Fall sports are here. See how likely that sport is to take a kid to college

Hundreds of thousands of student athletes are returning to their college teams this fall. Earning a spot on collegiate rosters, or athletic scholarships, takes years of work from young athletes — and thousands of dollars from their parents in fees, travel and other costs.

But the odds are long to get them there: Just 7% of high school athletes will compete on a college roster at any level, while 2% will go on to earn a National College Athletic Association, or NCAA, athletic scholarship. An even smaller fraction will go pro.

So as parents are ordering fall uniforms and planning tournament entries, CNN analyzed the odds for a high schooler to make a college roster, based on data compiled by Patrick O’Rourke on the website ScholarshipStats.com .

A more popular sport doesn’t mean longer odds, since more schools sponsor collegiate teams. Football was by far the most popular high school sport, with more than 1 million high school athletes competing in the 2022-2023 school year, and more than 96,000 going on to play in college. Nearly one-third of those athletes played at the Division I level, typically schools with the more elite and well-funded sports programs. The size of football rosters — with most teams exceeding 100 players — helped those athletes’ odds further: 11:1 to make any college roster and 33:1 to make a Division I team.

Track and field was the second most common high school boys’ sport that year, with more than 580,000 high school track and field athletes vying for spots on just over 1,200 college teams. Those boys’ 16:1 odds of making any college roster were slightly longer than they were for the more than 465,000 girls competing to make one of more than 1,300 collegiate teams. Their odds were 13:1.

The more obscure sports had slimmer odds. Female wrestlers vying for a spot on one of the four Division I women’s teams in 2022-2023 faced the longest odds by far: 709:1. For male wrestlers, the odds were still slim but much less challenging: 86:1. Female bowlers had better odds than either at making a DI team: 79:1.

There are caveats to these numbers: Just 70% of female high school athletes go on to play in college, while just about half of male high schoolers go on to play collegiately, according to O’Rourke’s data analysis.

Recent policy changes have cleared the way for college athletes to earn money from competing at that level, through scholarships at NCAA Division I schools or payments for their name, image and likeness, or NIL.

But NCAA teams don’t award scholarships to every eligible player, and NIL earnings are highly concentrated in major sports like basketball and football, O’Rourke’s analysis found when he crunched the numbers for his new site NIL-NCAA.com .

“If it was me, instead of paying a gazillion dollars on youth sports, I’d put the money in a 529,” O’Rourke told CNN. “Because that’ll play for college no matter what.”

Money isn’t the only reason athletes might pursue a spot on a college roster — athletic talent can give students an edge in admissions. While Ivy League schools, and other competitive academic institutions, have impossibly low general admission rates, many have student-athletes making up as much as a fifth of their whole student body — a possible opportunity for kids with athletic talents, O’Rourke said.

Childhood sports are good for children’s physical, mental and emotional health and development.

And of course, just darn good fun.

‘I’ll pay soccer before I pay a bill’: How the cost of youth soccer blew out of control and why some families pay it anyway

今年秋季，数十万名学生运动员将重返大学赛场。对于年轻运动员来说，赢得大学校队名额或体育奖学金需要多年的努力，而他们的父母则需要花费数千美元用于学费、差旅费和其他开支。

但他们实现这一目标的几率很低：只有7%的高中运动员能进入大学校队参加任何级别的比赛，而只有2%的人能获得美国大学体育协会（NCAA）的体育奖学金。最终成为职业运动员的比例则更低。

正值家长们订购秋季队服和计划参加比赛之际，CNN 根据 Patrick O'Rourke 在 ScholarshipStats.com 网站上汇编的数据，分析了高中生进入大学球队的几率。

一项运动越受欢迎，并不意味着入选大学的几率就越低，因为更多的学校会设立校队。橄榄球是迄今为止最受欢迎的高中运动，在2022-2023学年，超过100万名高中运动员参加比赛，其中超过9.6万人最终进入大学继续他们的橄榄球生涯。这些运动员中近三分之一进入了NCAA一级联赛，通常就读于那些拥有更精英、资金更雄厚的体育项目的学校。橄榄球队的庞大阵容——大多数球队超过100名球员——进一步提高了这些运动员的入选几率：进入任何大学球队的几率为11比1，进入NCAA一级联赛球队的几率为33比1。

田径是当年高中男生第二大热门运动，超过58万名高中田径运动员争夺1200多支大学田径队的席位。这些男生入选任何一支大学田径队的概率为16比1，略低于46.5万多名女生争夺1300多支大学田径队席位的概率（13比1）。

一些冷门运动项目的入选几率更低。2022-2023赛季，女子摔跤运动员想要进入四支一级女子队之一，她们面临的几率最高：709:1。男子摔跤运动员的入选几率虽然也很低，但远没有那么高：86:1。女子保龄球运动员入选一级队的几率比两者都高：79:1。

这些数据也有一些需要注意的地方：根据奥罗克的数据分析，只有 70% 的高中女运动员会继续在大学打球，而只有大约一半的高中男运动员会继续在大学打球。

最近的政策变化为大学生运动员通过参加该级别的比赛赚钱铺平了道路，他们可以通过 NCAA 第一级别学校的奖学金或通过姓名、形象和肖像权 (NIL) 获得报酬。

但 NCAA 球队不会给每个符合条件的球员颁发奖学金，而且 NIL 收入高度集中在篮球和橄榄球等主要体育项目上，O'Rourke 在他的新网站 NIL-NCAA.com 上分析数据时发现。

奥罗克告诉CNN：“如果是我，与其在青少年体育运动上花费巨资，我宁愿把钱存入529教育储蓄账户。因为无论如何，这笔钱都能用于大学体育。”

金钱并非运动员渴望进入大学校队的唯一原因——运动天赋确实能让学生在大学申请中脱颖而出。奥罗克指出，虽然常春藤盟校和其他竞争激烈的学术机构的普通录取率极低，但许多学校的运动员学生占比高达五分之一——这对有运动天赋的孩子来说是一个潜在的机会。

儿童时期参与体育运动对儿童的身体、心理和情感健康发展都有益处。

当然，也非常好玩。

“我宁愿先付足球费再付账单”：青少年足球的费用是如何失控飙升的，以及为什么有些家庭仍然愿意支付这笔费用。