Class of 2019. 5'10" 145 lbs Left/Left Pitcher. Size 14, should still grow at least 5 inches.
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Where are his friends going?
Which school has the highest graduation rate, is better funded, has the best trained teachers, offers the most AP courses, sends the most kids to college, has the fewest gang and/or crime issues?
Originally Posted by JCG:
Which school has the highest graduation rate, is better funded, has the best trained teachers, offers the most AP courses, sends the most kids to college, has the fewest gang and/or crime issues?
Take baseball out of the equation to come up with my answer. Thanks for the feedback.
Originally Posted by lefty03Dad:
Class of 2019. 5'10" 145 lbs Left/Left Pitcher. Size 14, should still grow at least 5 inches. Open enrollment. Can go to predominate white school that has a solid team year after year or predominate Hispanic and black team not as good but politics should not be a factor. How much should I consider politics when making the decision. By the way, he is black.
None. Go to the school that is the best fit for your son. Not sure how race would factor in unless it is about your son's personal comfort. Never really thought about a kid's race or nationality all the years I have coached pitchers. Can he pitch? What is his velocity. Other than that I really don't care.
Go to high school where he can get the best education. Education will most likely determine his future. By post soph season find the best summer baseball program with college contacts to get him college exposure. Then use baseball to get the best possible education and play baseball.
My son passed on some private schools with solid baseball programs to attend his high school. The high school's gifted program was better than the academics at the highly regarded privates. The high school had a history of pathetic baseball. But it also had a new coach from a top program. My son became part of a new tradition ... winning seasons and conference titles. His college exposure came from his travel team.
Lefty03dad...I understand your question & dilemma. With the sport your son is playing & the position he plays, that's a valid consideration. I just don't think it's valid at the HS level unless you've seen it first hand at the programs you're considering. HS coaches will play the best players for the most part...the "political party" want to see a winner & if your kid helps then they won't skwak as much. Your question will come into play more at the collegiate level. Make sure he's on a good travel team & they have good contacts & do his homework on the schools he likes. The makeup will be the same, very few black kids play D1 at the major schools but there are several across the country in Class of '16, '17, '18 that will help change that. But the biggest thing is he has take care of the classroom first. Most importantly from the parents stand point is do your homework & network but let your kids play do the talking. I don't have first hand knowledge but I'm going through it now. I just make sure my son takes care of classroom first & ball field...there's a place for him to play somewhere.
Thanks for the feedback
If your son is a great student, self-motivated, and his free time activities will keep him out of trouble and he's looking for high academic colleges, it may be easier to achieve academic recognition at the lower rated high school. However, if he may be tempted by distractions more at one high school then the other, heading to the lesser evil may be better.
As I noted on another thread, those very high academic colleges try to compare students from similar high schools. So, for example, if one high school offers five AP classes, and another offers 20, a kid who takes all five at the former will outshine a kid who took 10 at the latter (assuming both have the same grade) - because one kid availed himself of every AP class while the other clearly did not. Thus, ironically it may be easier for the fantastic student to get admitted into the highest academic colleges by graduating from the lesser academic high school.
If your kid learns better in a small class environment and one school has 40 student classes and the other has 20 student classes, that may be a determining factor, etc.
I would not not use baseball as the determining factor (although baseball may have a finger on the scale a little bit) because there is so much time between the beginning and the end of HS; there are injuries, girl friends, new currently unknown interests which intervene which may make any consideration of baseball become moot. Try to plan for a baseball as well as non-baseball college admission process and work backwards from there.
We joke that had our non-athlete kid performed the exact same at a low ranking public school, colleges would have sought her out; instead she was measured against kids from her private highly academic school -that made the admissions grind way way more challenging.