Telling the kids

PsyGuy
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Post by PsyGuy »

@WT123

I havent coached in a long time. No i dont watch our DoDDS games, its just not my thing. Yes I've heard of DoDDS DSs playing ISs when available but DoDDS isnt everywhere (despite being the largest US district), and isnt even close to being everywhere.

Yes, ISs do have inter and intra IS tournaments, but so what? Theyre still exhibition games, they arent sanctioned league play. Its nothing more than a DS in the states playing intramurals. Sure the kids have heart, sure they "compete", and they have a competitive spirit. Doesnt make it league play, doesnt conform to any governing body such as CIF.
You arent going to get scouted for an NCAA team from an IS, there might be one or two student athletes at that level, that a big conference will make the flight and trip for to an IS, but those athletes are being judged almost at near Olympic levels based on IF competitions, not on anything organized between ISs.

Yes, thats the practice of a walk on in the arts, you send a cold audition to admissions, that not the same or anything even near it to being recruited. Arts recruiters attend regional association productions and national competitive conferences they recruit by invitation as opposed to anyone who can tryout or attend open auditions. Recruiting is the fast track, and its the best shot at getting a scholarship. To that the vast majority of scholarship funds are reserved exclusively for recruited talent, plenty of tryout that get a walk in dont get full scholarships. Its not uncommon for them to get anything at all.

I agree those activities are "meaningful" but they arent realistic pathways in terms of admissions and securing financial scholarships. Moving from DE to IE is going to significantly and drastically reduce those opportunities.
Personally, I don't believe the level of competition in IE is even close to that of D5A competition.

Finally, weve had this conversation before, and neither of us have changed our position.
wrldtrvlr123
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Re: Telling the kids

Post by wrldtrvlr123 »

PsyGuy wrote:
> @WT123
> Yes, ISs do have inter and intra IS tournaments, but so what? Theyre still exhibition
> games, they arent sanctioned league play. Its nothing more than a DS in the states
> playing intramurals. Sure the kids have heart, sure they "compete", and they have
> a competitive spirit. Doesnt make it league play, doesnt conform to any governing
> body such as CIF.
> You arent going to get scouted for an NCAA team from an IS, there might be one or
> two student athletes at that level, that a big conference will make the flight and
> trip for to an IS, but those athletes are being judged almost at near Olympic levels
> based on IF competitions, not on anything organized between ISs.
>
> Yes, thats the practice of a walk on in the arts, you send a cold audition to admissions,
> that not the same or anything even near it to being recruited. Arts recruiters attend
> regional association productions and national competitive conferences they recruit
> by invitation as opposed to anyone who can tryout or attend open auditions. Recruiting
> is the fast track, and its the best shot at getting a scholarship. To that the vast
> majority of scholarship funds are reserved exclusively for recruited talent, plenty
> of tryout that get a walk in dont get full scholarships. Its not uncommon for them
> to get anything at all.
>
> I agree those activities are "meaningful" but they arent realistic pathways in terms
> of admissions and securing financial scholarships. Moving from DE to IE is going
> to significantly and drastically reduce those opportunities.
> Personally, I don't believe the level of competition in IE is even close to that
> of D5A competition.
>
===========
Yes, because your comments are merely your opinion which in this case is uncontaminated by facts or data. I could name many int'l schools that have athletic and arts programs associated with leagues, conferences etc that are all of the things you claim they aren't (sanctioned, meaningful, offering significant opportunities to the students that participate). Some of these are associated with the same organizations that DoDDS schools participate in but just to be a sport I'll ignore those.

Many schools in Asia participate in Asia-Pacific Activities Conference (APAC) and the Association of China and Mongolia International Schools (ACAMIS) and that's just a couple of examples. Now I know you will discount and minimize these since they do not fall within the realm and scope of your opinion so I will leave it to others to make their own determination on the issue. While not at the level of some school/organizations in the states, many int'l schools due offer significant opportunities for the students that attend them (and which will be just fine for all but maybe the few elite athletes and or artists).
PsyGuy
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Post by PsyGuy »

@WT123

Well they are as much my opinion as yours are your opinion. Mine has more data in it then yours does. Your position is focused on the growth of the student, minds on the financial aspects and opportunities.
No you can't because none of those organizations, associations, etc are being watched by NCAA Unis. No one cares about APAC or ACAMIS is tracking or following it or any of the others. Just because some organization puts a name on something doesnt give is value.
Thames Pirate
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Re: Telling the kids

Post by Thames Pirate »

Factual clarification: PsyGuy has no data or factual evidence for his claims.
PsyGuy
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Post by PsyGuy »

I only post from experience and from trusted and reliable sources.

