Very smart student but only three star athlete

[kumar157]

Originally Posted by Misterbill

If you want him to accomplish his dream to play for a d1 such as UConn or St Louis................I cannot understand what the two of you are fighting about every day.

Seems to me the two of you are in agreement

I think we are in agreement as far as the goal is concerned (be a good student athlete at a low d1).
He wants to go back to playing 15 hours a week and I am not OK with that(fearing his grades may fall). He thinks he has a good GPA and I want him either to maintain it or improve it further.

[kumar157]

Originally Posted by coaching32yrs

There is no "magic dust" that goes with a D1 program. I have seen some of the D1 teams you mentioned play: BU, UConn, 'Nova.
There are D3 teams that are as good and better. Your son is not going to be a pro player. Why go to a D1 program where he will be training and practicing up to 20 hours a week year round? It gets in the way of academics. At D3 the practices are less hours per week, and the season is shorter. Missing an occasional practice is OK. Many kids have an obsession with D1 and I do not understand it.

Well said, Coaching32yrs.
This is the reply I want to show to my son.

Thanks.

[kumar157]

Originally Posted by kme5150

I don't know if this is your first child in the system here but here in the states your acceptance into college is based on 9th, 10th and 11th grades along with ACT/SAT scores. We always pushed the first 3 years and let them take 2 easier classes their senior year. Both of our children committed prior to starting their senior year so this was discussed with the Universities prior. Both schools had no problem with it but they both still took 2 AP classes their senior year.

Don't give in to your son, you are the parent. Don't fall for, "you didn't go to school here" or "this is what everybody does".

Thank You. Good Advise.
Yes, it is my first child.

[Misterbill]

Originally Posted by coaching32yrs

There is no "magic dust" that goes with a D1 program. I have seen some of the D1 teams you mentioned play: BU, UConn, 'Nova.
There are D3 teams that are as good and better. Your son is not going to be a pro player. Why go to a D1 program where he will be training and practicing up to 20 hours a week year round? It gets in the way of academics. At D3 the practices are less hours per week, and the season is shorter. Missing an occasional practice is OK. Many kids have an obsession with D1 and I do not understand it.

Whether the "obsession" is justifiable is a valid issue. But I can think of a number of reasons why some kids have it:

1. Kids have been brought up in a competitive tennis environment and the competitive spirit motivates them to compete at the highest level they can. (Yes, I know there are exceptions but most of the time that is D1)

2. Youthful love of a challenge

3. Money, especially for women.

4. Sense of accomplishment

[Misterbill]

Originally Posted by kumar157

I think we are in agreement as far as the goal is concerned (be a good student athlete at a low d1).
He wants to go back to playing 15 hours a week and I am not OK with that(fearing his grades may fall). He thinks he has a good GPA and I want him either to maintain it or improve it further.

If the goal is low D1, you have little to worry about. It is ok to chill.

He has been taking all AP courses since freshman year and getting A's and B's. That means he will be able to graduate as a junior. I do not know of any high schools that offer courses more advanced than AP, and I am not aware of any AP courses that have more than a two-year progression in high school. So by end of sophomore year he will have exhausted his high school curriculum.

Don't know how he will do on SAT/ACT, but his transcript has to be in the top .01% of the country! He should skate into UCONN or St Louis

[sureshs]

Getting A or B in AP courses is great. Most make only C.

[kumar157]

Originally Posted by Misterbill

Whether the "obsession" is justifiable is a valid issue. But I can think of a number of reasons why some kids have it:

1. Kids have been brought up in a competitive tennis environment and the competitive spirit motivates them to compete at the highest level they can. (Yes, I know there are exceptions but most of the time that is D1)

2. Youthful love of a challenge

3. Money, especially for women.

4. Sense of accomplishment

Wow Misterbill, you made me think again.
Parents can be very emotional when it comes to kids and your 4 points can stir up emotions (I have a daughter who also plays competitive).
Your arguments and Coaching32yrs arguments are like two sides of a coin. I took notes from both your replies and need to think seriously.
Appreciate your time.

[kumar157]

Originally Posted by sureshs

Getting A or B in AP courses is great. Most make only C.

Two coaches who raised very successful kids,both academically and athletically, told me that sport has helped in their kids studies. It may be true but I don't want to experiment any further by making them play more or less.

[sureshs]

Originally Posted by kumar157

Two coaches who raised very successful kids,both academically and athletically, told me that sport has helped in their kids studies. It may be true but I don't want to experiment any further by making them play more or less.

I know a girl who took all possible AP courses, had a GPA of 4.2 or something like that, and is now studying science in Berkeley. She was on her high school tennis team and played at least 2 hours a day, plus all the matches.

My son is just coping with two AP courses this year, and I try to keep it realistic. He is on top of one course, but hanging in there in the second. Every child is different, that is why no point in giving in to peer pressure.

[tennis_ocd]

Another way of looking at this is that a kid should be able to easily handle 15 hrs/wk of tennis and keep up grades. It's the other time demands that can be the issue.

[kumar157]

Originally Posted by tennis_ocd

Another way of looking at this is that a kid should be able to easily handle 15 hrs/wk of tennis and keep up grades. It's the other time demands that can be the issue.

Totally agree.
Occasionally my son complains that there is not enough time to hang with friends and play ping pong or go with them to watch ball games. I feel bad for him as I did all that when I was in high school. (I never played any serious sport in my life though).

[klu375]

Originally Posted by kumar157

Totally agree.
Occasionally my son complains that there is not enough time to hang with friends and play ping pong or go with them to watch ball games. I feel bad for him as I did all that when I was in high school. (I never played any serious sport in my life though).

