<p>My S was captain of his hs soccer team and played in the state’s top league, captain of the state champion knowledge bowl team and male student of the year, val, nmf, etc…</p>
<p>This really shouldn’t be a polarized arguement. That’s short sighted on each extreme. </p>
<p>Let me point out a few possibilities, then you tell me if they are or are not possible…</p>
<ol>
<li>An athelete can be a great student.</li>
<li>ALL EC’s take time and involvement, and all are better than being in front of the TV.</li>
<li>Colleges take kids for many reasons. </li>
<li>There is no garantee for ANY student they will be successful, only hope. </li>
<li>Atheletes are still people.</li>
<li>People talented in non atheletic endevores are still people.</li>
<li>They can cross over or do both.</li>
<li>A person can take up a sport at anytime in life. </li>
<li>A person can take up an art at anytime in life.</li>
<li>We are best served when we improve oursleves, not point out the perceived flaws in others.</li>
</ol>
<p>We all should be proud of our kids for what ever they do. If you’re upset a college wants student A over B, the reasons don’t matter. What matters is you’ve let someone else control your attitude. </p>
<p>I also have a D who had absolutely no interest in sports until 9th grade (swimming and tennis) . She also was a val and captain of her knowledge bowl team and nmf and all that. She hated soccer growing up, played one year and quit at 6. No pressure. All we asked was for a positive activity…any kind of positive activity.</p>
<p>Well, low and behold, freshman year at her college and what’s she start playing? yep soccer. For s…ts and giggles. Then flag football. I would never put down anybody’s kid (and I haven’t here) for doing something ANYTHING positive with their life. With all the wrong things a kid can do, let’s take a second to figure out that bashing a kid for brains or brawn or god help us BOTH… isn’t healthy.</p>
<p>Here’s another point on which you are dead wrong, curious14. As corroborated by mini, I have witnessed numerous hirings in the business world where the big “buzz” in the office is all about the candidates who played D1 sports in college.</p>
<p>I never asked for a GPA either, pretty meaningless without seeing the transcript, since a “B” in “Sports Physiology” or what the students called “Rocks for Jocks” (Intro Geology) was hardly the same as a “B” in Organic Chemistry or Sub Atomic Physics.</p>
<p>Not if curious is hiring and you are an athlete, are married to an athlete, gave birth to an athlete, enjoy watching athletes, or even know an athlete. 'Cause athletes are really, really dumb.</p>
<p>I have a comment about the importance of various experiences for gaining employment, not directed to anyone in particular. On the basis of what he knew about my son’s academic record, and after observing him at a summer program a couple of years ago, a dean at Flagship U offered him a summer job (normally reserved for adults) in computer services. On the basis of observing him at that job last summer, and hearing about his many e.c.s that involve leadership and personal initiative, he now has offered him an even better job for this summer, also involving computers.</p>
<p>Sports are good, but so are many other activities. Not doing team sports is not necessarily the road to ruin and unemployability. At least not if you know a lot about computers.</p>
<p>“Sports are good, but so are many other activities”</p>
<p>Spot on. Somebody gets it. It’s not a question of better than, it a question of positive activity. When we pick apart positive things kids can develope a passion for, we increase the negative things they could be doing instead. </p>
<p>Personally the comment I would make regarding EC’s is do something you enjoy, if it works for college fine, but it should be something you enjoy simply for doing it. If your busy having fun yourself, you really won’t notice what somebody else is doing.</p>
<p>My travel companion tonight reminded me that D had a particular instance where being a fairly high level HS athlete killed her. Dead in her tracks. I thought I’d share as it shows that there are great situations out there for non-athletic kids , too. As I have said through the whole thread. </p>
<p>D applied to a Dual Admission Med School program and made the cut from several hundred to 21-22 for what we thought was 12 slots (ended up being cut to eight.:(). Pretty good odds. </p>
<p>She did the interview and was questioned long and hard about her only having several weeks (4?6?) of clinical experience and zero research. She explained that she played ball year-round plus held down a part-time job year round, plus we live 30 minutes from a hospital with zero public transportation and no DL until her last summer . They didn’t care. They didn’t care one whit about sports at that place, and they let her know it. LOL. She may have been the only varsity athlete there. At least, no one else admitted to it when they were in small groups. </p>
<p>There’s a place someone with science research and other more academic EC’s would nail and where an athlete, at least my athlete, was at a distinct disadvantage even with what most would consider superior stats (GPA,Rank,ACT). Because they valued different EC’s. </p>