Factual clarification: @Thames Pirate has no data or factual evidence for their claims.
mamava
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Re: Telling the kids

Post by mamava »

I think PsyGuy's more on point about the athletics. Having kids who have played overseas, you are definitely at a disadvantage in terms of the level of play and playing time that develops skills. That doesn't mean that kids don't have an amazingly fulfilling athletic experience playing for their international schools. There are some exceptions. A former student in China is now in Singapore and is nationally ranked in the US for swimming, an individual sport where they have been able to develop his talent internationally. I know 2 women and 2 men who were raised in countries in Africa who have gone on to pay Div 1 rugby. Another student who played rugby and basketball in China was able to walk on to a Div. 2 school in track and field. For students who play soccer and volleyball, depending on where you live, student have been able to continue their playing skills outside of school with club sports and been competitive in the US.

For theatre and music, it is the audition. I don't know about the very elite schools, but pretty much anyone could submit their tapes for a music scholarship or drama to many, many colleges. My oldest son has a big scholarship for trumpet at a US university, and he played only in overseas schools and had lessons while overseas. Again, depending on the instrument and the area you live, you can have opportunities to develop your talent in addition to school. You also have the benefit of intense summer experiences in your home country if that's the level you are (or want to be at). My son has a classmate who was accepted to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London (she was also exclusively overseas for schooling). Another had a music scholarship to Stanford, another to Oberlin, another to Ohio State. Before my time at the school, a student who grew up overseas went Div. 1 and actively played for several years in the NBA.

Yes, the examples are few--but honestly, so is the big money for talent. One of the things that international schools provide is opportunities in unique areas. There are service areas where students can develop deep interests and commitments, areas where they can choose to lead that might not be as easy to find in larger schools state-side. These opportunities are often right outside the front door.

If a student is at an age where they have started to play very competitive sports, or you end up at a school where your sport isn't offered (which happened to us), that can be very painful, no doubt. If they have a passion for something, losing that is hard. There are other activities that students will miss, but they end up falling into the new opportunities that exist in the school they're at--another skill that transient students learn to develop. Colleges want to hear about how students have overcome adversity, faced challenges, and recovered from mistakes. Living overseas provides lots of fodder in those areas for sure!
PsyGuy
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Post by PsyGuy »

@mamava

We all know of exceptions, Ive seen those, but for every one of those exceptions I can list whole teams that dont have a single IE student athlete. None of those exceptions mitigate the reality that in IE th opportunities are practically and significantly less.

Its the elite Unis that have the most coin for scholarships in fine and performing art, and they do recruit. Again, anyone can submit an audition recording, and anyone can try out for a walk in, thats not the same or even close to being recruited. What do you think fine/performing arts Unis are looking for someone who was the local favorite in the DS/IS production? No, they want to see applicants who have regional and national conferences and competitions.
I agree there are options to develop skill and talents outside of IS, but those are outside of the IS, and you are still at a disadvantage without competition level performance.

Its not just big coin its all the small coin at smaller D2 NCAA Unis and Colleges that give full scholarships.

I agree ISs provide opportunities a student may not have at a competitive DS. Team Captain or a starting position is going to be easier in IE, but that position has far less financial value, its easier because its less significant.
Thames Pirate
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Re: Comment

Post by Thames Pirate »

PsyGuy wrote:
> I only post from experience and from trusted and reliable sources.
>
> Factual clarification: @Thames Pirate has no data or factual evidence for
> their claims.

What is this, "I know you are, but what am I?"

For the sports, I think it depends on where you are and the sport--as mamava said, if you are interested in football (soccer) and are in a place like Germany, which has great development programs, you can find that level of competition. The same holds true for sports that are more about individual times or scores (swimming, track). So we are really just talking about things like American football or basketball where there is that disadvantage to a point--though no more so than rural domestic schools in the US. I mean, how good is the football competition when you play 8-man in easter Oregon?

Elite athletes do find a way, and mamava gave good examples to supplement the one that I posted off the top of my head. For every one of those exceptions you can also find whole teams that don't have a single student from Wyoming. In fact, a basketball team in division 1 is only permitted 13 scholarships and has about 16-17 kids, so there are entire teams out there with not a single representative from over 30 US states. So try a real argument. There are hundreds of Division 1 schools and still more in Division 2 that give scholarships--sure, schools like Duke or Alabama don't have tons of internationals on their basketball/football teams, but it does happen--and they don't have a lot of kids from New Mexico on their teams, either. Really, only about 1% of all high school basketball players even play in NCAA Div. 1, for example (that number grows to 5% when you talk about any college ball), so the odds are slim regardless of where one grows up.

