Originally posted by Unregistered
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But strong academics and test scores get you merit money. That’s the point. -
Because Athletes, real athletes, compete at Penn State.Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
No one is picking penn state because the soccer coach’s academic merit incentive, Penn State picks them purely for soccer. Possible that the last 1 or 2 recruits at Ivy are being picked because of their 1400 as AI boosters.Comment
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Of course. But the example was a top prospect with 1400+ sat score. All schools like top players that will be a breeze academically.Originally posted by Unregistered View PostComment
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Remember this?Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
Our income precludes financial aid at an Ivy. The ROI of an undergraduate Ivy League education makes it less than attractive. At full pay, Penn State is $20,000 cheaper per year as a starting point. Stacking athletic and academic aid could conceivably bring COA down another $20,000+ per year.Originally posted by Unregistered View PostComment
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Penn State big deal,Ivy is for the rich,connected with a few international full pay.Regardless of scores or athletic ability Ivys dont accept regular working families children numbers don't lie .Comment
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They do if you have the grades and scores. Ivies are very generous with financial assistance so kids from working class families will go for free. But youth soccer is not an activity for working class families.Originally posted by Unregistered View PostComment
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Ivies are all well and good but they're not for everyone and the lack of merit and athleticmoneyputs itnoutnof reach for some. There are other top D1 programs that have big soccer and good academics that will also appeal to top student athletes - several in the ACC, Big10, like Duke, Notre Dame, USC etc. This area only sends a handful of players to such programs a year, if that. There's a lot of D1s that won't appeal to really strong students like average State U or the many smaller/more regional D1s like Quinnipiac.
There's also some bigger D3s that feel like D1s that also have some strong D3 soccer - Emory, JH, U Chicago.Comment
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In state tuition at UMass for the Honors College, studying CS or business in Isenberg, could be a major windfall for students and parents.Originally posted by Unregistered View PostComment
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Umass is an awesome school comparable to Penn State except in regards to football.Comment
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Or in regards to:Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
Endowment
Alumni network
National recognition
SoccerComment
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Back to the original post --
The problem with many, if not most, STEM majors and playing on a college team is the same problem that you have with Music majors and Art majors.
Too many of the classes for STEM majors are labs where physical attendance is absolutely required to do the lab work. Similarly, Art and Music majors are problems because you cannot practice with a group, or work on a substantial art project, while you are sitting on a bus, or in a hotel room. STEM majors are problems mostly because you cannot attend a lab if you are out of town and pretty much every lab course ever is going to say -- you cannot miss more than 1 or maybe 2 labs -- for any reason whatsoever -- before you are given no credit for a class. You can make up lectures (often on video now), but you cannot make up labs. You must physically be there in the lab to do the lab.
As a team is on the road a lot in season, you then are pretty much saying you cannot take a lab course that term. Maybe you attend a big school where sequenced labs are available every term, and maybe not. It has to be a pretty big school to have the same lab courses offered every term, and even then, at the Junior and Senior levels they simply will not because they will not have a sufficient number of students to take the course. Chem lab 101 not a problem. BioChem Lab 440 not so much. What happens if you miss the class offered only in season? You are out of sequence just as if you flunked. Wait until next year - oh you can't wait, because you have the same problem next year. You quickly also find you can't just take other courses to fill in because you now do not have the lab prerequisites for those courses. So -- that is the real reason that most STEM majors do not work out for athletes. Labs and sequenced classes.
Have a kid who wants to play soccer and be pre-med? Great. Sit down and pull up the class requirements for the schools you are thinking seriously of (the course requirements are on line). What classes must you take in order to be X major? You can look at the whole list from beginning of freshman year to graduation. You need X credits of general studies (English, Humanities, etc), These Math classes, these labs, and these lectures. Work the way through them. Get pencil and paper and write them down as though they were a schedule. "Fall term Freshman year I could take ...." Spring term Senior year I could take ..." Keep in mind that your soccer coach is going to want you to take a minimum number of credits in the season (say 12 and then stack them in the off season and summer). Does it work? Could you do it in 4 years? 5 years? More? Look particularly at those Junior and Senior level courses and when they are offered.
We dived into it when, during an early campus tour, my daughter said she was thinking of being an Art major. The coach said -- and he had been there a good many years -- he never had an Art major player before. Sirens went off in my head. What? How is that possible? That became very clear in later talking with some of the art professors about the classes and work that the students were doing. Literally a good many had cots in their studio spaces because they basically lived there. My youngest is a business major now, but is also a drummer and enjoyed marching band in high school. Pre covid -- he intended on trying out for marching band but was very worried about the competition having known some older music majors. We have friends whose son was the Band President his senior year and he said -- no problem. There are basically no music majors in the huge Big10 school's marching band. Music majors cannot spare the time out of the practice studios to learn the marching routines for home game.
So -- do the work. Sit down with your kid and look at the courses needed to graduate with a particular degree. Chart it out. It does not matter whether you end up with English 203 or 205 to fill out that requirement. It matters greatly whether you can sequence out the labs and other required classes for your major when you are a Junior and Senior.Comment
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STEM isn’t the be-all and end-all.
The NESCAC isn’t exactly a STEM hotbed.Comment
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Now one brought NESCAC into this conversationOriginally posted by Unregistered View Post
Take a look at school rosters and you'll see many athletes are general business and other majors that work better with a travel heavy D1 schedule. Many D1 athletes take courses over the summer so they can take a lighter load in-season. That may not be appealing to some athletes and certainly puts more limits on summer internships, which are already limited because of August pre season. I hire plenty of people for our company. As motivated, organized and competitive as former college athletes may be, a candidate with a quality work-related internship or two is always going to get the spot over one without.Comment
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