@bluewater2015, I think you hit it on the head. 14/15/16 seems to be the sweet spot for girls. In what I observed, participation seemed to drop as the girls engaged in high school and moved on to other things. Certainly there are far fewer U18 teams in my daughter’s old club than U15s. It seems like boys select out earlier, for whatever reason.
I think that is another thing that makes early recruiting so perilous. There was a girl my daughter played with who was lights out exceptional at U14/U15. She got to high school and became a bando, and I don’t think is even playing volleyball on her high school team anymore. And just to show that this hapoens in a lot of sports, a kid named Danny Clark just decommitted from Ohio State yesterday. He was a quarterback and originally committed as a freshman before his first high school game. I think the difference is that in the larger sports while these early commitments happen, they are not the norm. It seems like in several sports they are more the rule than the exception, which is just nuts.
@twoinanddone, I don’t understand your point about Title IX and a distinction between NCAA and “school” scholarships. I don’t think Title IX limits itself to the NCAA. I think it mandates “substantially proportionate” aid and funding from all sources based on participation.