I am just looking for some support or advice from the community.
My son wants to play college football and has received an offer he likes from a D3 school (ie. no scholarship). I feel he is totally blinded by the desire to play football and would not be interested in this school otherwise. We did visit the school and it was OK, but definitely not the best he can do academically. It’s a small private school and I think he will come to find that the social scene, food options, etc are just OK. It’s also $25K more (over 4 years) than our other non-football options.
Meanwhile, he was recently accepted at one of the best schools in our state. We are visiting in a few weeks. I would really prefer him to go here as I think the internship and career outcomes are going to be better, and the academics at a higher standard. It’s also a larger school that will have a lot of activities, food options, etc. I just feel like he won’t give the idea of not playing his sport a chance because that’s the main thing he seems to be making a decision on. We have discussed club and intramural sports but I get shut down.
As I said, just looking for advice or support from the community. Instead of the college decision process being an enjoyable one I have been feeling depressed about it all.
Ask him “If you get injured day 1, and benched or determined to be unable to play football for the rest of your college years, would you still be happy at said school?”
He is being recognized for his talents and hard work and has many good choices. Ya did good as a parent for your kid to have these options. Please celebrate that instead of staying depressed.
It is exciting to be offered a chance to play football.
I agree, I would not want to hear about club or intramural sports at top univ while I’m excited about playing my sport for real.
It’s ok to wait and let the excitement settle down.
There is time to pivot to realistic and practical reasons to look at top univ next month.
Is there another grownup in his life he respects? Many times my kids couldn’t stand to get advice from me, but somehow when it came from the beloved English teacher, or a boss at work, or an aunt/uncle it landed differently.
Think about who he connects with. The point is not for that person to persuade him that playing football is “not all that”. The point is for him to listen with an open mind that this is his shot at getting a college education, and there are multiple factors he needs to consider. His future life for one- which is not likely to include playing for the NFL, which means he needs a solid plan for launching once his football days are over.
Hugs. Don’t get depressed about this. It’s just another stage in parenting…
Friend of mine had a son who had multiple, fantastic college acceptances and he told his parents in early April a few years ago “I’m not going to college. I’m going to continue to submit jokes to XYZ (the various Late Night comics at the time-- not a single joke had ever been accepted) and move to NY and get a job as a writer on Saturday Night Live”.
Yeah, just another stage. They eventually persuaded him to accept one of his amazing opportunities and ask for a Gap year- which he did. And after ten months living in grubby sub-leased apartments with 6 roommates and trying to launch as a comedy writer, he was back home, grateful to leave his "survival "job (he wasn’t even old enough to tend bar, so it was basically fast food or janitorial work) and excited to start college.
You’ve gotten good advice already but I’ll add that you may want to contact admissions at the large school to see if they could put your son in touch with a club football player during your visit. I’m thinking that someone who could show him first hand that he can keeping playing and have the built in friend group with club, might help sway him that the bigger school could work.
If he still wants to be at the D3 and you can swing the extra cost, try to remind yourself that happy students tend to do better and he’s certainly not the only kid who is choosing to continue their sport over stronger academic options. We know many a student who made that decision and they are all happy and doing well where they landed.
This is hard - I am sorry you can’t share in his excitement.
I would recommend you look at past rosters and see how many freshman players continued through their senior year at this D3 school. If a lot of change/drop outs - it could be another data point for your son to consider.
Only small sample size - 2 friends with kids picked school for the ability to continue their sport D3 level (football and lacrosse) and both dropped their sport after freshman year. One transferred to better fit school and the other stayed, as he loved the school. I know it is hard to think about the option to transfer, but this doesn’t have to be a 4 year commitment.
Does he really like the coach, team and does it look like he will get playing time ? What does his current coach think about this team?
My daughter is a D1/Ivy league athlete and one of the reasons she was not as motivated by D3 was the team turn over and juniors taking “breaks” to study abroad - she wanted team stability. Even with that said, a little over a 1/3 of her freshman recruiting class quit the sport at some point. They remained at the school and they just moved on to other interests.
With regard to finances, did you provide a budget ? Discuss his need to take out the $5k a year loan freshman year as his contribution if he went over your budget? If not, this point is mute.
Lastly are the career and internships options really better at your state school ? How does the current D3 school support their athletes in this area? Maybe they don’t and you know this already - but many schools have very enthusiastic alumni that can assist athletes with career advice.
Not trying to say playing football is better vs not playing - just laying out other things to really research if you haven’t already to support your concerns with facts vs emotion. Your son and your family have invested a lot in football and I am sure it is hard for him to think of not playing and losing that community - so guessing a lot of emotion on his end too.
