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Will Quitting Soccer Senior Year Hurt Admission Outcomes?

Written by Sally Rubenstone | Aug. 25, 2010

Question: Will a student who has played JV soccer for three years and decides not to play Varsity soccer for senior year to raise his GPA and SAT scores have a disadvantage when being admitted to college?

Quitting a sport generally only impacts college admission decisions when the student has the potential to be a recruited athlete. Presumably, anyone who is on JV as a high school junior may be a decent player but isn't strong enough to catch a coach's eye, even at the Division 3 level. Hopefully, you will have other extracurricular endeavors on your application. However, college admission folks will not care that you chose to give soccer the boot as a senior to pursue other goals. ;)

Sally Rubenstone

Sally Rubenstone knows the competitive and often convoluted college admission process inside out: From the first time the topic of college comes up at the dinner table until the last duffel bag is unloaded on a dorm room floor. She is the co-author of Panicked Parents' Guide to College Admissions; The Transfer Student's Guide to Changing Colleges and The International Student's Guide to Going to College in America. Sally has appeared on NBC's Today program and has been quoted in countless publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Weekend, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, People and Seventeen. Sally has viewed the admissions world from many angles: As a Smith College admission counselor for 15 years, an independent college counselor serving students from a wide range of backgrounds and the author of College Confidential's "Ask the Dean" column. She also taught language arts, social studies, study skills and test preparation in 10 schools, including American international schools in London, Paris, Geneva, Athens and Tel Aviv. As senior advisor to College Confidential since 2002, Sally has helped hundreds of students and parents navigate the college admissions maze. In 2008, she co-founded College Karma, a private college consulting firm, with her College Confidential colleague Dave Berry, and she continues to serve as a College Confidential advisor. Sally and her husband, Chris Petrides, became first-time parents in 1997 at the ripe-old age of 45. So Sally was nearly an official senior citizen when her son Jack began the college selection process, and when she was finally able to practice what she had preached for more than three decades.