This has always been the case. Also the ivys, Stanford, big 10 carry a massive amount of sports. At some of the Ivys in particular 1/4 of the students are athletes, 1/3 are legacy or special admits. So unless your parents donate a building you need to be on a sports team.
But I coached for a while, the soccer, volleyball, and for sure tennis coaches all agreed that most of their athletes were spending the price of tuition in high school on travel sports.
one joked that a walk on was costing her parents LESS money than travel soccer the year before
My kids have played a lot of travel sports, none were 69k a year which is tuition at most Ivys and stanford. Sounds like an exageration for soccer.
is 5-10 grand per year ball park? It can run that high in California..I remember a tournament in Las Vegas where the two teams in the final were from Sacramento. All the parents were wondering what was the point in spending all that money for hotels in Vegas to play another team from your home town
But I worked at a state school in Texas (lots of them) and I can assure you that a club soccer girl in ECNL will spend more her junior or senior year traveling and training than the cost of tuition at DI directional state in college.
This isn't about extra-cirriculars bolstering your application; it's about getting your application accepted based on the fact that the softball coach walked into the admissions department and told them to accept your application. Michael Lewis says he knows a college softball coach and this is how things work. Michael Lewis says his daughters play competitive kids' softball and the parents think of it as a way to get their kids into good schools. Because it's actually easier to be in the top, say, 4% of softball players than to score in the top 0.4% on the SAT. The former requires some minimum level of athletic skill but the main barrier is having the money and time to play competitively from an early age.
This has always been the case. Also the ivys, Stanford, big 10 carry a massive amount of sports. At some of the Ivys in particular 1/4 of the students are athletes, 1/3 are legacy or special admits. So unless your parents donate a building you need to be on a sports team.
But I coached for a while, the soccer, volleyball, and for sure tennis coaches all agreed that most of their athletes were spending the price of tuition in high school on travel sports.
one joked that a walk on was costing her parents LESS money than travel soccer the year before
My kids have played a lot of travel sports, none were 69k a year which is tuition at most Ivys and stanford. Sounds like an exageration for soccer.
also, there has been an emergence of "MLS academy" teams where pro soccer teams have started youth selects mirroring how european and mexican teams have age group teams being developed for potential professional play. those teams are usually free or reduced cost.
the thing being MLS academies only have so much geographic coverage, and only some are worth a crap yet. at the moment you might find traditional select just as good with more history of producing college and pro players. and the one in houston is the wrong side of town for most players, as well as for the center of soccer talent gravity.
my experience it was like a few grand. and that's counting we'd go someplace for a weeklong summer tournament, which could double as a family vacation if you had the cash.
side point but i found the travel positive in creating independence. i often had to catch rides with other families and share a room. trips without my parents. i got used to handling money and surviving on a budget before college. i got used to being in other towns for a week before college when i went to college i didn't get homesick. i didn't blow all my money.
This isn't about extra-cirriculars bolstering your application; it's about getting your application accepted based on the fact that the softball coach walked into the admissions department and told them to accept your application. Michael Lewis says he knows a college softball coach and this is how things work. Michael Lewis says his daughters play competitive kids' softball and the parents think of it as a way to get their kids into good schools. Because it's actually easier to be in the top, say, 4% of softball players than to score in the top 0.4% on the SAT. The former requires some minimum level of athletic skill but the main barrier is having the money and time to play competitively from an early age.
bull. you couldn't have played sports. at all. i am sure 99.99% of those kids are scouted. i was offered admissions help one place for soccer. the coach saw me play twice before i got that offer. i then got in on my own anyway.
softball would be no different. they would come watch you play.
i think you're confusing normal scouting with varsity blues style corruption.
eg jorge salcedo from UCLA soccer was notorious in elite soccer circles for having turned a national champion level program into a far weaker team. most coaches would not do that because they would lose and get fired. ergo i had d1s and d3s flying in from states away to watch games.
what they were taking advantage of, is most teams have a lot more players than they need, so you could dump a scrub in the last roster spot, or help them get admitted with the agreement they then quit their walkon, freeing the slot back up for a real jock. but again, that's corruption. that's not even trying to run a sensible program. i got more scrutiny than that from d3s with just ok soccer teams. much less good ones or d1s.
