couple sets of steep hills where you lose sight of them. Good luck to her!
Can I say that I’m really glad my S loves to play soccer casually and never considered playing beyond rec and high school leagues? I hope that doesn’t make me sound like a bad parent, but he has enough academic talent (compared to his local peers – he’s just average here) that I’d so much rather he focus on that. And frankly, he’s grown so much more by stretching himself in band, which is a whole new world to me as neither H or I have any kind of musical ability, than he ever would have in soccer. Which is great, because I’m pretty sure he’ll never get recruited to play soccer. :))
So, parents of athletes, this is something I’ve kind of been debating for a while. My kids were both heavily involved in a sport through high school, and of course I’ve heard/read over and over all the “benefits” and “life skills” gained by playing on a team as touted by coaches, parents and organizations. How much of that is BS? It seems to me some kids gain a lot playing sports, others gain little and still others (including some who are perhaps pushed too hard or encouraged too enthusiastically by loving parents) actually are harmed socially and emotionally. Additionally, it seems to me you can gain similar or identical benefits (working as a team, learning to be led and to lead, reaching goals, etc.) in many activities, including simply working with peers in a classroom or other group.
ETA: I realize a lot of this is individual experience. My kids have played for good and bad coaches and dealt with great and not so great teammates.
Careful of thinking music’s safe, @IABooks! One of my sisters plays the marimba as her primary instrument, and was recruited out of high school as heavily as some athletes are. (In fact, she committed to one school but ended up getting a last-minute better offer at another, and there were documents involved in the switch that are pretty much precisely analogous to what happens when an athlete switches schools.) My D23, it turns out, has some of the same talents, so it’ll be interesting to see how that goes…
@IABooks I’ve always thought sports are good for kids, but your post made me think a bit and maybe it’s just fully immersing yourself in something bigger than yourself, be it athletics, robotics, band, etc. Of course, we’ve all seen that even that doesn’t work for every kid. At least for my kids, the after school activities they’ve done have made them better and more social than if they hadn’t done them.
@IABooks “So, parents of athletes, this is something I’ve kind of been debating for a while. My kids were both heavily involved in a sport through high school, and of course I’ve heard/read over and over all the “benefits” and “life skills” gained by playing on a team as touted by coaches, parents and organizations. How much of that is BS?”
My kids have gained all of the benefits you mentioned by playing sports. My S15 finds college athletics a nice stress reliever from the intensity of his classes. My S17 will also play in college, and I have no doubt that he will also have a fantastic experience.
I think it is important to have interests outside the classroom. However, I don’t think sports are the only avenue for achieving the benefits you mentioned.
@MichiganGeorgia UGA is one of the schools that I am concerned about. No resolution yet. I’ll be calling them this afternoon to follow up on my emails. I’m giving them time to fix the issue with D directly, which they usually do.
@IABooks I think as our kids grow and learn, they get so much benefit from various areas in their lives. For some it may be sports and others it may be a job or hobby. My D17 got out of the rat race of running this year(senior). It was sucking the life out of her in a terrible way. We have seen so much growth in the last 6 months with her going through the college application process and working. It is really wonderful to watch as a parent!
D17 is a mediocre athlete- F/S and JV volley ball for three years and swim for 3 years. It took time. It lowered her GPA a bit. It was 100% x 3 worth it for her. It helped her stay active and maintain her weight. And it is her social life. they are her friends. She’s at a huge high school where she may not have my friends in each class or in her lunch, but those core v-ball (fall) and swim (spring) friends are the ones she goes out with, goes to homecoming/prom with. Etc.
@IABooks One of the SUNYs that my son is hoping for has a club soccer team that practices 5 days a week from 5 to 7pm and has one game on the weekends.
I couldn’t think of a better stress reliever for my son. His mind and body will be completely de-stressed every night.
Club soccer is an important factor in his college decision.
Both my kids feel better, sleep better, etc. if they are working out 1-2 hours a day. It is easier to do that if it is a required activity vs trying to schedule time for yourself.
I sometimes wish someone was making me workout every day!
