We knew a bunch of kids like this from S23’s teams (different sport). They ended up at non-competitive schools (both academically and athletically) majoring in sports training or something along those lines. The problem isn’t the school or the major, it’s that they only went to play their sport and had no goals beyond that. (As my son said, they wanted to play their sport in 13th grade). That’s really not the college experience you want for your kid (unless you 're a parent that still measures your worth through your kid’s sports performance).
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yes – sliding scale! like with so many things in life.
i am now thinking of this; i can think of 17 different schools in 5 midwest states where we know kids playing, including one ju co. Absolutely may not be the choice school for many, but the kids doing their sport seem to love (loved) it! Most of these kids are our S20 or D23 kids ages, so i’m not quite sure on how everything will turn out for them.
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How does he feel about foreign languages and studying abroad?
He could potentially do an AFS “super senior” year in a soccer-loving country, get in another year of high school play and coaching there, and also test-drive how he does with school when his own parents aren’t there to stay on top of him.
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Putting on my former coach (another sport) hat for a minute, what happens if he gets injured before the season starts? Will he want to continue with school? I know you really want him to go to school, but maybe he’s just not ready. Some kids need a little life under their belt first. Does he have any aspirations for a career? Sorry if I missed that in the responses. Could he fill his desire/need to continue with the sport through local club teams or coaching for a year while working and re-evaluate college applications the following year?
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The competitiveness depends on the sport and the school.
This forum tends to also focus on using sports as a hook to get admittance to selective & highly selective academic schools which are competitive to get into.
I agree with @murray93 that some parents like to make it out that only a few % are able to continue a sport in college.
That was the crux of my earlier comment, that the % of kids playing college sports can be a bit misleading and does not necessarily translate to them all being the very top HS athletes.
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[quote=“cquin85, post:94, topic:3667628”]
our kid’s grades/scores and your kid’s play level. That’s what drives D3 recruiting.
[/quote]…adding at highly selective schools.
Kids grades/scores less so at many other D3 schools that may be fine schools, but some may not be all that difficult to get admitted to.
I was thinking of Whitman, but it’s very rural and small, if that matters to him. My son’s club team was coached for a year by Whitman’s retired soccer coach. He was an outstanding coach.
Honestly, if my kid would only go to college if he could play soccer, he wouldn’t be going to college (unless a pro prospect).
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It sounds like he only cares about the opportunity to play soccer at the college level and doesn’t care about the academic side or classes. I’m guessing if he was accepted to a college team, he would maintain the minimum GPA required to stay on the team, which might be as low as 2.0.
Rather than facilitate this path, I’d focus more on plans beyond soccer. For example, assuming he is not planning to be a professional soccer player, has he thought about what he would like to do as a career? Would a college degree help support those future plans, or is it a path that does not require college?
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I’m sure you’ve thought about this, but what is the appeal of a D3 program instead of a high level U23 club team, or even a lower level semi pro team?
Just thinking about how I would advise my own S26 soccer player in the same situation. It’s interesting to think about, kind of a chicken and egg thing, because I can’t see any compelling reason that your son would HAVE to go to college in order to play. Some kids are doing the opposite of your son - they first come up with the dream school/dream program, and then they try so hard to get recruited for one particular place or a couple particular places. It’s interesting to hear from a kid who is thinking about it differently.
My child could have gone to college without playing her sport, but she couldn’t have gone to the college she did without the scholarships (athletic and merit). She also wanted to play and not sit on the bench. She had a youth league teammate who went to BC (great team) and never played. In fact, she left the team as a junior because she just didn’t get any field time. Stayed at the school, really liked it, but I think she missed playing.
My daughter told me recently she would have really liked to have gone to USC. Aw, nice, but she never would have made the team or played much if she did. That team was just at a much different level of play. She’s realizing now how lucky she was to have gotten to play almost every minute of every game, to be a captain for two years, to have her college paid for. Last weekend she played in a tournament and she didn’t get to play very much (she’s older, isn’t in the same shape as the college kids who just finished their seasons, and the games were really short so the coaches were trying to give everyone a shot on the field) and it is sinking in how great an experience she had in college.
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But your student wanted to go to college - at least the way OP talks, maybe this student doesn’t really want to…
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Not to be a wet blanket, but a semi pro team will be at at least a low d1/high d3 level of play. So at a higher level than most d3 programs.
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Thanks for that context. My son has a friend who went from a small local D3 team to a USL2 team, so that’s been my only exposure to pathways for older students.
I understand some U23 teams are very competitive and that could be a good solution for a college-resistant (or ambivalent?) kid paired with a gap year.
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The USL2 team nearest to me is filled with D1 players on summer break from college, and is generally a mid-table team during the season. Right now they have players from UVA, Georgetown, Virginia Tech, BU, Harvard, Yale, Brown, Northeastern, Holy Cross and Providence.
My son’s college team always beats U23 teams, but USL Championship teams are generally a very good match up.
Where we are, the players on the club U23 team are those that can’t make USL2.
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Seen this movie a bunch of times. Kid chases a sport (often fantasy) and not an education. Sport doesn’t work out (coach, playing time, too far from home, injury) and/or fails school, drops out, still on the parents’ payroll. At some point you have to question whether the parents were enablers in this. Maybe time for some tough love?
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I only know Whitman recruiting from the women’s side, but with that qualifier acknowledged I think Whitman would be a stretch at an 85 average, even with a good test score. Whitman cares about grades and course rigor. The admission percentage is very misleading, as that applicant pool is very much a sub-set of self-selecting students. Kids in the PNW don’t do “drive by” apps to Whitman like they do UCLA, Cal or UW. You have to be a pretty strong student. Whitman is fairly deliberate about putting their classes together and they say out loud that they are modeled after the classic highly selective New England LACs. And the coaches don’t have a lot of weight there IMO.
The OP’s son’s story would not, IMO, resonate at Whitman. Of the NWC teams, I’d target Linfield, PLU, George Fox, and Whitworth. Maybe try Puget Sound, Willamette, amd L&C. Just my $0.02.
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Agree with everything you’ve posted. Except that a ton of rigor can counterbalance the GPA at Whitman. They really make an effort to understand the transcript from what I’ve seen. We don’t know if the OP’s kid has stretched himself with course selection- but I don’t think the GPA is a knock-out factor in and of itself.
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Agreed.
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What happens if he doesn’t get accepted to any college where he can play on a college team?
What is his Plan B?
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