The elite unis do not recruit for fine and performing arts. You have been misinformed. The only exception might be the kid with an existing recording contract being offered a scholarship--but in those cases, location is really secondary (and often, so is college).

But of course, you are arguing to argue, and you don't actually believe the nonsense you are saying. I really should know better than to fall for your trolling. The point is that yes, it might be harder to develop those particular talents that lead to a scholarship because there isn't a convenient high school football team, but if your kid is passionate enough and shows that kind of talent and work ethic, you aren't going to move somewhere that offers zero opportunity for participation and development anyway.
PsyGuy
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Post by PsyGuy »

@Thames Pirate

No you dont, even assuming you found that level of competition no one from an NCAA Uni is going to see it, know about it, etc. Does it rise to D5A level of play, maybe but thats not the issue, its financial and economic opportunities.
Were talking:
Footsball
Football (Soccer)
Basketball
Baseball
Volleyball
Softball

Those are the team sports with coin, which is pretty much everything you can add mens and womens golf as many NCAA teams need to fill out sports to meet Title 1 requirements.

Way more rural town USA is where the only thing anyone cares about is Sports, thats where you get a lot of the best players because they do nothing but live and breath their sport, theres nothing else to do.

Of course Elite athletes find a way, thats how they became elite athletes, they are also a minuscule minority. They are the exceptions not the rule.
Your confusing units of measure, and while I can still find more Wyoming players than IE players. What your exhibiting is false equivocation, the issue isnt IE compared to Wyoming its US DE student opportunities compared to IE student opportunities.

Again issue isnt Wyoming or one single team its US DE compared to IE, and its all US Teams. Who cares if there arent any students from Wyoming or even 30 states, they are from the other 20 states, still not from IE. More false equivocation.
I do have real arguments, not fallacies like you have.
Im glad we agree as I posted there are lots of NCAA D2 Unis and D1 Unis and they give scholarships and they arent going to IE students. Those D2 Unis arent going overseas to recruit.

Its more than 5% you simply arent counting enough sports, and again thank you for agreeing with me, that 5% is composed mostly almost entirely of DE STUDENTS not IE STUDENTS. the odds are SUBSTANTIALLY slimmer in IE.

No your misinformed the elite level fine and performing arts Unis do recruit students.

Well I actually believe it because its true.
Thames Pirate
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Re: Telling the kids

Post by Thames Pirate »

Factual clarifications: 11% of college basketball players are foreign-born. While I realise this is not the same thing as IE, it does show that one need not come up through the DE high school ranks. Across all sports in the NCAA, men and women, the number is 5%. If those folks can get the required exposure, so can kids growing up in those countries, regardless of passport or school attendance.

Factual clarification: There are tons of scholarships out there for sports you didn't list, notably track/field, swimming, ice hockey, and lacrosse, but also crew, rugby, and many more.

Factual clarification: D2 schools don't recruit much, either domestically or internationally. They do, however, give scholarships to the best they can get.

Factual clarification: Sure, the local high school game in Nowhere, Wyoming is the most exciting thing in town, but that doesn't mean their odds increase--and rural populations are a smaller pool, meaning their competition and training options are more limited than you would find in a place like, say, Singapore, where you have access to clubs and coaching and more people against whom you can compete at all.

Factual clarification: I stated plainly that the 5% number was NCAA basketball as an example. Yes, most of those are domestic because, well, Americans attend American universities. Duh--also, there are far more Americans in the US than abroad. So yes, most college athletes are products of DE.

Factual clarification: Elite unis do not recruit for fine and performing arts scholarships. They do, however, often award scholarships based on academic merit and potential, specific scholarships to foreign students (sometimes from specific regions), to students who are the first in their families to attend college, etc.

So while it can be trickier to get some small percentage of athletic scholarships from abroad, it is neither impossible nor limiting since they will have a background better suited to earning some of the other myriad scholarships. Since only a small percentage of high school athletes get scholarships anyway, we aren't talking about the average family in IE.

Okay, I really do know better than to go down these rabbit holes with someone whose evidence is "because it's true."
PsyGuy
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Post by PsyGuy »

@Thames Pirate

1) Not a fact, and not a clarification. Yes its not the same as IE, those are foreign nationals, foreigners, not western US students who are dragged to another country. This is one sport, and the percentage doesnt even represent the target population. No its not 5%, different sports have different composition. Footsball is much lower than say golf. Again, these are foreign nationals not western IE students.