<p>Find the right place for you. Obviously that one wasn’t right for her. But it sure was a sweet deal for somebody else’s kid. ;)</p>
<p>Edit: Off-topic - Note to anyone who has a kid considering one of these programs, (at least at this one and ones like it) drop everything else. They do not care . They want to see incredible commitment to medicine so that they can be sure you are serious about completing the program. An essay and rec’s and a summer won’t get it done, no matter what your stats are. JMO.</p>
<p>S, who’s a college frosh, found that when interviewing for jobs and internships last year, the item on his resume which generated the most positive conversation was his soccer refereeing. The perfect verbal SAT score, which he’d included since he didn’t have much skilled work experience and hoped that would let prospective employers/mentors know he had a brain and good communication skills and thus would be capable of handling simple office correspondence or doing web research, was NOT a positive at all. It tended to intimidate people a little and make them feel threatened that the kid in front of them was smarter (in a raw sense) than they were. People would make jokes like “Hey Joe, we should let this kid write the press releases instead of you.” People remember their SAT scores and GPA and may have lingering feelings of insecurity associated with them. Sounds silly, but it’s true.</p>
<p>Also, just learned this fact about the economics of happiness: people are made just as happy by a 10% derease in their neighbor’s wealth as they are by a 10% increase in their own. Translation: academic stats that are too high can make a prospective employer feel poor and thus unhappy. Sports achievement is less threatening because it’s easier to chalk it up to natural physical ability and body type that someone is born with. Like, I couldn’t be an NBA player because I’m only 5’6". It’s harder to make a no-fault excuse for why you didn’t get better grades or test scores. And this phenomenon harkens back to the CC thread on the benefits of elite college education and how sometimes it can work against you in hiring.</p>
<p>I have an anecdote that reflects a slightly different take on this point. My S is being recruited at one of the most selective LACs in the country. Frankly, he does not project to be one of the best students there. I asked a highly successful business person if this would have a strong negative impact on his job prospects. The business person said that he didn’t think so. His reasoned that the mere fact that my S could be admitted to such a school (even as an athlete) demonstrated that he was smart enough to grasp whatever concepts were necessary to do the job, and that the fact that he was a varsity athlete indicated that he had other attributes that were important to success in the business world.</p>
<p>The more general point: while being smart in the 1800+ SAT sense is important to success in the real world, super high intelligence (2200+) is only marginally important to such success.</p>
<p>I suggest a little thought experiment. Imagine that all those “brains in a jar” people suddenly decided that Harvard was not worth attending. In short order a Harvard degree would cease to carry the prestige that it currently has and people would be clamoring to go someplace else. On the other hand, let’s assume, for a moment, that Harvard suddenly became unpopular with athletes. What happens? Not much.</p>
<p>umm … the IVY league is unpopular with athletes … at the NFL combine this week how many players are from IVY league schools? one. Pure athletes go elsewhere … the kids the IVYies accept are overwhelmingly student-athletes. </p>
<p>To me the irony of these discussions about schools like Harvard is a bunch of people think Harvard is a great school and they really want to go there … and then argue that Harvard should change how they pick their students … is it possible that one reason Harvard is such a great school and so many poeple want to go there is because of the way they select their students and that they actually know what they are doing?</p>
3togo, I was thinking the same thing. It reminded me of an interview I caught years ago where a professional hockey player was almost being harassed by the interviewer, who was incredulous that the player had attended Yale. In the interviewers mind, it was a foolish decision, because their hockey program was not so great. He asked more than once, “Why Yale?” The players’s answer, something along the lines of Yale is a terrific institution, just wasn’t acceptable to the interviewer. It’s so funny to see people who are so absorbed in their own values & choices that they can’t see any one else’s point of view. Both jocks and brains in a jar are equally guilty.</p>
<p>As my D is a runner, I’ve been watching which colleges the best track athletes of my state are choosing to attend. I see quite a few going to Brown and Princeton this year. Certainly for girls, and for boys with no aspirations of reaching the NFL or NBA, a better college academic program trumps a better sports program any day!</p>
