Great chart! Where is football? lol…would love to see footnote that describes how Midpoint Annual Cost is calculated.
Great chart, though midpoint is a tough metric. I suspect that Soccer, Baseball, Basketball and Swimming are skewed lower due to the massive amount of youth rec leagues. Eliminate the costs for <12U and those numbers probably jump up.
I think that there are two arguments here that are a bit tangled up:
- Is the investment in water polo worth it if the goal is admission to a college with a D1 or D3 program?
- What is the intrinsic value of participating in water polo as a sport?
I would imagine that most people on this board believe that #2 is a no-brainer. Water Polo teaches discipline, teamwork, sacrifice, working with people you don’t like, goal setting, learning to be coachable, teaching to the youngers, leadership, self reliance, etc. Water Polo puts players in a position to be successful adults while building lifetime friendships and adult mentors based on a hard, shared, endeavor. This is a win no matter what angle you look at it from imho.
The first question, #1, is a little bit more complicated. Not everyone is going to be a D1 athlete. However, as Polonewb stated, most kiddos who play can find a landing spot at D1, D3 or Club level. For some athletes it can be a “backdoor” into a desired university. For most that is not the case. However, when an admissions director sees that your kiddo has spent 6 years or more training and developing as a person and teammate, those are the kind of kids they want at their university - and that is a very powerful story not only to colleges, but to future employers. Someone said that the purpose of an undergraduate education is to prove to future employers that you can show up on time for 4 years, do the required work with some competency and graduate. Our kiddos have already proven that in spades. To me that experience is why you make the investment. If a D1 roster spot is the result then that is just icing on the cake.
With regards to international players I think that people need to take a deep breath and realize that’s not going away or being curtailed. Internationals raise the level of play and broaden their teammates horizons. In my sport, rowing, the entire Brown squad in the early 90s was Yugoslavian and Swiss national team rowers with 2 American National teamers. Did it seem fair at the time, no. However, it made our boat faster with the bar set that much higher.
These experiences only make our kiddos better people by striving and learning to deal with adversity. I think that is a good outcome.
I’ll step down from my soapbox 
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Having looked deeply into college admissions including publishing on the topic - playing a HS sport but not well enough to play in college is a poor use of time from a college admissions perspective. Playing a year-round club sport is even worse. Better than video games but worse than: extra academics, charitable work, leadership (student government, model UN), performing arts, niche hobbies. Pretty much anything else that a HS student sinks 500 hours a year into will help them more with college admissions than club sports.
Re internationals, an easy way to put the genie back in the bottle is international roster limits across every NCAA sport. All it would take is pressure from an anti-immigration federal administration. It’s honestly surprising that it hasn’t happened already.
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What happened to playing sports for the fun of it? You make it sound so mechanical.
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yeah any lobbyist on this forum. I say start lobbying for 25 percent max on all sports, and settle for 33 percent. Maybe start at 20 for 25% - 30%? That would be a max of 6-8 internationals on a water polo roster. Just a quick stab at last years roster make-up
Fordham 58% internationals, San Jose 58%, LB State 56%, GW 41%, Brown 35%, UOP 33%, Princeton 32%, LMU 32%, Cal and USC 25%, UCLA 12%, UCSB 8%.
What is the ideal percentage to continue to improve our players for international competition and have a healthy number of roster spots earmarked for domestically grown players?
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Well that’s what my kids say when they have to turn off video games and go to practice 
Optimization unfortunately usually yields corner solutions
Totally missing the point. Sports in HS builds character that lasts a lifetime. Admissions shouldn’t be the goal. Putting in the work and embracing the process is a gift that the kiddos will never regret. I guess working at the soup kitchen for 500 hours might give you a leg up on college admissions, but does that replace the experience of being on a team working towards a collective goal? I don’t think so…but maybe I’m wrong that not going to a D1 school is an abject failure and you shouldn’t even try.
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I’d suggest that working in a soup kitchen for 500+ hours as a high school student might also build character that lasts a lifetime.
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I agree that sports teach enduring principles which will serve you well for life. Working at a soup kitchen will also give you a perspective on society that a water polo player spending 500 hours a year in training likely won’t see, and that will also have a lifetime impact.
But this whole thread is about recruiting. Admissions is, in fact, the goal.
Stanford had biggest percentage in MPSF last season. 33% with 8 Euros. Traditionally they tracked more like UCLA with only a couple Euros per year. That has changed.
Do you have data to support the first part of your post? I actually believe this is correct. Or maybe a link to the research you’ve published?
I’d agree that sports participation is probably the most common, and therefore the least differentiating extra curricular activity.
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I guess you are right. All of our kiddos should immediately quit water polo as it is a pointless endeavor. Join Habitat for Humanity and the Glee Club.
From the article:
Depth vs Breadth of Involvement 
Leadership & Initiative
Passion & Authenticity
Impact & Contribution
Consistency & Commitment
The college essay writes itself…
Limits and quotas never work because they are disruptive of free enterprise. The opposite of what you would like is what would happen. By setting quotas you create a grouping of schools that might just drop the sport in its entirety. This is because they know finishing in the top five in the country would now become nearly impossible. You would also make the viewing of the sport worse for the casual fan because the quality of play goes down.
You can complain that these schools have too many internationals, but there were definitely domestic players these schools (with a high percentage of international players) recruited that chose to be backups at Big Four schools.
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Most American colleges are not a free enterprise they are a social enterprise getting funding from federal and private funds. Many would questions the use of federal funds supporting the displacement of American athletes by subsidizing international athletes. But I do get your point, it has to make sense to sponsor a team, no one wants less teams.
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I think your missing the point. Play sports for reasons other than solely getting into college. Everyone who plays varsity sports has those things to write about. If you can get into an ivy, they’ll let you try out for basically any team.
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I completely agree if you see my previous post. Diminishing the value of organized sports is not why I’m here in this discussion. Water polo is one of the hardest sports out there. I’m not going to apologize for the character it builds. If you think that the cost benefit analysis doesn’t work for you then quit…a great lesson for your kiddos…
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Agreed, and I apologize for the flippedness of my response. You’ll see in many articles that if you are an extremely high end athlete in Olympic sports (like representing your country) that can be very helpful for even general admissions. Thus, achieving at things like ODP can actually help get into schools for reasons other than water polo. Participating, maybe not as much.
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This is not sport-specific, and the percentage of foreign athletes across sports largely mirrors the composition of the student body. College sports are not a “social enterprise” (with perhaps limited exceptions like water polo), but a true enterprise. In theory, one could relatively cheaply assemble the best water polo team by recruiting top athletes and paying them an annual salary. This already happens in revenue-generating sports; the era of a level playing field is gone, whether the advantage comes from recruiting foreign athletes or from the ability to pay all the five-star talent.
International undergrad students at top-20 USA colleges:
