<p>“Playing a sport devotedly and spiritedly is bad?”</p>
<p>I don’t think that was said, at all, by anyone. I think what was said was:
(1) Truly <em>sacrificing</em> academics for the sake of a sport – & in the hope that the athletic achievement will surmount the academic underachievement – is an ill-advised admissions strategy, if/when it happens.
(2) That the college tier in question is also relevant to the importance of the level of e.c. achievement, whether that e.c. is a sport or an equally physically demanding performing art.
(3) That there’s a difference between athletic recruitment or star value, and athletic involvement, even when that involvement is a high level of achievement.
(4) That sometimes strong athletes also are vals, sometimes they are not even in the top 10-12%. I doubt that categorical equivalencies can be made one way or the other.<br>
(5) That the qualities that produced & resulted in a fine athlete are qualities are also visible in other, & similar, activities.
(6) That “being involved” (in a sport, in a school e.c.) does not equate to great achievement, necessarily, but that it can contribute terrifically to discipline & character, & may be important in admissions to fine but non-top-tier schools.</p>
<p>I agree with your last paragraph, Kelowna. Playing in a school group does not mean you are playing at Carnegie, for example, or winning concerto competitions. Two very different kinds of “involvement,” while both are valid.</p>
<p>For top-tier colleges, these distinctions are important. For non-top-tier, they are less important. (And note that many male athletes – especially – choose to enroll in ballet or other dance classes because of the balance & coordination these provide. Those are essential to certain sports. That’s why I say that the tier in itself should not be the goal if an activity advances other needs or desires of the student.)</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, the older brother of one of my friends was a two-sport varsity athlete who quite literally wallpapered his bedroom in college recruitment letters, and is now playing professionally. He was also his high school’s “star” bass, and sung in three award-winning choirs. He was good enough at both activities to be the subject of frequent local news stories in each, and he wound up on the scholar/athlete honor roll at his college (a top public). Another good friend played both his sport and his instrument at the international level, the first throughout HS and the latter throughout college (as part of an ensemble). He was a national medalist in his sport and is currently making a living with music. He graduated from a well-respected LAC. I’m absolutely not claiming that this is the norm, nor that it should be. Both of these individuals eventually gave one thing up to pursue the other (the first gave up music, the second gave up his sport), but not before achieving an impressive degree of success in both (of course, the number of students who are simply “good” in a sport and “good” in music or an art, vs. being truly distinguished in both, is far greater). Not trying to prove anything with these anecdotes…just sharing some interesting stories :)</p>
<p>Most of the stereotyping in this thread seems to stem from imprecision more than from ill-will. Having spent 15+ years as an athlete, both individual and team, in a sport that no college recruits for, I guess I’m especially bothered by the frequent lumping together of “athletes (in general)” and “recruited college athletes.” Perhaps there are good and bad things to be said about both groups–ditto individual vs. team athletes, recreational vs. competitive athletes, athletes in sports that can be recruited for vs. those in sports not played at the college level–but the distinctions are important.</p>
<p>One does not have to be “recognized” to be a musician, nor does one have to be “recruited” to be an athlete (nor does one necessarily have to reach such a level for his involvement to impact college decisions). I’m not sure whether the OP meant to be talking about “sports” in general or specifically about recruited athletes (same goes for whichever poster later brought up the arts), but some post-by-post specification could clear up a lot of confusion here :p</p>
<p>There is no comparison between someone who manages to get all A’s while playing varsity sports, which require a 15-25 hour per week commitment, to someone who gets all A’s with a 1-2 hour per week activity, given the same workload.</p>
<p>Who talked about a 1-2 hours per week activity? Again, what ignorance is on this thread, regarding non-sports activities. ONE of the 2 major performing arts which my D’s were in, required 21 hrs of practice per week, before their own commute time is figured in. (Adding another 6 hrs per week, minimum.)<br>
That also does not include additional chosen workout to support those physical activities, classes, performances, and competitions. Nor does it include any time to travel to competitions & performances.</p>
<p>Sorry, you actually don’t know what you’re talking about. (And one of my D’s was Val with 4-6 AP classes per semester, NMF, etc.) Other one hasn’t graduated yet.</p>
<p>We see it at our high school all the time. Varsity athletes make county band, district band and even <em>gasp</em> state band. In PA - a rather large state with lots of competition. Some even play in a band.
