Value of High School swimming + awards

Hmmmm - I work in a high school and I know that the state high school athletics governing body (MIAA - Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association) gives awards for academic excellence for teams where the kids have above x academic average. I also know that the swim team used to apply for (and receive) the academic excellence award all the time - much more often than other sports. So there may be some stats at the MIAA website about how many teams get this designation. Anecdotally, the high school swim team in my city has always had a wildly disproportionate number of National Honors Society members. In fact, for several years the entire junior and senior contingent were NHS members. CHicken? Egg? WHo knows? I wish I had some stats for you. I'm sure they're out there though

Now I can't quote you the studies, but they are out there... I read some of the literature in grad school. For example: Research has shown that girls who participate in organized sports are less likely to drop out of school or become pregnant. I would start looking in the sports psychology and the education journals. Lainey

Do your daughters and their potential HS teammates already have club swimming available to them year-round? If so, you'll need to justify not just swimming in general but specifically why the school should offer it as a school activity, potentially at the expense of other budget items, rather than just encouraging students to join club teams. (Not saying you can't, of course, but just trying to help you make sure you answer the question your PhD economists will ask.)

Just brainstorming, but here you go: Academic research - well, it's college, but I would think there is some application to high schoolers... I would check out www.ncaa.org and you can find a bunch of interesting stuff under the academics link, a lot of studies. Where did you swim college? Ask for the academic athletic advisor in the athletic department. They'd love to talk to you. Go see someone at ASU. I remember talking with ours while I was at TAMU. He was working on a paper why TAMU had a zero percent graduation rate for the men's basketball team. As far as awards, it's pretty standard for schools to have "Honor Roll" and "Academic Athletic" awards; just pick whatever criteria. I got a bunch in college, like every semester! You either had to have 3.0 or sometimes a 3.5 (what you had to score to get out of MANDATORY study hall), and then I got some other award for something like a 4.0 semester GPA and qualifying/scoring at NCAAs. Similar to the MIAA (sounds really cool!), we had PIAA (as in, uh, Pennsylvania!), and about 12 regions rolled up to the state level. Ours was WPIAL (Western PA Interschol Athl League, but you pronounce it whip-e-al, or slang, like "I qualified for whips!"). Here's what they got: www.wpial.org/.../overview.pdf You could establish the PWBrundage Academic Athletic Award, which goes to the outstanding male and female senior swimmers who exhibit excellence in academics, athletics, and contribution to their community. See also USA Swimming Applications and Forms current year's Scholastic All American application But the real question is do you really believe they would support starting a swim program, or will they have a meeting with you and then say thank you for all your work and then put it in a file drawer?

As a current student-athlete in high school, Swimming made me crunch down and budget my time accordingly in order to finish everything I have to do after practice. It really instilled time-management skills within me which has helped me keep up my 4.0 even through the swim season.

As a current student-athlete in high school, Swimming made me crunch down and budget my time accordingly in order to finish everything I have to do after practice. It really instilled time-management skills within me which has helped me keep up my 4.0 even through the swim season. Keep up the great work, Hoshi! :applaud:

Another idea but it might require some legwork. Maybe check with age-group coaches to find out how many of their former high school swimmers have gone on to college? If this was mentioned earlier I apologize. It's anecdotal, but I seem to remember that most if not all of the swimmers I graduated with from high school went on to college. I at least remember overhearing of where they got accepted to. It seemed to be a fairly focused group. I even wound up in college and got a graduate degree (I was not a stellar student in high school but came around in college). Some interesting ideas here: does the discipline of swimming help people to apply that discipline in other areas of their life, does the discipline aspect of swimming attract students who already possess this internal drive to achieve, combination of both, and other items? :banana:

Everyone -- thanks for the excellent advice thus far. I've got some great avenues to explore. Michelle, I really like the idea of talking with folks back at the universities. That also makes me think that I need to get a question being asked of the representatives of the universities who come to our HS for their opinions on this. Gigi: thanks for the idea to look into what other states are doing.

Can anyone point me to a list (or lists) of the kinds of academic + athletic award programs that exist for high school swimmers that can then be further used to bolster their admission opportunities to top tier universities? I doubt that most universities will pass up a kid with a perfect 4 year 4.0 with a full load of AP courses and nothing extra. But if your kid isn't that person, a 3.9, 1 or 2 AP courses + swim team captainship + hiker/biker club founder is probably more valuable to a university, who tend to be seeking "well rounded" individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences. Universities like to brag about their incoming freshman class' GPAs and accomplishments - and if all you've got is GPAs around a campus, it is pretty boring and no one will want to go there. Try asking college professors (ie Mark Gill) and/or college deans what they're looking for in their students.

What I hear from college admissions officers is that they want a well-rounded class, not well-rounded individuals. High GPA and AP classes are "givens" but outside of that they all claim that deep commitment to one activity (music, theater, political activity, a particular sport) is of more value than being a middlin' or even a high-middlin' all-rounder. A class of dabblers isn't of much value - but a class of individuals who are high achievers in their chosen fields make up a well-rounded class on the high end of every field. At least that's what they've been telling me... And I've seen it in action every year at my school- much more often than not "resume hounds" lose out when they go head-to-head with equally academically qualified "singletons" when it comes to highly competitive colleges