Are you really prepared to play college softball?

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Dec 2, 2013
3,410
113
Texas
I'm going to ask my local home school Facebook group. Hopefully some will know.
This is your best bet. I am sure the folks in your home schooling community has access to test prep tutors. My DD raised her ACT score 3 pts after the first 2 weeks of tutoring. Then she fell off the next two tests. Senioritis kicked in and she got lazy we found out that the Merit money was too far out of reach at the school she was going to.. Needed a 32 for lowest aid package. She ended up getting a private scholly that pays for 70% of her tuition. Yeah for us!!!!
 
Nov 18, 2013
2,255
113
Lots of good points here. Playing college sports is hard. Living away from home for the first time is hard. College-level academics are hard, and STEM is harder. The wisdom of sending 18yo kids far from home to "sink or swim" while trying to manage all of this is questionable and, at a minimum, involves significant financial risk.

While I'm sure that SOME college athletes sucessfully manage a STEM workload, that's unusual, and probably unrealistic for most. Combine that with now having to live on their own, and there are many likely areas of failure. I've seen my share of kids who went off somewhere because that's where they thought they wanted to go boomerang right back home. More often than not, their parents didn't have their own "college experience" out of HS and didn't know what they didn't know. They get lost in the desire to see their DD continue to that "next level" and fail to see the minefield ahead. While this kind of failure usually isn't the end of the world, it's not what anyone wants, and it will cost tens of thousands of dollars to get the kid back on track.

For some, playing college sports is a realistic way to pay the bill. However, there are trade-offs in terms of available study time and even opportunity cost. Will going to that far off college to play a sport result in an extra year (or two?) to get through school? How much debt with they have? Will the degree be worth anything at the back end? I know of a player who was probably the best HS infielder in the state who graduated from college with a degree that pays fast-food wages. If your DD really has the grades and scores to get into a good university and study something worthwhile, she probably can get a significant portion paid for on the academic record alone. Living expenses at many schools are as much as the tuition, fees, and books. If the kid can live at home, at least for awhile, the savings are huge.

Actually according to data the NCAA is required to gather, female athletes in most demographics have higher graduation rates in STEM majors than non athletes.

DD had good grades in HS, but not high enough for much academic money. She got some, but we wouldn’t have been able to afford her school on that alone.

Softball helped teach her how to work hard to accomplish her goals. It gave her the support network to be successful. She graduated in four years from a P5 school with an engineering degree and a job doing something she loves. There’s way more kids just like her than you think.
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
I imagine that is true in many programs.

Only the ones where it is well know that the starting salaries for new grads are high..

This has nothing to do with athletes this has to do with people parents nudging kids to go into majors for which they have no interest or aptitude because they perceive that what they are actually interested in will produce "fast food wages". These parents then come and whine when their kid, who hates what they are doing, isn't getting A's in my course even though they are paying "good money" to go here. Not everybody has to major in STEM...
 
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Nov 18, 2013
2,255
113
Only the ones where it is well know that the starting salaries for new grads are high..

This has nothing to do with athletes this has to do with people parents nudging kids to go into majors for which they have no interest or aptitude because they perceive that what they are actually interested in will produce "fast food wages". These parents then come and whine when their kid, who hates what they are doing, isn't getting A's in my course even though they are paying "good money" to go here. Not everybody has to major in STEM...

Agree they don’t have to go into STEM. I just hate seeing girls discouraged from it. I’ll admit I nudged her into looking into engineering. Had nothing to do with money though. I spent much of my career in IT and the engineers always seemed to have the most fun.
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
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Agree they don’t have to go into STEM. I just hate seeing girls discouraged from it. I’ll admit I nudged her into looking into engineering. Had nothing to do with money though. I spent much of my career in IT and the engineers always seemed to have the most fun.
Of course nobody should be discouraged from STEM. Some aptitude is necessary but if a kid has genuine interest the amount isn't that large..Most, if not all, of the kids I am speaking of are males.
 

Strike2

Allergic to BS
Nov 14, 2014
2,044
113
Actually according to data the NCAA is required to gather, female athletes in most demographics have higher graduation rates in STEM majors than non athletes.

DD had good grades in HS, but not high enough for much academic money. She got some, but we wouldn’t have been able to afford her school on that alone.

Softball helped teach her how to work hard to accomplish her goals. It gave her the support network to be successful. She graduated in four years from a P5 school with an engineering degree and a job doing something she loves. There’s way more kids just like her than you think.

