Bittersteel
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We had church league soccer/baseball If it cost $100/season I'd be surprised.
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We had church league soccer/baseball If it cost $100/season I'd be surprised.
Sheesh. @pgg makes me feel like I should’ve given a handful of years of my life to the Navy. I know that’s highly debatable but can’t shade the benefits if you can hack it
I suspect that the grass ain't that green.
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Arch Guillotti
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"pay to play"
Why would you pay to attend your kids' matches?
If my kids need help in school, my wife and I do it ourselves.
Also, we refuse to do any travel sports. Not even close to worth the demands on the family. I guess if your kid is good enough to go pro or get full ride scholarships it can be worth putting a lot of time and money in. Sports are fun and a great challenge that make the kids grow, but there's so much more to life than sports. We are not going to make our entire lives revolve around them.
If your kid needs travel basketball to be the next LeBron, they are not the next LeBron.
20 is hardly a handful of years. The number of guys that serve and bail before that mark lets you know that the juice is not worth the squeeze unless your obligation is already close.
Yeah. It certainly isn’t for everyone. I had an uncle and grandfather who both served and always found it interesting my own father didn’t go in (in hindsight he probably should’ve but that’s different discussion). Needless to say coming out of HS it wasn’t encouraged. Thank you to those who serve but it was probably the correct decision for the path I chose.
One interesting thing was that BU was a med school I got into and since it was so expensive they pretty much “highly advised” applying for the Navy. Again probably made the right choice in the end
because the PE overlords running the show can charge it and get it, and they know it, that's why.
I think this subject is somewhat debatable and probably depends on the sport. Some of the travel teams tend to act as feeders to big conference schools, assuming you have some talent. That’s not to say it can’t be done the old fashioned way but financial means can put some kids at an advantage whether that’s fair or not…,something I very much saw going through the system growing up
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This arms race does such a disservice to raising children and the childhood experience, but it is what it is 😔
Since 2015 it's much easier to prep for. Doesn't mean you can be low IQ and get a high score. It does mean you shouldn't assume that a 1600 is smarter than a 1300, definitely not than a 1400. Best way to describe the current SAT is that it's hard to fake a 1200, but pretty easy for a certain dedicated class of 1200s to "fake" (not truly assessing aptitude beyond 1200) a 1500 or higher.
Just wait until the kids have to start applying for college, and you have to fork out money for college admissions counselors/coaches
I guess I’ll provide a different viewpoint on the topic of club sports.
Yes, they are expensive, and I imagine it’s way worse if you’re dealing with PE vs a nonprofit organization. However, there are plenty of people on this forum spending way, way more money on cars, watches, fine dining, travel, etc., and I don’t judge that just as I don’t judge those who want to live modestly and shovel as much loot into their brokerage as they can.
Some of us get significant enjoyment from putting the money into our kids and their pursuits, even if they aren’t going pro. I don’t see club sports as being any different than paying for high level instruction/training in the arts.
I disagree with the assessment that they steal family time. We spend significant amounts of weekend time hanging out at the fields as a family. When we aren’t cheering for our kids, we are playing, picnicking, and lounging around as a family between games. Of course we could do that stuff without the club sport involvement (and we do), but in my experience it’s not the case that club sports are inconsistent with quality family time.
One problem with the expansion of club sports is that a large number of families feel pressured to participate rather than sticking with the rec leagues. I do think that’s a shame as the commitment isn’t for everyone. I imagine this perceived pressure to keep up with the Jones is responsible for a lot of the negative sentiment.
Yes, they are expensive, and I imagine it’s way worse if you’re dealing with PE vs a nonprofit organization. However, there are plenty of people on this forum spending way, way more money on cars, watches, fine dining, travel, etc., and I don’t judge that just as I don’t judge those who want to live modestly and shovel as much loot into their brokerage as they can.
Some of us get significant enjoyment from putting the money into our kids and their pursuits, even if they aren’t going pro. I don’t see club sports as being any different than paying for high level instruction/training in the arts.
I disagree with the assessment that they steal family time. We spend significant amounts of weekend time hanging out at the fields as a family. When we aren’t cheering for our kids, we are playing, picnicking, and lounging around as a family between games. Of course we could do that stuff without the club sport involvement (and we do), but in my experience it’s not the case that club sports are inconsistent with quality family time.