Our high school frequently - over the past 10 years - has had leads and major parts in our school musical who participated in athletics - even during rehersal season.</p>
<p>We are not talking professional sports or playing at Carnegie Hall. We are talking about kids being able to and being encouraged to take part in activities that they love.</p>
<p>Many high schools do not but ours fosters a culture of involvement. Our kids are not either in ***** or ****. They are in both. The faculty, staff, directors and athletic director encourage it.</p>
<p>Go back to the Original Post -
</p>
<p>Athletic EC’s - i.e. participating in a Varsity sport are more “important” than other EC’s. This is not the case for only recruited athletes.
This is not a reason to try out for a team if you hate sports. Other EC’s are valuable as well.
The reason athletes are looked upon highly have already been stated here - they require commitment, the art of practice, leadership, desire to win, ability to lose graciously and time management to name a few.
Many athletes who compete at the varisty level participate in their sport(s) year round. Some participate on club teams as well.
Not all spend thousands and thousands of dollars or want to or expect to be recruited.
Many high school athletes are in fact quite cerebral individuals - they take challenging classes, score very high on their SAT’s and are quite pleasant to be around.</p>
<p>Student 615, I don’t see stereotyping of athletes. I see people doing some observations based on their personal experiences, some of which I encapsulized in post 61: that post indicated a range of experiences by the posters, without a single generalization being overwhelmingly valid. I do see your point – about making a distinction between recruitment & non-recruitment, but I don’t think the OP was asking about just recruitment.</p>
<p>What I do see, however, is a stubborn insistence of sports being somehow unique in its physical demands & its time demands. It isn’t. So anyone who thinks that way needs to get over themselves, or learn how physical the performing arts are (when they are carried to the limits of achievement), and how much training & time commitment they truly involve. </p>
<p>Fortunately, the top colleges really do get it, which is why they reward students who have persisted & progressed over 12-14 years in each of two different activities, with nice admissions letters & handsome scholarships.</p>
<p>Kelowna, I think that he may very well have been recruited, but his academics were on a par with getting into Harvard. As for the musical accomplishments, I can only say that top, top athletes are exceptional and yes, there are many who play instruments and play them well. This is all silly. One can be accomplished in many areas. Epiphany, the demands of sports ARE unique in many ways, but that does not diminish the unique demands of a top performing arts student.</p>
<p>“Epiphany, the demands of sports ARE unique in many ways,”</p>
<p>No they are not. I’ll say it again: You do not know what you are talking about if you think they are “unique,” and/or have not been intimately involved in a performing art to national & international levels, concurrent with an extremely demanding, advanced academic load. </p>
<p>(And yes, I’m talking about playing Carnegie, as well as achieving academically to an exceptional degree, as well as competing internationally in a different performing art.) Can’t be done with token time commitments, and without exhaustion, sacrifice, commitment, competing through injury, etc.</p>
<p>taxguy, so where did you go to law school? I assume it must be some mail-order degree mill, if the school actually admitted (horrors) college athletes!</p>
<p>Methinks you need to get out from behind your forms 1040 more often, as there are a few people who might have a bone to pick with you: Sen. Bill Bradley, Pres. Gerald Ford, Sup.Ct Justice Byron White, Dot Richardson, M.D., for starters…</p>
<p>epiphany, your # 6) That “being involved” (in a sport, in a school e.c.) does not equate to great achievement, necessarily, but that it can contribute terrifically to discipline & character, & may be important in admissions to fine but non-top-tier schools. Disagree. “Being involved” in sports, as you say, may very well be important to getting into top tier schools. One of the pillars that they look for, that’s all.</p>
<p>" There is no comparison between someone who manages to get all A’s while playing varsity sports, which require a 15-25 hour per week commitment, to someone who gets all A’s with a 1-2 hour per week activity, given the same workload."</p>
<p>And I would hope not! The straight-A student who doesn’t spend 15-25 hours huffing and puffing might actually be reading a book, writing a play and getting it produced, fine-tuning a winning policy debate case, or simply sitting and thinking interesting thoughts. Since when is everything about who can be the busiest??? I especially object to this mind set when it comes to our youth. I think they really need time to breathe, explore, and especially read widely and independently outside of school. I am never particularly impressed by extraordinarily busy people. In fact, the most impressive people I’ve ever met always seem to be standing in a spot of stillness with all the time in the world to discuss something interesting. I know they have obligations but they don’t make a fetish of their business, as so many do.</p>