That's great, and congrats to you and your DD. As I said, there are athletes who can make it work. However, if you look at most any roster, hard science / engineering majors are clearly the exception.

I don't know what you're looking at, but the NCAA data I see doesn't say what you claim. The NCAA DIV I Diploma Dashboard shows that, as of 2017, 16% of female DIV 1 student athletes graduate with STEM degrees compared to 17% for the female student population as a whole. For all DIV 1 athletes, it's 15% and 25%, respectively. Further, there's no indication of how long it took to obtain those degrees, or what specifically qualifies as "STEM".

Statistics aside, for every individual success story such as yours, I can provide a fist-full of less-than-successful ones. The fact that your DD did something very challenging doesn't negate my assertion that living away from home, playing a varsity sport, and majoring in a time consuming field of study is the hardest possible way to go. Reviewing the softball team roster of my non-softball-playing DD's school, which is a selective and STEM-heavy private DIV 1 university, there is one applied math major, but not one engineering or similar major.
 
Nov 18, 2013
2,255
113
That's great, and congrats to you and your DD. As I said, there are athletes who can make it work. However, if you look at most any roster, hard science / engineering majors are clearly the exception.

I don't know what you're looking at, but the NCAA data I see doesn't say what you claim. The NCAA DIV I Diploma Dashboard shows that, as of 2017, 16% of female DIV 1 student athletes graduate with STEM degrees compared to 17% for the female student population as a whole. For all DIV 1 athletes, it's 15% and 25%, respectively. Further, there's no indication of how long it took to obtain those degrees, or what specifically qualifies as "STEM".

Statistics aside, for every individual success story such as yours, I can provide a fist-full of less-than-successful ones. The fact that your DD did something very challenging doesn't negate my assertion that living away from home, playing a varsity sport, and majoring in a time consuming field of study is the hardest possible way to go. Reviewing the softball team roster of my non-softball-playing DD's school, which is a selective and STEM-heavy private DIV 1 university, there is one applied math major, but not one engineering or similar major.
Her team had four engineering majors last season. She’s not an anomaly.

I stated among certain demographics. Look at female sports and filter out basketball and the rest of the student athletes outperform the overall female population.

Most non student athletes aren’t graduating in four years and and the rates on the NCAA site are using the same criteria for athletes and non athletes.

I understand what you’re saying, and it is hard work. My point is that’s it’s more than doable if a woman sets her mind to it and I hate seeing females discouraged from STEM majors because it’s too hard.
 
Jul 16, 2013
4,659
113
Pennsylvania
@Strike2 and @MNDad I think the two of you are talking about two slightly different things as well. It looks like @MNDad is speaking of graduation rates for those majors. I think @Strike2 is talking about total numbers. I actually agree with both of you. I think graduation rates in general are better for female athletes, due to some of the skills they learn while playing softball (and other sports) and some because of their ability to manage their time (with some help from athletic departments). But I do know that it isn't easy, and that some athletes (male and female) do not finish their college careers due to the academic workload. A player I coached in travel ball recently decided to give up softball just prior to her senior year. She is a nursing major and decided she wanted to focus her time on that. I'm not sure where she would be counted on the numbers the two of you are using. But she definitely isn't alone in her decision either.
 

Strike2

Allergic to BS
Nov 14, 2014
2,044
113
Her team had four engineering majors last season. She’s not an anomaly.

I stated among certain demographics. Look at female sports and filter out basketball and the rest of the student athletes outperform the overall female population.

Most non student athletes aren’t graduating in four years and and the rates on the NCAA site are using the same criteria for athletes and non athletes.

I understand what you’re saying, and it is hard work. My point is that’s it’s more than doable if a woman sets her mind to it and I hate seeing females discouraged from STEM majors because it’s too hard.

Four engineering majors out of how many on the team...20? Just curious...how many freshman that your DD started with graduated in four years? Who else had an engineering degree?

Regarding females and STEM being too hard, you're arguing something that I never said nor intended. Again, it's about how parents underestimate the challenges of living away from home for the first time, managing ANY academic workload (much less STEM), and playing a varsity sport. Having personally witnessed several spectacular student-athlete failures, and considering the fact that STEM doesn't make up the majority of college majors to begin with reasonably suggests that adding a STEM workload on top of everything else is unrealistic for most. Not all...not your DD...but most.

None of that has nothing to do with discouraging females from majoring in a STEM degree program because it's too hard. One of my DDs is already in one, and the other will likely go that route as well.
 

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