DD informs me she intends to play in college

[Momo'sDad]

Thanks so much for all this great counsel, everyone.

UC Berkeley (Cal) and UCLA are part of the 9 University of California (UC) undergraduate campuses. Acceptance rate for applicants at Cal is 18% and UCLA 20%. If you are in the top 9% of high school students in the state, you are automatically accepted to one of the 9 campuses but not necessarily your UC choice.

As you know, those two schools are highly selective for admissions to its freshman class. For example, for incoming freshman the average weighted GPA at Cal is 4.39 (obviously AP and Honors classes give the student the ability to get better than a 4.0). I don't know what the average freshman GPA is for the student-athlete who enters the softball program but I would think its well north of 3.5?

Some things to consider:

- She needs to take every AP/Honors class available to her.
- She needs to start thinking about what classes she will take in high school since she is preparing for them now. For example, she realistically needs 4 year highest math, 3 years laboratory sciences, 3 years foreign language, etc.
- She needs to find the best travel ball team in her area and be a starter. Many travel teams are already attending 14U college showcases.
- This summer or next (at the latest) attend the softball camps where she can meet and be seen by the coaches. For example, at UCLA in addition to the regular junior softball camps, they have the Academy and ID camps with advanced instruction and competitive games where they are certainly evaluating potential recruits. When my DD was 9YO, she did one of the overnight softball camps and had a great time, got to see the campus, coached by the UCLA players and coaching staff. I would think it would be a must for any serious recruit to attend one of the advanced clinics.
- She should have some other options if she wants to play softball in college. For example, UC Davis and UC San Diego have softball programs, albeit, they won't be going to the WCWS.
- Each school's softball program will only have 4 or 5 freshman openings 100's of players are trying out for these few coveted spots. She needs to the best of the best.

Lastly, she should talk with some college graduates who played softball in college to make sure she knows what the program entails and how great a commitment it is to be a student-athlete.

Good luck.

Having to hit the reset button is a bit challenging for me, because her expression of her goal forces me to rethink not only about how to prepare her for college, but also about how to manage her softball "career". She's a strong student in average classes, so she'll definitely need to move towards a more rigorous curriculum. One thing that's clear is that I cannot sit back and hope the schools get her ready. I think I do a fair job, but also know that I'm falling short. I think she's in a pretty good softball situation as an average player getting plenty of innings on a strong team. She's been putting in a lot of work on her own outside of practice, a commitment she hasn't really made for much of the past year or so. But now, I can no longer look at this ride as just expensive fun. She needs to stay on a team that I know will get exposure as opposed to having fun simply getting her ready for HS ball. I'm not saying she'll make the team when she's of age, but the current players on the 18G team in her org are all going to play in college and most are headed to big schools, including 7 that are going PAC-12. Ga Tech, Fresno St, UCSD, Boston College, UC Davis, and CSU Northridge are also represented. Just looking ahead and thinking out loud, a pipeline like that likely means increased competition for prospective slots on that 18G team as the girls get older.

After reading all the posts, I did begin looking into camps last night and the overnight UCLA camp should work for our schedule, but one of the tricky parts about managing this is that attending camp will mean having to miss a team practice when they're trying to peak for Nationals and need all their parts in place.

When I think about her strengths, I believe time management is something she's very good with, so I see her as the type of student might be well-equipped to handle her courses around the practice and game schedule. But I also know that to this point in school, she's never faced any truly strong academic challenges. I'm going to encourage her to start looking at more schools.

 

[stickpile39]

Welcome to that long bumpy road of preparing for college!!

many ways to get most of your tuition payed for. NO ONE SIZE FITS ALL.

Please elaborate further. I have an 8th grader and a 5th grader and the thought of coming up with Half A Million Dollars over the next decade is quite daunting.

 

[Rocketech1]

Momo's Dad - our DDs are the same age. One thing I can say is they change their minds a lot! For example, one minute they don't want to play HS softball and next they want to be on Varsity as a freshman. IMO, academics are the #1 priority. My DD is a very good student and plays travel ball year round, but if and when her grades suffer because of sports, she won't be playing softball anymore. With that said, I am giving her every opportunity to be the best player she can be and will continue to support her activities as long as she loves this game.

 

[BobInMadison]

Boy, do kids EVER change their priorities at that age.

My hobbies as an 11th grader were completely different from my hobbies as a 9th grader, and I don't follow any of the same hobbies now.

DS was into climbing in middle school, track as a freshman in HS, and rowing starting as a sophomore. (Still rows in college)

DD #1 was really into softball at that age, quit her TB team as a freshman, came back to play freshman ball in HS, quit after that. Her comeback as a freshman was a little bit of a surprise, since she told me she was going to run track!

Meaning ----- what? Your DD could be into softball the rest of her life, or she could lose interest in the next few years.

