The Pay-to-Play Childhood - (link to article)

[Grace T.]

Do they consider the parent’s income when scoring “real jobs”? If parents are making close to half a mil and the kid working at McDonald’s won’t make sense.

No. They like that the kid is working at McDonald’s for the responsibility and experience. They’ll punish you if your dad is a lawyer and you go to his firm to work as an intern.

ps few teenagers work at McDonald’s at least in California…the minimum wage is too brutal and adults actually want to work there as a result…they don’t like to train people for summer only to lose them…they need people to be flexible in scheduling including school hours…the rules surrounding minors 16 and under are too limiting. There are a few fast food restaurants that still look at young hires like chick fillet. But the days of working at hot dog on a stick at the mall are over at least in Cali. If you can actually land a job at McDonald’s as a high schooler and keep it it’s actually pretty impressive now days.

 

[Grace T.]

A few Sunday league teams I looked into are charging a $120-150 monthly “training fee” and you have to pay even if you don’t plan on going to the training. That’s almost half the cost of the club.
The level of competition is a mixed bag. The really good teams are full of club players. You aren’t gonna find a really good player there that has fallen through the pay to play crack. If a kid is good, they are already playing club for free. However I find it interesting that some of these kids getting free rides are only playing for a club’s second or third team. Maybe someone can explain that to me.

Coaches even in Sunday league like to win. They also like money as spare change. YMMV

 

[Jar!23]

No. They like that the kid is working at McDonald’s for the responsibility and experience. They’ll punish you if your dad is a lawyer and you go to his firm to work as an intern.

ps few teenagers work at McDonald’s at least in California…the minimum wage is too brutal and adults actually want to work there as a result…they don’t like to train people for summer only to lose them…they need people to be flexible in scheduling including school hours…the rules surrounding minors 16 and under are too limiting. There are a few fast food restaurants that still look at young hires like chick fillet. But the days of working at hot dog on a stick at the mall are over at least in Cali. If you can actually land a job at McDonald’s as a high schooler and keep it it’s actually pretty impressive now days.

My kid has a weekend morning job at a local mom and pop restaurant. He would not be able to do that if he was still playing club. Maybe he could have been a D3 recruit if he really tried but he is aiming for the top half of the UC's and he wants to have a college life experience. He and most of his friends are not aiming to attend most of the CSUs or community colleges where the recruits around my area seem to go to (and even those seem to be dwindling in numbers). We know one kid on ECNL, is a standout player, and has great academic stats so it will be interesting to see where he ends up. Since he is still playing and training, soccer takes up the majority of his time he has less total extracurriculars.

 

[Jamisfoes]

My kid has a weekend morning job at a local mom and pop restaurant. He would not be able to do that if he was still playing club. Maybe he could have been a D3 recruit if he really tried but he is aiming for the top half of the UC's and he wants to have a college life experience. He and most of his friends are not aiming to attend most of the CSUs or community colleges where the recruits around my area seem to go to (and even those seem to be dwindling in numbers). We know one kid on ECNL, is a standout player, and has great academic stats so it will be interesting to see where he ends up. Since he is still playing and training, soccer takes up the majority of his time he has less total extracurriculars.

If a rich kid works at McDonald’s just to look good for college application, how is that different from fake charities? Give the admission points to kids who actually need to work to help out his parents. I have a cousin who is a practicing neurosurgeon. He writes on his clinic’s website that he chose to become a doctor because he had to take care of his sick grandma. My grandma had never lived with his family. Too many try hards and liars in this world.

 

[Grace T.]

If a rich kid works at McDonald’s just to look good for college application, how is that different from fake charities? Give the admission points to kids who actually need to work to help out his parents. I have a cousin who is a practicing neurosurgeon. He writes on his clinic’s website that he chose to become a doctor because he had to take care of his sick grandma. My grandma had never lived with his family. Too many try hards and liars in this world.

The difference is it's a real job you can get fired from it if you don't do well and show up on time, which given where the Zers are, it's what they are looking at. The fake charity is literally just that, a fake charity your parents throw money at or you organize your friends to do. the UCs, CalStates and Ivies do take hardship into account. In fact one of the UC prompts is the hardship prompt where you can complain about being poor, being discriminated against, being learning disabled, etc. But no one is going to sit there for an extracurricular on an application the reader spends 5 minutes on to try to figure out if the particular extracurricular was needed to make ends meet, get tuition money, buy a car, because your parents thought it would be good for you, or because you want it for your application. The assumption with the fake charities was, especially when the private schools began to mandate service hours, everyone was being forced to do it.

 

[Jar!23]

If a rich kid works at McDonald’s just to look good for college application, how is that different from fake charities? Give the admission points to kids who actually need to work to help out his parents. I have a cousin who is a practicing neurosurgeon. He writes on his clinic’s website that he chose to become a doctor because he had to take care of his sick grandma. My grandma had never lived with his family. Too many try hards and liars in this world.

Well I don't give my kid an allowance, so the job is how he gets his spending money. I don't think most of the kids I know who work do it just to look good for college applications.

 

[RandomSoccerFan]

The assumption with the fake charities was, especially when the private schools began to mandate service hours, everyone was being forced to do it.

It continued to spread much further than that. The public high school near us required a certain number of volunteer/service hours in order to graduate. Still, the hours threshold is probably lower than the assumed minimum when applying to a highly selective college.