I guess I have more to add My other daughter picked a rural LAC that would have never been my choice - but the best fit for her.
I remember calling out the hard to get to location, lack of food choices and 4 year on campus housing as negatives - she did not agree with me (thankfully) and had an amazing 4 years. These were not priorities for her - but they were for me !
She has great friends, strong relationships with her professors and we remain proud of her for driving her process. Her school is not as highly ranked as her sister’s school - but the education is so similar and her peers are equally engaged learners.
Again, not on your son’s side or yours - just seems like there may be more things to learn before a decision is made.
Club football is kind of a dying thing, there are 14 teams, so OP can check and see if any of these schools are on their S’s list. Fielding football teams is expensive. I would also check to see how much it costs to participate, as some schools don’t fund/fully fund club sports.
Agreed. Many students want to continue playing their sport in college, and frankly it’s the athletes keeping the lights on at some schools. Some want to take that shot, and if it doesn’t work out they transfer, it’s not uncommon at all. Is it the best course of action? Probably not. But it can be hard for some athletes to let playing their sport go. One big reason to not go this route though is if the student needs merit to make school affordable… because many schools do give less generous discounts to transfers.
Lots of good advice upthread. But I would just ask your son, what is it about the school that you like? Maybe it’s just the football, or maybe 99% of it is getting to play football. But maybe there are other reasons that he really likes it and it might be a situation that is similar to @coffeeat3’s second daughter’s experience. There are plenty of people who fall in love with and thrive at less prestigious/well-known colleges than they could attend, and it could be that’s the case for your son. Alternatively, if 99 or 100% of the stuff your son likes about this school is the football, asking him how he’d feel if he gets injured over the summer or on day one and can never play might hit home for him in a different way.
Parents pay for school - if it’s not affordable or you don’t want to afford it, then that’s fine.
Kids, not schools - make their careers - so I tend to think that - school A won’t get him an internship and school B will - is short sighted. He can likely do just fine at the D3 school. They will have successes just like the public will have many who don’t achieve intern/job success.
Playing football to this student is important, it’s part of their identity. And yes, things, like injuries could happen. But he could also go to the public and get hit by a stray bullet or run over by a bus.
If you can solve #1 in your mind (i.e. you’re able and willing to afford the D3 school), I think you gotta roll with letting him choose #2 - even if he ends up a bench player.
And perhaps there are other reasons he likes the school too that you’re not seeing.
I hear a lot about what you want - but if money is not an issue - what you want should be secondary to what he wants.
If money is an issue - then hopefully you set budget limitations or strategies up front - so he would understand he has to pivot away.
He might, in fact, have his best ever memories and make his best friends as part of a close knit team. Not too many get to experience that.
This all gets very personal, and that is OK, but it may (or may not) help to tell you my perspective on this.
If the cost were the same I would probably just let my kid make the choice. It may not be the best choice, but it is their life and you (usually) only go to college once. And it will probably work out fine.
Since cost is not the same, now I think you can reasonably set some additional rules, but I think those rules need to be clear and consistent. Like, would you not pay more for any school? If you would pay more for some schools, which and for what reason? Again, I don’t think you can’t have such rules, but I think they shouldn’t be targeted at just one school, they should be more general than that.
Again, not sure that helped or not, but it is how I would be thinking.
I think small schools have a lot of pluses that are easily overlooked- and if playing football is part of his identity it may be very hard to give up. I went to a liberal arts college that was no powerhouse in football but the guys I knew who played loved it- it was such an important part of their time there and all of them are successful adults- drs, lawyers, teachers, business people. It was in rural New England so they weren’t out there getting internships or anything either. Playing a sport at a d3 school isn’t anything like playing it at a d1 where the sport becomes your job, he’ll have plenty of time for a normal college experience. I would also hate to have my kid regret giving up something they loved. If it was me I would try and come around to the small school and get excited about it-
My son was in a similar boat.. but decided the D3 school was not for him. Thought about walking on to his university football team but decided to check out Rugby. He loves it. Has met great friends and his team is top 7 in the nation. He plays all game every game and with less of a time commitment he joined a fraternity, major related club and has a lot of fun too.
Great advice offered. The problem is not easy and I, as a parent, would not be indifferent between choices that are financially quite different, though this would be roughly $6K per year.
I’ve never been a football player, but my sense is that the total amount of time required is quite high. A star hockey player at my alma mater said that it was like having a 30-40 hour a week job on top of school and that it reduced the effort he could put into academia. I don’t think he had major regrets as it was a top Ivy and he did well after college.