One problem with the expansion of club sports is that a large number of families feel pressured to participate rather than sticking with the rec leagues. I do think that’s a shame as the commitment isn’t for everyone. I imagine this perceived pressure to keep up with the Jones is responsible for a lot of the negative sentiment.
PE is involved in children's sports?
That’s crazy… like Private Equity?
Growing up I was on 3 different teams at the same time. One was traveling and we just figured it out. Parents just rotated driving or we all just packed in a bus and spent the weekend at a holiday inn.
That’s crazy… like Private Equity?
Growing up I was on 3 different teams at the same time. One was traveling and we just figured it out. Parents just rotated driving or we all just packed in a bus and spent the weekend at a holiday inn.
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When I was growing up there was maybe 1 kid a year in a class of 500-1000 who got a perfect score. Recently there was an affluent high school nearby where 5-10% of the senior class had a perfect ACT/SAT. The arms race is real.
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It's more a sad state of affairs that anything. College has gotten so competitive and expensive that now parents will do whatever it take investment-wise to get their child a leg up, myself included. More so in some states than others. We can probably have a entire thread debating getting into a UC, and those are state schools. If you can get your child sports development at a young age to get that scholarship even better. This is when sports and college start to be come "sports of means" if they aren't already. That's sort of just the way it is, again, for some sports. Even in my po-dunk state growing up, the competitive soccer teams were always the first teams the private schools/colleges were looking at for players. Yes, somewhat against the rules for HS, but they found ways around that.
Bittersteel
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I think you hit the nail on the head: perceived necessity vs bringer of joy.
I would never hold my kid back from doing something they were good at and loved.
And this is where the existential question arises of "Do you even want to raise your kids in somewhere crazy competitive?" I think most people know my location so everyone knows the competition is fierce, especially to get into a UC. I even had someone on a job interview ask if I really wanted to stay in this state because "Don't you want you kids to go to college?" This person was kind of venting that day but I could see where they were coming from. Where I grew up we certainly had some smart folks who aced or near aced the SAT/ACT but in reality if you werent a complete dunce you could go to just about any state school, a couple of which are big name research schools, and one of which has a great engineering school. The smartest move I could make for my family is probably going back to where I grew up but there's a lot of factors there I dont want to deal with.
The reality is us as employers, program directors, etc have placed such a high emphasis on wanting "the best", that it starts by pumping up all "the best schools" when in reality a graduate from a mid-tier school who did very well would probably be just as good if not better employee, partner, etc.
I'll get off my soapbox now
The sports leg up is real. My cousin graduated from MIT a couple years ago. When she was a child, my uncle put her in diving and fencing. I wager that was a smart move by him haha
I can see the ability in my child and it's taking everything in me to not turn into Richard Williams so she doesn't hate me when she's older.
cittykat
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We have a rowing club in town that sends a good number of their kids to elite schools. I have 2 nephews who attend/attended Stanford. One has dropped out to join an AI startup. Neither were athletic but both were perennial state chess champions with high ratings. It is surprisingly cheap to hire grandmasters to coach your kids. Their true passion is League of Legends but neither mentioned that in their essays.
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One of the anesthesiologist has a kid that graduated MIT who also did fencing as a youth. Barely heard of the sport when I was younger
Very true.
A 1500 shows a student who is typically well prepared and a hard worker.
Yeah, college admissions will be a pain
It’s wild how much it’s changed in a short time. Granted, I wasn’t exactly an honors student in high school, but I took the SAT cold with no studying and then just happily took that score to an in-state admission. And this was in the 2000s.
Saying that makes me feel like the attendings who told me, when I was an M2, that they only lightly studied a week for Step 1. (Though I know I’m showing my age there too, now that’s it’s P/F!)
I think that’s incorrect. 1600 is still rare. Both my nephews and nieces got 1540 and 1560. Those are more likely scores.
Unless parents are “ super scoring “ the sat. But to do it at one sitting is rare.
Social media has hyped up scores and the truth is somewhere.
Wow. Step 1 is P/F?!
Interesting.
I think it depends. I graduated high school in 2001 and my parents put me in SAT prep in high school.
Competition for UCs was high even back then.
Yes. It is stupid because now there is more emphasis on Step 2 scores since that is still numerical.
