Looking for high school, college guidance.

[radness]

MY DD will be a 2024 high school graduate and looking to play college ball. Her current high school she is the only pitcher on the team and pitched every game this past season. She had a fantastic year and finished 4th in the state in strikeouts. We didn't like the situation and was scared of overuse injury. Luckily everything worked out and she stayed healthy. Going forward it looks she will be only pitcher and we are not liking the direction the softball program is going. We were looking at possibly transferring to a private school with a better softball program. She currently holds a 3.8 gpa. We are scared going to private school will affect her gpa and possibly hurting her in recruiting. Would a lower gpa from a better academic school look better than a higher gpa from a public school? Any thoughts or advice appreciated.

Has she taken an SAT or ACT test yet to see her score?

That can help to understand where she's at with her all around academics level.

Know of high academic students who tested SAT early~ end of 7th grade and 8th grade very helpful because those are added tools to recruitment.

Being in high school can do that and always test again later.

 

[Vertigo]

So, just a few thoughts coming from someone who moved their dd to a private school from public school (starting her freshman year and is now in college).

When you say private school, what kind of private school? The quality among them varies greatly. Parochial schools around here are like public schools with uniforms. Then we have high academic private day schools and a high academic boarding school. Even the high academic day schools here differ with rigor. Our reason for moving dd was that our public school was very large and she was just a number. We wanted to provide her with the best chance to get into a good college. Private school definitely helped with that.

Private school in DD’s case was extremely rigorous. Even in regular classes (non-honors, non-AP) it was way more in-depth than her public school experience. Honors and AP classes took up a lot of her time homework-wise. Everyone in her classes was very smart and they also were pretty competitive with each other. When her public HS friends discussed the same AP classes they were taking, it was obvious DD’s classes took a much deeper dive than just teaching to the exam like her friends’ AP teachers did.

Softball-wise be careful what you wish for. Those kids whose parents have the deep pockets will typically start. Lots of politics at our private HS as the money talks there. Big donors expect their kids to play. If moving your dd and you want her to start, make sure she is obviously a LOT better than the kid who currently has her spot. We were fortunate that DD’s team needed a pitcher. However, DD’s sophomore year the incoming freshman pitcher’s parents were big donors. There were issues, but dd let her skills do the talking, and she kept her starting spot. Competition-wise we did not have a District or State tournament, so once regular season was over, that was pretty much it for DD’s HS team. Definitely look into how post-season is handled at the private school. Dd was bummed to not have a post-season like many of her friends did. We were not allowed to play in the State tournament that the public and parochial schools played in.

It is a big adjustment, and I’ve got to imagine even bigger when transferring in mid-HS. Mentally she has to be tough in order to deal with a lot of the unknown.

The one thing I will say is that academically and mentally, dd was very well-prepared for her freshman year at a very high-academic liberal arts college. She learned very good time-management and study skills from her HS. She also felt prepared for how in-depth her calculus and science classes were this past year. We were glad we made the move and never regretted it. However, our reason was purely academic.

 

[Itsabouttime]

I agree with what Sluggers said. What is the big picture? We actually moved our dd from private to public. She was in a high quality private school for six years and we felt we got our money's worth but the hs was bigger and had more class offerings including more AP. So we saved many bucks and will apply that to college (she'll be a college junior) and law school.

Travel ball is more important than HS and she does play D3. But a conversation with the HS coach is important.

 

[flash277]

So, just a few thoughts coming from someone who moved their dd to a private school from public school (starting her freshman year and is now in college).

When you say private school, what kind of private school? The quality among them varies greatly. Parochial schools around here are like public schools with uniforms. Then we have high academic private day schools and a high academic boarding school. Even the high academic day schools here differ with rigor. Our reason for moving dd was that our public school was very large and she was just a number. We wanted to provide her with the best chance to get into a good college. Private school definitely helped with that.

Private school in DD’s case was extremely rigorous. Even in regular classes (non-honors, non-AP) it was way more in-depth than her public school experience. Honors and AP classes took up a lot of her time homework-wise. Everyone in her classes was very smart and they also were pretty competitive with each other. When her public HS friends discussed the same AP classes they were taking, it was obvious DD’s classes took a much deeper dive than just teaching to the exam like her friends’ AP teachers did.

Softball-wise be careful what you wish for. Those kids whose parents have the deep pockets will typically start. Lots of politics at our private HS as the money talks there. Big donors expect their kids to play. If moving your dd and you want her to start, make sure she is obviously a LOT better than the kid who currently has her spot. We were fortunate that DD’s team needed a pitcher. However, DD’s sophomore year the incoming freshman pitcher’s parents were big donors. There were issues, but dd let her skills do the talking, and she kept her starting spot. Competition-wise we did not have a District or State tournament, so once regular season was over, that was pretty much it for DD’s HS team. Definitely look into how post-season is handled at the private school. Dd was bummed to not have a post-season like many of her friends did. We were not allowed to play in the State tournament that the public and parochial schools played in.

It is a big adjustment, and I’ve got to imagine even bigger when transferring in mid-HS. Mentally she has to be tough in order to deal with a lot of the unknown.

The one thing I will say is that academically and mentally, dd was very well-prepared for her freshman year at a very high-academic liberal arts college. She learned very good time-management and study skills from her HS. She also felt prepared for how in-depth her calculus and science classes were this past year. We were glad we made the move and never regretted it. However, our reason was purely academic.

You didn't move your DD just for softball, did you?

 

[djcarter1966]

I would be VERY hesitant to make school choice decision based on softball. If you are otherwise happy with the HS environment I would FIRST talk to the HS coach and come up with a plan about her use. You can let the coach know she needs rest, but exactly what are we talking about two games a week...if she is that good I'm guessing she throws that on a Saturday morning during tournament season. The only time we really got off of our ace this HS season was a stretch of 7 games in 7 day with two double headers in there. We had a number two but it was a significant drop off but THAT is too much and we simply weren't going to do that; if you are talking about Monday, Tuesday, Thursday once or twice a season I'm not seeing that as over worked.

 

[chinamigarden]

Have you considered skipping her senior year of softball. It’s not like going to a new school the team will mean a lot to her. So why not stay put and focus on travel ball and let her not play HS

 

[Vertigo]

You didn't move your DD just for softball, did you?

No. The last sentence in my post said we did not.

ETA: Just providing input on what the move might entail and what to possibly expect.

 

[Cannonball]

Colleges look at a lot more than GPA. Her SAT or ACT test scores matter. Her class rank matters. Her community involvement matters.

 

[Vertigo]

The other thing you need to think about is with the GPA. Is it a 3.8 out of 4.0 or out of 5 or higher? Our private school only added 0.3 points for honors/AP where some schools will add 1.0 or more.

Yes, colleges will look at other things like test scores, etc but the big things are GPA and rigor of schedule. Many private schools don’t assign a class rank.

 

[Vertigo]

I also want to add that there are some extremely good public schools, as well. Unfortunately for us, ours was really good when the kids were little but has seen a decline over the years. Plus the class sizes are just way too big. If we lived in the district about 40 min south of us, we would be in one of the top districts in the state and would have kept our kids in public school.