2) Not a fact and not a clarification, scholarships arent measured by mass or volume. There arent even a lot. I didnt mention those other sports because your previous message focused on sports with a ball.

3) Bot a fact and not a clarification, D2 sports recruit aggressively, though they tend to focus more locally than regionally, and if your not in the immediate locality because your OS you arent going to get recruited.

4) Not a fact, and not a clarification. Yes you stated something it doesnt make it true or applicable. Being plain does not make is true, nor is is self authenticating. So again your agreeing with me, move overseas to IE and your less likely to be recruited. In addition, your incredibly Amero-centric your leaving out the whole of the UK.

5) Not a fact and not a clarification: Elite Uni fine and performing arts program do recruit. Those are all needs based, academic or other forms of financial aid. Not recruitable ASPs

You do not know what facts are, they are not "Im @Thames Pirate and I said it so its a fact". It is absolutely limiting, devastatingly so. regardless of the percentage of recruited athletes and performers whether its .1%, 1% or 10% it doesnt matter because the difference between those that are recruited in DE and those recruited in IE is the proverbial 99% to 1%, your opportunities are greatly diminished.
No were not talking about the typical or average family, nor did I claim it was, only that the opportunities available are drastically and significantly reduced be entering IE.

You should stop going down rabbit holes with the I'm @Thames Pirate and I said it was a fact if it makes you uncomfortable.
sid
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Re: Telling the kids

Post by sid »

I've taught personally some students, and taught in the same school as other students, who represented their countries in the Olympics or other major international sporting events.
Same again with students who've gotten sporting scholarships to uni.
It's not always US or even "big" countries, and that's important to remember. We're not just talking about whether kids can get recruited to a Division 1 school in the US. There are many other options.
Some IS are so large, and in regions with such rich opportunities, that they do indeed have the capacity to take kids to amazing levels. Like everywhere else, most kids will not turn out to be the next Tiger Woods, but still the schools have the ability to nurture any budding Tigers that enroll.
But in reality, the percentage of kids anywhere in the world that turn out to be that talented? It's tiny. Most US schools don't have the ability to do them justice. Some families end up moving cities in the US just to give their kids better sporting opportunities. Others just say "whatever" and stay where they are, knowing the kid probably never had a realistic chance anyway. It's no different in IS.
And for the record, even Division 1 US schools do have "walk-on" tryouts. Even for their most competitive sports. They're mostly a waste of time - kids try, but they don't make the cut. But the walk-ons exist, and every now and again, someone gets taken on the team who wasn't recruited. So never say never. Basketball Billy from the IS of Nowhereland could walk on, try out, and make the team, despite never having been in a school/league that got him noticed by a recruiter. Everyone can dream!
PsyGuy
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Post by PsyGuy »

@Sid

I dont significantly disagree with the majority of your post, but its not particularly relevant. The LW isnt some host national, they are western ITs coming with western kids, they are IE kids.
I also addressed Olympic caliber students, that totally happens but its outside the realm of Uni admissions and scholarships.

The issue I stated in full was:
"Well one of the things you may lose going OS is scholarship opportunities and opportunities to do things like start for a a Div 5A footsball team, or other athletic activity/sport. You may miss out on something like drama or music programs that could actually get children into a competitive Uni with scholarship. You may also miss out on guaranteed acceptance or scholarship/tuition coin by graduating in the top X% of your DS/District or other such ranking. These opportunities generally dont exist in ISs."

My post and claim solely focuses not on what ISs can provide a student as far as growth and learning, but the metrics that drastically change when a student removes themselves from the DE system and leaves the local, regional and national "playing field".

Im not talking about the next Tiger Woods of Vanessa Williams or Chris Pritt, or Taylor Swift, I'm talking about the students whose careers are going to peak in Uni, their ability is going to get them a free degree, and then they are going to become PE or Theater, or Music DTs. They arent going to the Olympics. Im talking about the students that will go on to maybe play in a D1 Uni like but also those students who are really only competitive enough to play and be recruited by local D2 Unis. Those students dont get recruited from ISs, they have no conference stats, no one can watch them, and its very rare anyone would take the trip OS to meet them. Were talking the local Uni/College coach who drives in town to see the local high school games, and the neighboring cities, maybe even driving state wide. Thats where its going to end. Removing yourself from that environment for IE is going significantly and drastically reduce your options for being recruited.
The same is true in the fine and performing arts. If youre a Uni looking for a tuba player you arent flying a round the world from IS to IS looking for a tuba player. Your going to recruit locally, because thats who you get to see, thats your recruiting area.

Lots of things could happen, these are probabilities, possible is not probable.
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