 

[SoAZDad]

Momo's Dad - our DDs are the same age. One thing I can say is they change their minds a lot! For example, one minute they don't want to play HS softball and next they want to be on Varsity as a freshman. IMO, academics are the #1 priority. My DD is a very good student and plays travel ball year round, but if and when her grades suffer because of sports, she won't be playing softball anymore. With that said, I am giving her every opportunity to be the best player she can be and will continue to support her activities as long as she loves this game.

Our DDs seem similar in in academics and in softball, and I share your parenting philosophy and priorities.

 

[MandM]

So my 2 cents- I have DD who is now junior in HS so we are having these discussions are on-going. She has been able to balance the academic demands of her current HS as well as playing softball, which includes TB play, practices with team, personal practice wi/pitching and batting coach- a lot of balls in the air necessitate monitoring her stress level too- she is self driven with both her school work and softball, and fortunately does very well in school.
#1 rule was to go after the best fit academic school she was qualified for AND could play softball- that was a priority. WHile I do believe you can graduate from almost any college/university with a solid education, I also think some schools help open doors for life after college so there were some special targets. She had dreams about where she would like to play ideally, which had to be modified with doses of realism along the way- and I guess that is something that is really important too- being realistic about how your DD stacks up against her likely competition for slots in those competitive DI college programs- so that she can adjust her expectations if she needs to. My DD and I listed 5 or so schools, strong academically (mostly DIII, some DI) and decision was that if none of these schools were interested in her from a softball perspective, she would apply general admission to wider # schools, IVY and NESCAC- with some safeties, and then walk on to softball if she could.

My final advice, for an academically competitive university/college, they will consider whether your DD took the most rigorous curriculum offered at HER high school- (not the prep school cross town or HS in the next county but her own school.) They will consider her extracurriculars (good to be broad-based- write for the newspaper or literary mag too) -being a competitive athlete speaks to time management skills which is good- THEN she needs to see what the standardized testing requirements are- most schools still want them and they, unfortunately, are a fact of life. She should figure out which test works best for her, ACT or SAT, prep for it, take it once or twice for practice, and do her best to perform at her best for it. Be prepared to take tests as a sophomore, some coaches (if she is considering the East Coast) want/need to see what range the score is in prior to recruiting.

Proud parent moment: i have more financial freedom for DD to choose, cause DS will be a plebe at the USNA starting July 1!!

 

[BobInMadison]

Proud parent moment: i have more financial freedom for DD to choose, cause DS will be a plebe at the USNA starting July 1!!

Wow. You SHOULD be proud. That is quite an accomplishment just to get in there.

May your DS, and all servicemen, enjoy an extended time of peace.

 

[MandM]

Very proud- especially since DS did NOT get an appointment last year as a HS senior, and reapplied- he is finishing his freshman year in college- an NROTC mechanical engineering major (3.9 GPA!!) to go to the naval academy. Still can't believe his dream has come true- we are truly blessed

 

[1696]

My experience is the one (softball) feeds the other (academics). DD1 had Bs and Cs HS freshman year. Started getting interest. Coaches said "all things being equal, we'll take the player with the better grades".

She gets As and Bs as a sophomore. Takes 2-3 AP classes as a junior and senior, gets mostly As.

She gets a partial academic, partial D1 athletic scholarship and gets injured (pinched nerve in her throwing arm) 2nd week of the season. Pinch runs. I'd bet she will not recover and she'll hang up the cleats after this season.

So... I get a DD that stayed away from drugs, alchohol and (somewhat) boys (she basically did not have time!) from age 15-19 and has a 3.8 heading into her sophomore year (all those AP credits transferred after 1st semester).

And without softball she'll have about 40-50 hours more a week to join a sorority, take a semester overseas, play intramurals (she always loved soccer and basketball and wanted to play lacrosse). I could not be happier for her.

So encourage her to reach her potential (from your post, I'm sure you will) and let this play out. These things have a way of working out for the best.

 

[NoGolfTil2017]

Stickpile39, I think that GoingDeep probably meant that there are athletic scholarships, academic merit scholarships, arts performance scholarships, etc. Also, should your kid's academics get them into certain elite schools with large endowments, and you are not in an income bracket that makes you full pay, you may find some very generous need based aid.

Since my kids are not of the natural athlete sort, we have looked to the academic merit aid. Take a look on College Confidential - there are lists of automatic merit aid for certain stats, competitive merit aid, NMF scholarships, etc. There are also many more merit scholarships at various schools that are not listed there - it is kind of mysterious how some are awarded, but encourage your kid to take the most rigorous courses in HS and get high scores on the SAT/ACT. Let them follow their interests (softball, other sports, music, art, community service, etc.) and see where it leads you.

It will be interesting next year when my 2016 applies to schools. DH is pulling for some schools where she would get automatic merit (full tuition or more), but she has her sights set on some other schools (though she certainly will apply to some safeties). And she'll go to the NFCA Pennsbury Academic Camp again to see if the softball might help her at some of the DIII schools. It will be interesting to see what schools have interest in her at Pennsbury - my eldest had a couple of very interested top LACs and that was mainly based on test scores (I think). I expect some similar interest for my 2016, and she has higher test scores/GPA than her older sister.