i think the reason runners resist is HS running their sport you can run school XC/TF for most of the school year, and if you're fast enough, get recruited off that alone. it also helps the sport tends to recruit blind off times. so you don't technically have to do foot locker or nike outdoors -- but it can help.
from years of HS and college tryouts, your typical rec soccer player isn't fit enough, isn't sharp enough on the ball, and doesn't quite know what they are doing. their ceiling is like HS JV in a good area, or varsity in a meh one. awkward on the ball, not ready to make decisions as fast as we start to, not prepared for physical play or to dish it out, and they don't get the chess match aspects.
it'd be like showing up for football your junior or senior year of HS. you could be a great athlete and you wouldn't know schemes, techniques, all the subtle stuff.
track is unusual in how raw you can be and come out and have an impact, and i even think that's limited to maybe average varsity quality. past that you start needing good genes, having to do little things right, racecraft, training. eg i'd imagine the best some kid off the street can run a 100m is about 12, or a mile maybe a little under 5. everything else is coached up.
This isn't about extra-cirriculars bolstering your application; it's about getting your application accepted based on the fact that the softball coach walked into the admissions department and told them to accept your application. Michael Lewis says he knows a college softball coach and this is how things work. Michael Lewis says his daughters play competitive kids' softball and the parents think of it as a way to get their kids into good schools. Because it's actually easier to be in the top, say, 4% of softball players than to score in the top 0.4% on the SAT. The former requires some minimum level of athletic skill but the main barrier is having the money and time to play competitively from an early age.
Yes, it might be a good strategy for parents stuck with stupid kids.
This does not apply to distance runners. Distance runners almost always out perform the rest of the student body by a large margin. On the flip side, probably 10% of football and basketball players would be able to gain entry to their current school based on academics alone.
Being fast enough can get a 1200 SAT student into schools in the US news and world report top 25.
The Varsity Blues scandal was just so, well, scandalous because those morons faked their kids being good at sports to get them in when they, in many cases, likely had enough money to do the old-fashioned way of donating to target school in order to get them in.
It may have cost more, but paying for someone to fake your kid being an athlete? So gauche.
Seriously, if you had rich friends in college I would imagine you'd have heard these kinds of stories—every single college has them. Some are more blatant than others, but every single one has them—even the state schools.
(Although I suspect Michael Lewis is focusing on folks with less means than the high profile Varsity Blues Scandal folks . . . the upper middle class, so to say. I mean, why else would Lacrosse be so big in affluent, white places if not to get their kids into Johns Hopkins and Duke and so forth . . . )
This isn't about extra-cirriculars bolstering your application; it's about getting your application accepted based on the fact that the softball coach walked into the admissions department and told them to accept your application. Michael Lewis says he knows a college softball coach and this is how things work. Michael Lewis says his daughters play competitive kids' softball and the parents think of it as a way to get their kids into good schools. Because it's actually easier to be in the top, say, 4% of softball players than to score in the top 0.4% on the SAT. The former requires some minimum level of athletic skill but the main barrier is having the money and time to play competitively from an early age.
Dude, this is right out of Vin Lannana's playbook at Stanford. Maybe at Oregon and Dartmouth, too. Lots of preferential leniency from admissions and creativity from financial aid offices to get kids into school and then on non-athletic scholarship funding. It's one of the worst kept secrets.
It depends on the sport. For sure with field hockey, lacrosse, crew, those sorts of things. Kids lining up to see how can be first to the finish line, in a sport where the training can occur anywhere and that requires no special equipment -- for flat track races, that is -- eh, not so much. Personally, I didn't know any kid who got into the sport thinking about how that would help him for college admission.
Well if JohnR has never met anyone, then it has to be bogus.
I worked in fencing for a bit. The attitude of fencing to get into a good school was rampant. I also saw what it did to a lot of kids. Parental pressure (paying thousands of dollars on lessons and competitions) was being felt by the kids. Could be pretty toxic at times. (Also lots of good folks to be fair).
A fencing coach from a top private school told me that (and the numbers are just illustrative) that if the admissions in general required (whether by rule or not) a 1400 SAT, if someone was offered an athletic grant it would be lowered to 1250. (Still solid). So the fencing partial scholarship increased a person's chances significantly. Even in that case, the cost was going to be high since that school gave few full fencing scholarships.
