Distinctive

By Victoria Tillson Evans, Ph.D.

My daughter recently said to me, “You are surprisingly athletic.” While certainly a loaded statement, to be honest, I’ll take this 70% compliment, 30% insult from her. Being athletic has been important to me ever since my best friend and I owned the boys on our elementary school’s kickball field.

As an adult, however, I have fewer opportunities to put my athleticism on display except when my daughter lets me temporarily jump into one of her tennis lessons or my husband invites me to lift with him at the gym. Most of my sporting happens alone in the wee hours of the morning before anyone else is awake so I can beat the heat, traffic, and demands of everyday life that would otherwise get in the way of my running.

Like I said, being athletic is important to me. But just because it’s important to me, does it need to be important to you? Or more critically, is it important in college admissions?

Like so many aspects of this process, it depends.

To give relief to everyone who hates playing sports, let’s first look at the instances when athletics do not matter.

You’re not athletic and do not wish to be either. Yes, if you’re not athletic and have no interest in sports, you absolutely do not need to participate in an extracurricular athletic activity. While some high schools have sports requirements and the Centers for Disease Control encourage teens to get at least an hour of physical activity each day, sports do not need to be part of your activity portfolio. If you fall into this category, just go for walks or learn how to airwalk. Exercise for your health, but not your résumé.

You like sports, but not enough to get really good at one. Like any other activity in the college admissions process, the only ones that matter are the ones that you’re genuinely passionate about. If you enjoy playing tennis, but you treat it as a hobby or an opportunity to socialize, that’s great. It’s important to do things that are personally enriching. Just understand that at that level, your athletics won’t be important to college admissions.

You’re good enough to make JV, Varsity, or a travel team, but you’re not elite. This is where the vast majority of high school athletes fall and get tripped up. So let me give you some perspective. In these instances, I look for cases of character building that you can integrate into your essays. Now to be honest, most college essays about sports are cliché. Either the student got hurt and worked hard to get back out there, or they managed to win the big game after a setback. Yes, as an athlete, I know that it takes a lot to come back from illness and injury, and it’s exhilarating to win, especially after falling behind; however, those are some of the most overused topics in college admissions. So once you get those proud memories off your chest, look for other moments in your sports career that shaped you in an unexpected way or that reflect something unique about your personality. Then maybe, just maybe, your sport could become important.

You’re not only good enough to make JV, Varsity, or a travel team, but you’re also elite enough to get recruited or be recognized as one of the best in the country or the world. These students typically put in 20+ hours per week during the school year, and often more over the summer. On top of practices and games or races, they attend clinics, camps, and tournaments all over the place, not just regionally, all in the name of performing at higher levels. They lift, they audition, they sacrifice time for other activities to win league, national, and sometimes international awards. If you fall into this category, your athleticism can be nicely rewarded. The catch with developing such talent, however, is that this is a high-risk, high-reward endeavor. Many students put in the time and effort to become elite athletes, but they either get injured right when it matters most, they burn out, or they just fall short when it comes to winning big awards and/or getting recruited. This can be horribly painful for someone who has dedicated their young life to one pursuit. As a result, my advice to you, if you choose this path, is to use your breaks or whatever other free time you can spare to explore other interests. Having a safety net is essential, especially since no athlete lasts forever in their sport.

So, should you play a sport? If you love sports, absolutely. If you don’t, absolutely not. I just don’t recommend playing a sport solely because you think it’s a strategic choice for college admissions. If you hate running, taking up cross country in ninth grade is not going to magically transform your chances of getting into a reach school. Similarly, if you love running, but will never become fast enough to get recruited, that doesn’t mean you wasted your time on the track. Your high school years are not solely about college admissions. They’re about developing self-awareness, so you leave for college with a stronger sense of who you are and what you want when you take your first steps into adulthood.