Pay to Play

[georgiegirl]

CMU is also very competitive for it's music and theater majors. And they do have non-STEM majors. So she isn't necessarily taking a spot away from another STEM student as there must certainly be caps for number of students in each major.

CMU gives recruited athletes pre-reads and will place a thumb on the scale for all majors EXCEPT computer science. My friend’s kids is an amazing swimmer and CMU wanted him and was super excited until they heard he wanted to major in computer science.

At all of these selective D3 schools being a recruited athlete helps. BUT the majority of these kids are qualified academically. They just get a leg up over the thousands of other kids. Totally sucks if your kid isn’t a top athlete.


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[Tenasparkl]

My daughter did show choir while in high school and that was
$1600 a year.

Yeah, that's what it is here for our intermediate choirs. It's even more $$ for the advanced choirs.

[AnnieW625]

I agree with what Dogmom posted. In the lands where most BBB kids go to school it is very competitive to make a public high school team. In our old area (where most high schools have populations of 3200+ students) I knew from co workers, school parent friends or friends of friends that it was pretty much a given that unless your child was in a club sport or competitive league (plus an all star league) year round by 6th or 7th for sports like volleyball, soccer, and baseball you may not earn a spot on a high school sports team. It was expected that your child be in at least group lessons (but privates were preferred) for tennis especially varsity tennis (where there are three singles players and three sets of doubles players; everyone else who plays is JV). In many schools football doesn’t have that restriction but in other areas it does and it expected that you put on pads and play in a tackle league no later than 7th grade especially if you want to play for one of the top two D-1 teams in the nation (both are Catholic schools from SoCal and they recruit from all over the region because they can and I am sure there is a ton of scholarship money available as well). Many kids start in 3rd or 4th grade though (in our old area the practices were at the park by our house and those kids were tiny) and tbh it keeps the kids out of trouble and focused on a sport. Even at DD1’s elementary school because she didn’t play club volleyball she was not a starter on the team. It didn’t matter that she showed up to every practice and game, gave her all; she didn’t play because she didn’t play club (because she didn’t have time due to dance). I really like Dd1’s school is that because everyone plays. Yes there is a fee but in my DD1’s experience she had never picked up a tennis racquet and then when volleyball season was cancelled in 2020-2021 due to Covid she decided to play tennis. The following season she decided to stick with tennis because she said there were too many volleyball players. She had zero lessons and a $25 racquet from Dicks (she now has a much nicer racquet). She picked it up easily and played varsity doubles from the beginning. She now plays singles. She only takes group lessons in the off season (although this year her coach would like her to have some privates on a regular basis). She earned team
MVP two years in a row. If she went to the two public high schools here with well known programs she would most likely be playing JV. She made have had the same JV status thing with a public school dance team. She did classical ballet and had limited hip hop, jazz, and zero cheerleading experience (other than one camp in 4th grade) where as most girls are known to have experiences with different types of dances. Dd1 is competitive but tbh our pre Covid work schedules and not being able to afford a nanny and not having family close by it really dictated what sports dds could participate in. For DD1 it was ballet and school volleyball, and for DD2 she just did swim lessons after she stopped gymnastics at 5 or 6. Dd2 now just does tae kwon do.

CMU is also very competitive for it's music and theater majors. And they do have non-STEM majors. So she isn't necessarily taking a spot away from another STEM student as there must certainly be caps for number of students in each major.

Yes….Joe Manganiello (who is local to Pittsburgh) was declined admission to the program, even though he was an honors student in high school, and was an athlete as well. He ended up getting in the following year, but initially wasn’t accepted.


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[jgenie]

My kids are at a private school on the East Coast. All fees are rolled into tuition or covered by school wide fundraising. There aren’t fees for anything except international trips and those are heavily subsidized by endowments.


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[trales]

Public HS - $95 per sport, free if on free and reduced lunch, covers busses/ coaches/ entrance fees. Everything else- uniforms/ bibs comes from booster clubs/ donations. We also have to pay to ride the bus for HS (even those under 16). It's only $25 a year, but still.

Our HS is considered Title 1 with 57% of kids on free and reduced lunch and USDA defined rural. So, not a lot of club sport training.

[jacksmomtobe]

For DD’s public school -$325 per sport except football , hockey and alpine skiing which are $425. Family cap of $975 for HS Athletics. Equipment is generally pretty poor so most teams fundraise though sometimes a portion of that is donated to charity. Freshman yr no cuts but for boys soccer one year there were 44 kids and only 25 or so would dress for a game with only about 15-17 actually playing (usually the same crew). Though some kids joined the team even though they hadn’t played in years knowing there were no cuts. Participation drops after that. The coaching generally is not very good. If you are lucky the coach is at least a positive team builder even if they don’t know the sport that well or their knowledge is dated. Kids tend to play club sports around here for the competition and hs for fun though I’ve seen some kids have pretty bad experiences in hs sports. There is a relatively high commitment required for hs sports which in my opinion isn’t really in line with the level of play. Many of the stronger athletes pass on playing hs or go to private schools instead.

Ds is at a prep school. There is no additional sports cost but they expect kid to do two activities consisting of either sports, theater or active participation in a school club. Most kids at the school have one strong sport or theater/music skill which is why they have chosen the school. The level of play is significantly higher than our local public school.

Corie that is insane what you have to pay at your child’s and step children’s school. They should have some type of family cap!