It depends on the sport. For sure with field hockey, lacrosse, crew, those sorts of things. Kids lining up to see how can be first to the finish line, in a sport where the training can occur anywhere and that requires no special equipment -- for flat track races, that is -- eh, not so much. Personally, I didn't know any kid who got into the sport thinking about how that would help him for college admission.
Well if JohnR has never met anyone, then it has to be bogus.
I worked in fencing for a bit. The attitude of fencing to get into a good school was rampant. I also saw what it did to a lot of kids. Parental pressure (paying thousands of dollars on lessons and competitions) was being felt by the kids. Could be pretty toxic at times. (Also lots of good folks to be fair).
A fencing coach from a top private school told me that (and the numbers are just illustrative) that if the admissions in general required (whether by rule or not) a 1400 SAT, if someone was offered an athletic grant it would be lowered to 1250. (Still solid). So the fencing partial scholarship increased a person's chances significantly. Even in that case, the cost was going to be high since that school gave few full fencing scholarships.
sorry, this is bull. same mistake as my colleague. you even kind of admit the truth implicitly when you say, "if they are offered a scholarship." the special help is usually reserved for the top prospects. not for the kid who is both subpar academically for the profile, and also barely walkon worthy.
example. teammate of mine had a lower SAT. occasionally flashed some skills but would disappear a lot, and then didn't like playing defense. he needs more admissions help. he doesn't get it. he gets admitted on his own. i have a higher SAT but also am scouted that i will start soccer as a freshman and be on the relays for track. i am top half of the profile. i pretty much know i am getting in. i am told if anything goes haywire with admissions, i will be helped. i get admitted within days of sending in my application. no need for help. start as a frosh and 3rd leg relays.
we're both select players. his being select and needing help didn't get him in. he had to sweat it. i got the push offer because i could make an immediate impact.
what you're confused about, is the AD is trusting his coach to do this process honestly and with a clue about the sport. they likely are not sitting over the HC's shoulder saying, wait, kid x is better than kid y you want help with, or kid z is not worthy of our team. and the team doesn't necessarily know who got help or scholarships, unless someone involved says it. this creates limited room for corruption.
My boss's son played baseball and got into a top 50 US News east coast liberal arts school thanks to baseball. He was a good student, but had no chance without baseball. A kid who is coached by my son's golf coach got into Yale to play golf. The valedictorian at his very competitive high school tried to get into Yale and did not get in despite having better grades and test scores. Sports definitely can get your kid into a school they would not normally get into. In the high ranking schools, the country club/private school sports like sailing, crew, lacrosse, etc. do serve to open up admissions to more rich kids. And many of them have wealth parents who can pay full freight.
The Varsity Blues scandal was just so, well, scandalous because those morons faked their kids being good at sports to get them in when they, in many cases, likely had enough money to do the old-fashioned way of donating to target school in order to get them in.
It may have cost more, but paying for someone to fake your kid being an athlete? So gauche.
Seriously, if you had rich friends in college I would imagine you'd have heard these kinds of stories—every single college has them. Some are more blatant than others, but every single one has them—even the state schools.
(Although I suspect Michael Lewis is focusing on folks with less means than the high profile Varsity Blues Scandal folks . . . the upper middle class, so to say. I mean, why else would Lacrosse be so big in affluent, white places if not to get their kids into Johns Hopkins and Duke and so forth . . . )
You seem to be under the illusion that hundreds, or thousands of kids are getting into Duke and Hopkins with Lacrosse each year....which is also what parents think.
The reality is the so called niche sports are also hard to get roster spots. Less than 1% of players go on to play in college, and most of that without scholarship.
Most parents waste a lot of money on equipment and coaching for kids in soccer, lacrosse, golf etc only to discover that their kids are not good enough to earn a scholarship or even play in college. They just have to hope their kid enjoyed their hs and club careers.
Yup. Sadly youth sports are a machine making money off of families and their kids. The complementary services such as gyms and trainers are also at the troth. Some of it is driven by kids, some of it is driven by parents. Some are spending more than the college education may cost them. Most are after the bragging rights that come with being a "division 1" athlete. Irregardless of that division 1 being a rinky-dink school with a subpar education. I wouldn't strictly focus on those gaming the system to get into competitive schools. How many kids go to a competitive school, much less sports program, without investing in year-round sports?