I played on a minor varsity sport at said school and never felt that it prevented me from making my maximum academic effort. Teammates became life-long friends and I would say that the camaraderie helped bring me out of my shell. But, I would not have been willing to sacrifice the time away from my academic ambitions and other endeavors (I had a job for four years as a research assistant) that would have been be required by a football program (to be fair, the football program would have been more than happy not to have me).
I wonder OP if your son understands the tradeoffs that would be required. Many athletes have to choose less ambitious programs. I’m not saying anything against athletes or that all of them are bad students or that some students can’t have extraordinary academic careers and play football. I’m just saying that big sports like football require very substantial time commitments that restrict the time and energy one would have for academic work.
I want to echo @blossom’s thoughts that sometimes the problem is the messenger and not the message. ShawWife often thrusts me into alternate messenger role (though this is usually not on college choice but on thinking about careers) and sometimes I am able to help the kid become unstuck or see the choices in a different way. In other cases, not so much. I don’t know enough about the situation: Does OP’s son have unrealistic assumptions about playing in the NFL? Does his sense of identity come from being a football player? Has he thought about careers? Would one school be more helpful than the other (which is hard to know objectively anyway)?
I’d also like to third the suggestion on rugby. I would never play it as I don’t like getting banged around but my classmates and friends who played love it. I think the rugby players also remain friends many years later. One of my current colleagues in the UK still coaches or advises teams and, I believe, played for quite a number of years after university. I suspect that at some schools, the rugby network could be helpful professionally well after school.
Yet another plug for rugby, if the all-or-nothing binary of varsity football doesn’t seem to produce a win-win scenario. My nephew plays rugby for an elite public U; he learned about the sport from my brother-in-law, who discovered the sport at his T10 LAC in the 90’s, and has since played on club teams all over the world as his career has taken him to four different continents. My volleyball-playing D17 also has a former teammate who switched to rubgy in college (at one of the top CSU’s) and is now playing for the women’s national team of her dual-citizenship country, having also earned an engineering degree… and another HS friend who took up the sport at an Ivy and had a great experience as well.
It’s a tough decision, at any rate. My D17 was a top player on her school volleyball team; she had talent and dedication, but not on a level that would have made an under-5’4" player DIII-recruitable. She was okay with not playing in college, in theory. But in reality, she struggled with the adjustment to college, combined with taking away the ready-made social structure of both athletic teams and daily rehearsals for music ensembles. (She joined a choir in college but the level of engagement and community was just not the same.) She tried intramural sports but the continuity and camaraderie were just not comparable. College sports really can be the “glue” that holds the whole experience together. Then again, the cost in terms of time and energy can be very very high, and the dynamics aren’t always as healthy as they could be.
It’s probably too late to suggest a PG year at a prep school, and maybe it wouldn’t have been something of interest anyway, but that’s one thought I would have in this situation, as perhaps it could get him into more of a “best of both worlds” school in the next admissions cycle. But then again, I don’t even know whether such a school exists (or is affordable if it does exist), and the cost of a PG year would be higher than the differential between his current options.
Tough choice. One thing I would say is that if he does go to the football school, it seems likely that he could still transfer to the state flagship after a couple of years, if the bloom comes off the DIII/football rose, so going with his preference wouldn’t necessarily burn that bridge completely.
Some may put in that amount of time, but I’d say for the average smaller school or smaller program, they are still students first and athletes second. My daughter was a D2 athlete at an engineering school and her academics came first. Did some of her teammates put in more time on athletics and less on academics (and probably more time partying)? Sure, but that was a choice because they really didn’t want to put in the time on academics. My daughter also got money so she didn’t need to work(but she did when she was a senior, and I know one of her teammates worked weekends in the fall and whenever she could in the spring as a referee for their sport). For D it was more like 20 hours (and she was a starter and team captain).
Are football players at Michigan and USC and basketball players at Duke and Florida putting in 30-40 hours a week? Probably during the season, but they are also on full scholarship with lots of extra money too. Many of them only take online classes. I don’t think the OP’s son will be putting in that kind of time. The coaches can tell you what the practice and playing schedule will be, what the travel schedule will be and I think it is important to ask. My daughter’s first year was exhausting, but after that the coach figured out a better travel schedule (11 home games, 5 travel but some were only 2 hours away).
Colorado school of Mines football (D2) played in the national championship for the last 3 years. They had some 6th year ‘seniors’ because of Covid bonus years, and they were graduating with a BS, an MS, and a few certificates in some kind of engineering. They weren’t practicing 40 hours a week.
My other daughter picked a rural LAC that would have never been my choice - but the best fit for her.