I was a CSU pleb ha.
cittykat
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The cheat code to the UCs is community college. Many kids who would have been rejected as a high school senior applicant get in through the community colleges. Also happens to be one of the best deals in higher education. ($46/unit or around $1100-1200/yr)
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Travel ball and money does affect basketball. Listen to interviews and look at the behavior of today’s NBA players vs those from the 1990 to 2010. Less kids that just ball on the street have an opportunity than the past. You have to pay for training and to get noticed.
I took the PSAT without knowing what it was. Pretty soon the letters started coming and I was like, “what happened?!”
In the past most residency programs didn’t even see step 2 scores as the match was basically over by march and students who scored high purposely did not take step 2 till march of their 4th year to avoid showing step 2 scores.
I mean I understand all the DEI reasons for not scoring step 1 (holistic bs, mental stress of test taking blah blah blah ). It was all bs excuses for the switch.
It is a great skill to have. I know a guy who owns a fencing company. He is making money hand over fist...
Whats it take to get an ivy acceptance these days even with those scores im guessing thats just to not be filtered out. Private top schools k-12 plus a strong athlete or seven fig donations?
cittykat
Full Member
If you’re coming out of a top high school, you’re competing against your well-resourced classmates who are all gunning for the same schools. Sometimes it’s better to apply from a high school that the admissions officer has never heard of.
Strong scores is the minimum. You need an entire polished CV with a bunch of extra junk.
Connections help for sure.
Bittersteel
Full Member
Jokes on them when they figure out that employers don't really care what school you came from anymore.
Actually there is a big feeder network with ivy leagues in financial institutions. So connections do matter in some professions like finance.
Standard is Ivy League >>>>finance careers (which ever way they choose whether to do govt feds first than mba school than private section finance
Same goes for big law. Grads from 99% of law schools have nearly 0% chance of landing at the top firms unless their parent is a managing partner.
Yep. That’s what I loved about medicine. Came from a no name state school. Didn’t even have good grades. They let me in once I showed I could get As and knew how to take a standardized test. They didn’t care about my school or pedigree. Medicine is so much more of a meritocracy than other industries.
I double checked - I had overestimated, it was actually between 3-4%, still super high and a double-digit number of kids.
But to the points raised later in this discussion, the majority of them did not go to elite schools. They are smart kids but that’s not enough on its own.
You need 100M to own a true private jet. Something that can take you from NYC to LA non stop.
I think one can charter if your net worth in 20M+
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I guess there is no end in sight for me. Lol
Once I hit 2M and home is paid off, I probably will work 10 days/month max.
Yeah. I did my first 2 years at a community college, got an ok MCAT score... 400k/yr now without killing myself.
One of my best friends did the same thing... ~700k/yr as a radonc.
I am trying to guide my oldest to do the same thing since she says she wants to do medicine
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Law is such a different world. I think almost every kid I know has done personal injury at some point.
My 2 no name school nepotism buddies have had different tracks. One never technically worked for his dad but used all the hometown connections. Did some work for me at $375/hr as an associate. The other did PI for a big group managed by a parent. Had some falling out and/or found a moral compass, started a solo PI practice, and has no current cash flow.
Our Ivy League grad clerked for some judges and then did prosecuting. Got some semi-prestigious special prosecutor gig on a corruption case, and then got fired for - wait for it - corruption. Then started - wait for it - a PI practice. Never made it to 6 figures.
So in my experience, law school is the car wreck you’ll inevitably litigate.
My 2 no name school nepotism buddies have had different tracks. One never technically worked for his dad but used all the hometown connections. Did some work for me at $375/hr as an associate. The other did PI for a big group managed by a parent. Had some falling out and/or found a moral compass, started a solo PI practice, and has no current cash flow.
Our Ivy League grad clerked for some judges and then did prosecuting. Got some semi-prestigious special prosecutor gig on a corruption case, and then got fired for - wait for it - corruption. Then started - wait for it - a PI practice. Never made it to 6 figures.
So in my experience, law school is the car wreck you’ll inevitably litigate.
If you're not born rich you can owe money or you can owe time.
I chose to owe time. Had I just taken out loans like most people, I'd probably be ahead financially.
Then again, who knows? The Navy opened some doors for me. I got a fellowship spot at an ultra competitive institution, outside the match, because I brought Navy funding with me. From the day I cold emailed the the PD about a spot to the day I interviewed and they handed me an offer letter was less than a month.
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