The idea of the student-athlete is an old one, but it is still cherished in many hallowed halls of education. We have covered this idea ourselves, with a guide on admissions for athletes, and a practical guide on how recruitment works when you are an athlete, and how this impacts your chances of admissions.
In this article, we’re going to take a different approach. We’re going to discuss which sports can give you a competitive edge in admissions, and which are less likely to. These are not hard and fast rules, nor are we saying that you must do these sports in order to have a chance at admissions. Instead, if you do play one of these sports, we suggest researching ways to capitalize on it in your admissions process.
Why Different Sports Have Different Admissions Impacts
This is a multi-variable issue; there is no one cause and effect at work here. These are the various factors which impact the odds of recruiting for an individual sport, disregarding individual talent:
- How in demand the sport is at colleges; i.e. how many different schools recruit athletes for this sport.
- How many slots each college has for the sport; whether they’re recruiting a full team, or a few select athletes.
- How large the talent pool for the sport is; i.e. how popular and widely played the sport is at the high school level.
Thus we need to consider how many colleges will recruit for a sport, and how many athletes each college will recruit. This creates the demand for athletes, and allows for the in-demand athletes to receive an admissions advantage. On the other side of the equation is supply: how popular a sport is at the high school level, and how many potential athletes are recruiting for the limited number of collegiate spots.
We should note that this varies between both sport, school, and division. As we discuss sports, we will indicate where each has the best and worst chances for recruitment.
A Note on Title IX
Title IX is a landmark piece of legislation which greatly impacted gender equality in education, including in the field of sports. Athletic recruiting can differ for men and women in some sports, not just those which are the traditional domain of one or another, as colleges seek to achieve numerical balance between their male and female athletic populations. We will indicate when this impacts recruiting chances for a sport.
A Note on Talent
For all sports, participation alone is not enough to guarantee recruitment. All recruited athletes are incredibly skilled, have put in long hours of effort, and often have significant natural talent for the sport in question. The idea of this article is that all else being equal, some sports have less competition for recruitment.
Most Competitive Sports for Recruitment
These sports are the most popular in high school and college alike. They have the largest pools of talent, and are thus the hardest to get recruited for. We will not cover all of these, merely a sampling of sports where some additional information is required.
Football
This is the most popular sport in the country, and the most difficult to get recruited for. While increasing concerns about player safety and concussion protocols may be driving participation down in the long term, for the moment, football is king.
Baseball/Softball
America’s pastime shares much the same fate as football, but both genders can participate in this one. This holds true for Basketball, Soccer, and Hockey as well. Generally, any sport which has a major professional league in the US is hypercompetitive at all levels, including college recruitment.
Men’s Wrestling
This is a far less popular sport, but is also quite competitive for recruitment at the college level due to an increasing turn away from the sport. Since many high schools and colleges only have men’s wrestling teams, it is one of the first sports on the chopping block when schools try to balance athlete numbers to achieve Title IX compliance. Thus the sport is far more widespread at the high school level than the collegiate.
Track and Field
This collection of events rounds out the list of most popular sports in American high schools. It is also among the least subjective; you can either run faster or jump higher, or you can’t. For this reason it is among the most competitive at the college level for recruitment.
Less Competitive Sports for Recruitment
These sports are still competitive for recruitment, but often are far less popular at the high school level, so practitioners are competing against a narrower field when it comes to college recruitment. These sports are often less popular at the college level as well, but with less of a gap than at high schools.
Fencing
Born out of dueling culture in Europe, fencing is the art of sticking the other person with the pointy end. Not all colleges have fencing programs, and those that do will only recruit 1-2 fencers of each gender per year. That said, due to the low number of fencers at the high school level, it is less competitive than football for recruiting.
Women’s Crew
Colleges will recruit for both men’s and women’s crew, but women’s has become a way for colleges to balance out their football program, which has no direct female counterpart. Talented rowers may find many offers.
Squash
Squash is a sport exactly like tennis, except not at all. This sport is most commonly played at smaller New England colleges and universities, some of which are quite competitive. Trinity College especially recruits heavily for squash.
Sailing
A less popular sport, even by the standards of this list, we are including it because some Ivy League schools maintain and recruit for sailing teams. Again, while less popular at colleges, it is still overweighted compared to the level of high school participation.
Equestrianism (including Polo)
This is especially popular at some smaller schools who use women’s equestrianism to help balance out men’s football or wrestling. While this sport may only recruit a few students per year, it can offer an admissions edge.
Unofficial Sports
If you are an olympic-level athlete in a sport which is not generally considered a team or individual sport by colleges, you will also find your path to admissions easier. This is not the same edge granted to recruited athletes, but instead counts as superior achievement in an extracurricular.
A Note on Fairness
These lists are not complete or comprehensive, and we have not covered every sport colleges recruit for, but we hope that this has given you a sense of which sports offer more opportunities for recruitment, and thus an admissions advantage.
You may have noticed, however, that the sports which offer the most advantage in the admissions process are ones which most often favor wealthy students; as the amount of equipment needed to participate in fencing or equestrianism far surpasses that needed for baseball or soccer.
While this is not necessarily by design on the part of colleges, this process does favor students with the time and income required to pursue these more niche sports. As we have covered previously, college admissions isn’t always fair; this is merely one manifestation of that. Students with fewer resources looking to improve their candidacy are encouraged to apply to our pro-bono program.
Final Thoughts
Sports can be a fulfilling way to fill your time, regardless of whether or not you get recruited for them. We hope that this article, however, has shown you which sports may give you the best chance of recruitment. Of course, this is never guaranteed, and both natural talent and hard work are always required.
If you want guidance on managing the recruitment process, or just in writing the perfect essays to encapsulate your sporting experience, schedule a free consultation with us today. We have a depth of experience helping athletes, both those who go on to compete in college, and those who choose not to.
