Question for high school parents

[TiggerTrigger]

It's not a true statement for our school or those in our area, but there are more opportunities to be involved in some of these activities if there's a deep enough talent pool or strong enough interest, especially if you're in a school/district with better funding. In our school, all of these things require tryouts, kids most definitely get cut, even kids that take their preferred sport as a class (which is the norm) can be rejected after tryouts, and it's not uncommon for coaches to pull more athletically inclined kids from other sports into tryouts to fill roster spots on JV if their overall athleticism, competitiveness, and sports IQ is better than many of the kids slated to try out. You will see some things offering freshman, JV, and Varsity opportunities but this just means it's popular and most of the kids that only made freshman squads will be rejected for JV and Varsity as sophomores. - Location: TX

 

[Newsies]

Graduated from a public high school in 2015 but we had three divisions of teams for most sports: Varsity, JV, and a special team just for Freshmen. Varsity and JV absolutely had try-outs and cuts but being a small school, most sports weren't that competitive. The Freshman team was no-cuts and really just a way for Freshman who were interested in the sport to develop skills and get to know each other before trying out for JV and Varsity during their Sophomore-Senior years.

Funnily enough, I think our Theatre Department was the most competitive activity in the school Theatre was my "sport" and I remember the cuts from auditions being brutal every year.

 

[lanejudy]

the background to my question is that people are marketing exchange programs in the US implying that if you go to a school in the US you can join the football team or cheerleading squad.

We’ve had some AFS Exchange students at our school. I know the girls volleyball team had one as a player/manager last year. We have try-outs and cuts, even with 3 levels of teams there are too many girls. I don’t recall if this girl was here for pre-season (optional) or try-outs in late August or not. Other students of whom I am aware did sports like cross-country running, Nordic skiing, track & field where there are no cuts but might not compete much.

But at least here I think they do try very hard to accommodate an exchange student to participate in whatever sport or activity they’d like. For a sports team that might be as a manager or riding the bench, but allowed the opportunity. I’m pretty sure we had at least 1 exchange student get a role in the fall musical (which used to audition in the late spring).

 

[mousefan73]

just had a thought, hearing how expensive for sports, I couldn't imagine spending all that money for my kid to ride the bench and never get any play time. granted they get practice but still. thinnk my friend pays almost 1000 in fees etc. for their school sports

 

[sam_gordon]

Another vote for "it depends on the school/sport". If there are too many kids, coaches will be forced to make cuts. If there aren't enough kids, there won't be any cuts. And, as mentioned, just because you're on the team, doesn't mean you'd get playing time.

In my state, if you're a senior, you can't play in JV contests. It is definitely possible to miss "pre-season" (the couple of weeks before school starts for fall sports) and still make, and play on a team. That will depend on the skill of the athlete, as well as the existing talent on the team.

The smaller the school, the more likely (but not guaranteed) to be able to easily be on a team.

 

[slo]

I’m definitely agreeing with everyone that says it depends on the school.

My DD20’s HS is very very competitive with making sports teams. They take the best of the best and that’s still not a guarantee you’ll play. My DD was very blessed with being a 4 year Varsity starter for softball, but it wasn’t handed to her. She had to bust her butt and work very hard on her own to earn that and keep that. She also had a good resume with the program she played for, the private instructors she had and etc. It all matters at her HS. If a player is only playing town ball/rec ball, they will not even make JV. Baseball is even more competitive. Dance and Cheer is off the charts competitive. I can go on and on…..

My DD did play against other HSs that were not that way. They would give players PE credits to play on a sport team to fill the roster. So if you play a sport, you don’t have to take gym. Needless to say these teams were not good because they have players that never played the sport. They’re doing this to get out of taking gym & swimming. When our team would play these teams, our coach would only play our non-starters to give our starters a break.

 

[mjkacmom]

just had a thought, hearing how expensive for sports, I couldn't imagine spending all that money for my kid to ride the bench and never get any play time. granted they get practice but still. thinnk my friend pays almost 1000 in fees etc. for their school sports

When my oldest were in HS, no fees, They added a $200 fee, but that was the max, at one time I had 4 kids playing 3 seasons, $200 total.

 

[soccerdad72]

just had a thought, hearing how expensive for sports, I couldn't imagine spending all that money for my kid to ride the bench and never get any play time. granted they get practice but still. thinnk my friend pays almost 1000 in fees etc. for their school sports

That also is something that's very school-specific.

 

[soccerdad72]

My daughter graduated 7 years ago, but was a two sport student athlete in swimming and in track. There are 4 high schools with athletics in our school district. In her school and another nearby high school swimming was a no-cut sport. Anyone who wanted to swim was allowed on the team. The other 2 high schools had more good swimmers in their feeder middle schools and they had try outs. Needless to say, those high schools produced more swimmers that went to the high school state meet. My daughter did go to HS State, but only one other girl from the "no-cut" schools made it to state that year while the "try-out" schools sent nearly a dozen girls.

Frankly, the "no cut" nature of the swimming team was more a matter of socioeconomics than any kind of "woke" agenda. Competitive swimming is expensive. We spent thousands a year on club swim team and the tech suits for championship season run $300-$600 and can only be used for a limited number of swims. Many of the families of kids that attended the "no-cut" schools could not afford such luxuries while many of the families of kids that attended the "try-out" schools were more affluent.

So, the answer is "it depends" even within a school district.

When I swam in HS, we were so small that they were begging kids to join. My largest swim team (on the boys side) was my senior year - 7 guys.

Fast forward to today - my brother now lives in one of the largest school districts in the country (in Pittsburgh) and their swim team is so competitive that their youngest son has been stressing about making the HS team since he was in 5th grade (he's in 8th now). He had to be on the right club team, swam all summer on community teams, etc. And even if he makes it next year (which looks likely now), it's no guarantee he'll be on it 10th grade year too, as the current 7th grade group of swimmers apparently is extremely strong. Every year will be like that for him, but he loves the sport (he also plays water polo as well - his middle school team were state champs), so he does what it takes.

 

[jimmymc]

It depends on the school. For example, out cross country and track teams would let anyone work out and practice with them, but only the top runners would compete. Our rugby team let anyone join because there was room, but the basketball and baseball teams had multiple rounds of tryouts where more than half of kids were cut. I've heard of plenty of schools struggling to fill football teams and letting anyone play.

 

[soccerdad72]

It depends on the school. For example, out cross country and track teams would let anyone work out and practice with them, but only the top runners would compete. Our rugby team let anyone join because there was room, but the basketball and baseball teams had multiple rounds of tryouts where more than half of kids were cut. I've heard of plenty of schools struggling to fill football teams and letting anyone play.

A lot of that depends a lot on the sport as well. Obviously, for a sport like basketball, where there's a limited number of roster spots you can have (usually limited by the number of jerseys the school has), there's almost always going to have to be cuts. I'm no expert on cross country, but my understanding is for meets, only a certain number of runners can compete for points, I believe.

 

[SandyinMonterey]

Try outs for all sports at my daughter's HS.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

just had a thought, hearing how expensive for sports, I couldn't imagine spending all that money for my kid to ride the bench and never get any play time. granted they get practice but still. thinnk my friend pays almost 1000 in fees etc. for their school sports

Is it possible that your friend was talking about travel/club sport fees? That's usually where I see things start jumping into the thousands, although $1,000 would be cheap in the world of travel/club sports (at least in our experiences). Every sport/school is different, but we paid about $185 for DD15s season school ball fees. Some of that cost includes food for away games and lodging for some out of town early season tournaments. Her season school fees are less than 1 month of travel ball dues.

 

[mjkacmom]

Is it possible that your friend was talking about travel/club sport fees? That's usually where I see things start jumping into the thousands, although $1,000 would be cheap in the world of travel/club sports (at least in our experiences). Every sport/school is different, but we paid about $185 for DD15s season school ball fees. Some of that cost includes food for away games and lodging for some out of town early season tournaments. Her season school fees are less than 1 month of travel ball dues.

Club soccer here runs about $3000 a year, not including travel or tournament fees.

 

[jimmymc]

Is it possible that your friend was talking about travel/club sport fees? That's usually where I see things start jumping into the thousands, although $1,000 would be cheap in the world of travel/club sports (at least in our experiences). Every sport/school is different, but we paid about $185 for DD15s season school ball fees. Some of that cost includes food for away games and lodging for some out of town early season tournaments. Her season school fees are less than 1 month of travel ball dues.

Our high school charged about $1000 per season for ice hockey. Baseball was around $100, and swimming was a few hundred but I forget the exact cost. But we never did overnight trips, at most it was a 2 hour bus ride to a game.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

Club soccer here runs about $3000 a year, not including travel or tournament fees.

Club softball here really depends on age group and competition level of the team. We're now around $5,000/year before you factor in all of the travel expenses, college camps, gear and entry fees for spectators.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

Our high school charged about $1000 per season for ice hockey. Baseball was around $100, and swimming was a few hundred but I forget the exact cost. But we never did overnight trips, at most it was a 2 hour bus ride to a game.

Hockey, in general, is one of the most expensive youth sports.

 

[mjkacmom]

Hockey, in general, is one of the most expensive youth sports.

At one point we had one in ice hockey and two in Irish dancing, so expensive.

 

[MamaMermaid]

Not at the school I teach at... for example, I coach the dance team. We usually have 80 girls try out and take about 30.

 

[_19disnA]

Sounds more like the person in that foreign country is making a generalized statement and doesn't understand how things actually work. Each school/district/state likely has their own rules about sports participation. If someone on the team that doesn't cut isn't good enough to ever play during a game, not sure what they accomplish as a benchwarmer. Seems like a better plan would be to choose a sport/ECA more suited to their skills/abilities. I would expect by the time most get to high school, they realize some are better at sports then others and it isn't like when you were 5 yrs old just playing a sport for the fun of it and you wanted everyone to participate.