<p>This stand-off between the performing arts and athletics parents over whose kids are busiest is just silly. Who on earth would be proud of their kid being programmed to the hilt with only enough time to “get the A” and not enough time to go deep with the material, take risks on the assignments, put the learning first instead of just an item on the daily list to be efficiently marked off? My kids aren’t terribly busy - they don’t do sports or performing arts. They do a few things that interest them but mostly they enjoy their classes, read a lot, talk to friends, enjoy life. Sheesh!</p>
<p>I also think that those not involved in music GREATELY underestimate the time commitement that is involved. I can talk about violin, since I am most familiar with that instrument. HS student who is serious about that EC but no means a prodigy who wants to study music, should spent 2 hours a day every single day practicing - more before competitions. That gives us at least 14 hours per week. Add orchestra, chamber group, performance at church or whatever. Much more is required of a student who wants to major in violin at a good college. I know a good middle schooler - has not won any national competitions yet but is surely heading that way - he plays four hours a day. At 12.</p>
<p>There are no seasons. It is 24/7. My own two kids take instruments with them everywhere they go, minus hiking camps :-)</p>
<p>Completely agreed. They are unique (as are all pursuits), but not necessarily in these respects. Personally, though, I interpreted GymKid’s post (#64) in a completely different way than epiphany (and subsequent posters) did, not necessarily having anything to do with the arts. He stated simply that a straight-A varsity athlete is incomparable to a straight-A student who puts 1-2hrs a week into the activity of his choice, and in many ways, that’s true, whether that activity happens to be rec swim team or piano lessons. I hope GymKid doesn’t think that varsity sports are the only things that can require such high levels of commitment, but from his post, I didn’t make that assumption. I hope he’ll clarify further. This is what I meant about the need for specification. There’s a lot of stepping-on-toes type danger in this thread, and I think that a good deal of it could be avoided if we had a better idea of what we were all really talking about (always true in these forums, I suppose)! And of course, if we got away from the “What’s better?” line of argument, which is absolutely pointless, that would also be nice.</p>
<p>Re: stereotyping of athletes, I should have used a different word. “Generalizing” would have made more sense, and I should have applied it not only to athletes, but across the board. I do think that there’s a lot of stereotyping at work in this thread, but the generalizations, some of them rather offensive (to multiple parties), are the most remarkable.</p>
<p>"epiphany, “but that does not diminish the unique demands of a top performing arts student.”</p>
<p>You can keep saying this all you want, but you’re clearly separating into 2 non-equal categories, which I do not agree with. It bespeaks a failure to understand how athletic a performing art is, such as dance. I’ll repeat what I said earlier: if you’re serious about it, if it is not a hobby, it requires as much training as a Varsity sport does, partly because STAMINA is crucial to your success. Now I’m just limiting it to dance, not even including Kelowna’s accurate observations about a stringed instrument played on a competitive level. (My children did both.)</p>
<p>People not very educated in the <em>tasks</em> of the arts really have not experienced how physical they are. For example, most people do not understand how physical acting is – & I’m not talking about the stunt doubles, but the actors. It is very…physical…work. (My children did acting on the side, but not as a major e.c. Personally I was in a commercial which took an entire day to film and was extremely physically exhausting. It doesn’t mean one is necessarily running around, but it can be brutal on the body.</p>
<p>I hope not! I trust not!
And my kids do sports!</p>
<p>Since my childhood experience is from “another planet” let me assure you that it seems to be a very, very cultural thing, that craze about sports.
In Portugal all boys play soccer on the streets - very few are involved in it by HS time. Only the best.</p>
<p>"epiphany, “but that does not diminish the unique demands of a top performing arts student.”
Critical reading skills are so important these days. We aren’t taking about an adult working in a commercial. We are talking about EC’s and I think most agree that each has it’s demands.</p>