Yes, you can learn all those skills in many ways, not just sports. It doesn’t even have to be with peers the same age. Those skills can be mastered in any group type scenario where the interaction of the group is required for success.
Try being one of 8 kids. 
You better be good at those skills and negotiating or you are going to be eaten alive!! =))
More on sports and music: My D19 showed solid skills in middle school in both sports (especially basketball) and music (oboe*). By the time she got to the end of middle school, though, she had to choose—just in terms of time (not just hers, but the whole family’s), she had to pick one or the other. Music won, and I actually think that was the best choice for her; for one of her close friends making the same choice (volleyball vs. flute), sports won, and I suspect that was the right choice for her. Or really, now that I type this out, there were no wrong choices—the important thing was that they each found something they enjoyed well enough to work on.
- She loved—loved!—playing defense. To give you an idea of her playing style, she’d watch old basketball films, and Dennis Rodman became her role model. As long as he’s just an on-court role model, I told her…
** For her, unlike her younger sister, it’s actually less natural talent and more the ability to really intensely focus on getting something right. This bodes well for her in other future endeavors, I hope.
Re" soccer. Don’t fall for club soccer coaches promising D1 coaching interest. Most of the kids that end up playing D1 are spotted early on in the Academy teams, and ODP teams( olympic development programs). Those teams are club teams but at an advanced level. If you play for one of the Academy teams, like New England Revs academy you must forego playing on your high school team. It’s super intense. If you have a kid playing at that level you could realistically think they have a chance at D1 soccer. If not at that level, much harder to get noticed, the kid is probably better suited for D3 or club in college. Going thru some of this now with son19. It’s even crazier than Men’s Lax, which is stupid crazy. But soccer has a much wider talent pool to choose from, especially foreign students. There aren’t many kids coming from overseas to play men’s lax, lol.
My kids have liked playing sports. They like being part of a team. They like Model UN and Robotics just as much though, and they learn similar things.
This: “But soccer has a much wider talent pool to choose from, especially foreign students. There aren’t many kids coming from overseas to play men’s lax, lol.”
But parents don’t look beyond their local area. I have tried explaining this to my brother, suggesting he encourage this daughters to remain with lax or FH instead of soccer, if they truly want to play beyond the club level at college.
Meanwhile, my son brought home this weeks report: a squash recruit to an Ivy and javelin to a Top 20 university. Javelin?? Who knew?
I am sure there are many, many more recruits, but these are the only ones he has heard of recently.
Javelin? Of course javelin! Have to have folks ready to defend the walls against any possible barbarian attacks, after all.
Son considered the varsity soccer team at Embry Riddle for a split second, considering the small population and engineering focus. Then he took a look at the current squad. Eight Americans out of 28 players. Brazil, England, Sweden, Germany, Iceland, and Venezuela make up the team. Son has no shot.
See for yourself…
http://erauathletics.com/roster.aspx?path=msoc
No shot.
My issue with youth sports is that it has become very much big business for a whole lot of people. Club/Travel sports is out of control here. And well meaning coaches and parents buy into the hype and before you know it your kids life can be consumed by a sport that is no longer fun 
(I say this as a parent who continues to right the checks and is currently packing the car to take my D21 to play 3 MRL soccer games 5 hrs from home - I recognize the crazy yet still participate in it)
I believe that competitive gymnastics (on the elite track) was detrimental to my D17. We let her (didn’t push but let…her decision - she was a very focused and determined kid) become so all consuming focused on it that when she broke her back in 8th grade and had to quit she spiraled into a really bad place and nearly didn’t make it out. Suddenly she had no friends, no interests, too much time on her hands and an onslaught of hormones that had been delayed from the intense practices. Along with that was a huge fear of trying anything new because “how can you be good at anything if you haven’t been practicing 20+ hrs/week since age 4”
I am thankful that my D17 was able to recover and is on a path to becoming a very successful and happy adult. And she has a pretty good story to tell for her common app essay 
But freshman year was a sleepless and scary time for us.
I know that there is a lot to benefit from sports, but I think the same can be said for lots of activities. I think the biggest thing is that the kids need to grounded in the importance of any activity in the grand scheme of things. Placing too much emphasis on anything is probably a bad thing.