So your 3-star son has no life, takes AP courses since Freshman year and does well in them and the goal is to play tennis at SLU - pretty pricey university with academic rank of 92? I would say it does not make sense unless they give him a Presidential scholarship - free ride.

[thejackal]

kumar157:

I'll just add my own two cents about your situation, as I'm probably closer to your son's age than yours (I'm in my 20s) and my own father (who is chinese) had very similar motivations as you when I was growing up.

I was never a national-level athlete growing up, but did play hockey at a fairly high level throughout high school (I went to a top-ranked private school in canada) and captained my high school tennis team in Norcal (moved to the united states after grade 11). Your son seems to be a better athlete than I am, at least in tennis, and is putting in roughly the same amount of time into sports as I did in my high school years, if not a bit more. In grade 12 my GPA was #12 or #13 out of a graduating class of 500, and my SAT I scores were the highest recorded up to that point (2350 if memory serves). I did well in APs and on the SAT IIs, but right now I can't for the life of me remember what my scores were or what I even took. Six years later I could care less - it doesn't matter at all.

After graduating from high school, I went back to Canada to go to one of the better-ranked business schools in the country, graduated in 4 years, and got a job at a Fortune 500 company.

Arguably, you could say that I've done pretty well for myself (I now work in marketing and cover professional tennis as a hobby), but the fact remains that I do have certain regrets about not maximizing my abilities and playing hockey or tennis in college (I tried out for my school's tennis team three times and never made it past the second round of cuts). Unlike things such as having a good salary or being a successful professional, this is part of my youth and thus something I can't have back. It's something I'll have to live with. Maybe one day I'll resort to projecting these unfulfilled dreams on my own kids (god forbid), which will create yet another set of problems, but I digress.

You mentioned that your son wants to go into a medical program in undergrad, and that you are "strong enough" to impose your views on him. My parents wanted me to become a doctor too, and I made it clear to them that I was not interested. Please make sure that your son does, in fact, want to study medicine.

Despite doing well and liking academics in general, I find that the emphasis on "what college my kid should go to" and "what major should he/she study" is overrated. As someone who's been through that, I'd advise someone younger to try out a few different summer jobs/internships and talk to professionals in diverse fields even before college so that you can have an idea of what you're good at and what you want/don't want to do. Find career paths that match those criteria, imagine what you want to do at age 30 and work your way back to determine what and where you should study. For things like medicine, the path is fairly straightforward, but not in business, for example. There were a few things I could have done differently to shorten my learning curve, even though I like where I am at right now career-wise. At 18 I had no vision of where I wanted to be at age 30, whereas now I have a fairly good idea. It's never too early to starting thinking about that and taking concrete steps to turn that plan into reality.

Last note: when an employer, especially in my line of work, reads "NCAA Division I athlete" written on someone's resume, that person can assume that the candidate in question has a few important traits like good time management skills, commitment, good work ethic and possibly a valuable social network. That is something worth noting as well. Theoretically speaking, if I had the talent to play Division I tennis, then I would have done everything in my power to make that happen. At least in my case, it would not have hurt my career in any way, quite the opposite actually.

[sureshs]

^^^ This was the guy I played with in December (and his father).

I should mention that he is also one tall handsome dude and his father is as young and fit as a 25-year-old.

I had no idea he was so academically gifted.

[thejackal]

Originally Posted by sureshs

^^^ This was the guy I played with in December (and his father).

I should mention that he is also one tall handsome dude and his father is as young and fit as a 25-year-old.

I had no idea he was so academically gifted.

ha...thanks suresh

[sureshs]

I think OP will have to walk the fine line in the age-old debate: the paradigm of telling children what to do, and the paradigm of letting them figure it out by themselves.

I think many kids enter the tougher professions due to a combination of both. I do not completely believe a kid who passionately wants to become a surgeon. Where is it coming from? How do you develop a passion even before your first serious Biology course?

It is a combination of ability, some interest, parental influence, and social norms.

[kumar157]

thejackal,
I already read your note thrice and pondering on it. It gives me a totally different perspective about my son's future life(in a free world with plenty of opportunities and possibilities) and my own aspirations as a first generation immigrant parent.
I cannot explain certain things as well as you did but I know one thing for certain, you are a good son of proud parents.
When we talk about SLU, medical profession is not in our mind but rather a lower D1 school.
Yes, sometimes I do give career advise to him but don't want to force anything on him.
Thanks for your advise and I will definitely will tell my son to follow his heart.

[thejackal]

Originally Posted by kumar157

thejackal,
I already read your note thrice and pondering on it. It gives me a totally different perspective about my son's future life(in a free world with plenty of opportunities and possibilities) and my own aspirations as a first generation immigrant parent.
I cannot explain certain things as well as you did but I know one thing for certain, you are a good son of proud parents.
When we talk about SLU, medical profession is not in our mind but rather a lower D1 school.
Yes, sometimes I do give career advise to him but don't want to force anything on him.
Thanks for your advise and I will definitely will tell my son to follow his heart.

thanks for the kind words kumar. if your son needs any advice from someone who was in his shoes not too long ago, he can send me an email at kickservertennis@gmail.com. cheers

[tennis_ocd]

Originally Posted by sureshs

^^^ This was the guy I played with in December (and his father).

They both report that you foot fault.

[thejackal]

Originally Posted by tennis_ocd

They both report that you foot fault.

actually suresh called me once, while I was warming up my serve, from the next court over.

took it in stride lol