Invest Time in Sports or Math? Comparing the Return on Investments
Invest Time in Sports or Math? Comparing the Return on Investments
Yes, I am one of those parents—the kind who drives her kids from sports field to sports field, investing $5,000+ a year on individual training, club teams, and travel back and forth. The minimum time each our children invests in practice is 20 hours a month. In 10 years, this means my husband and I will have invested more than 4,800 hours and more than $100,000 for both children.
Why do all of this? We want them to have fun, but secretly, the dream is that they will play in college and perhaps get a scholarship to help defray the cost. When they are not in the mood to go, or I’m tired of eating out of my car, I wonder if all of this time and money is worth it. Sure, they will make friends and learn important life skills, all the while doing something they enjoy. Those are all good things, but if your goal is college scholarship, is it worth it?
As a parent, I need to step back and look at this rationally. I have limited time and resources. If I want to invest time and money into an activity that will give my child the best opportunities for college and beyond, where should I put that money?
Getting a full scholarship would be a huge financial relief, but experts will tell me that the chances of my children qualifying for an athletic scholarship are very, very slim. Less than 1% of Division 1 college athletic scholarships are awarded to existing high school players. To put it bluntly, if our goal is an athletic scholarship, more than 99% of the time, we will have wasted our time and money.
This is why most coaches will tell athletes and parents to invest in academics instead. Get the grades and do well in school because the ROI towards your future is stronger and more certain.
Academic scholarships vary, but if you have good grades, there is a 19% chance you’ll get at least some money. That’s almost 20 times greater than the chances of getting an athletic scholarship. In addition, if you have strong standardized test scores, there is a 13% chance of getting even more financial aid. If you have an interest in and aptitude for math, your chances of scholarship dollars go up even more. In fact, according to scholarships.com, there are many more federal and state loan forgiveness programs for high-demand fields such as healthcare and STEM majors than for other disciplines. Graduates of STEM majors also have the highest paying jobs and the best job prospects after graduation.
From an ROI perspective, spending time investing in a child’s math education is more likely to yield greater academic scholarship opportunities and more income potential for the future. Even if your child doesn’t go into a STEM field, many competitive non-STEM majors will require a minimum math score. You can’t escape math easily because it is so important and relevant to many fields of study.
The challenge, though, is that math is not fun, right? I can’t get my child to spend two hours to do extra math per month, let alone 20 hours a month. How do you get them to invest time in something they don’t like?
Often, children don’t like math because they have only seen classroom math. They haven’t seen “real” math. Unlike what we often see in the classroom, real math is contextual, rich with interesting examples and highly relevant to their worlds. For example, if your child is on social media, they may be interested in the basic concept behind the friend recommendations. If they watch Netflix or listen to music on Spotify, math helps determine which shows, movies, and artists pop up in their recommendations and why their playlist is different from those of their friends. From this perspective, learning math becomes much more fun.
If you want the best ROI for your child’s future, consider investing in math learning, but learning that is meaningful and interesting. Imagine what might happen if your child starts to engage in math and actually enjoys it! According to some experts, it may be the best investment you can make for their future.
Want to know how we make math fun, interesting, and relevant? Contact us to get our five best examples that will open your eyes to the importance and beauty of mathematics.
Resources
Top Five Must-Haves To Prep for the ACT and SAT in Math
Top Five Must-Haves To Prep for the ACT and SAT in Math
With more than three million students taking the SAT and ACT tests each year, it’s no surprise that this fuels a lucrative test prep market. Parents who can afford to do so spend thousands of dollars on test prep companies and private tutors to handhold their students through the testing process. Is this the only way or the most efficient way? There is no one right solution for prep. However, there are key “must haves” if you look into SAT and ACT prep for mathematics.
Foundational Understanding Matters — Go Back to the Basics
Whatever approach you decide to use, whether it is using a tutor, a testing company, studying with friends, or working by yourself, you have to make sure you have basic understanding of the key concepts. If you don’t understand what a linear equation is, no amount of strategy, timed tests, intensive review, or testing tips will fix that. For each math concept noted, build conceptual understanding through models and simple examples and make sure that you completely understand the concept from multiple perspectives. Don’t be surprised if this means reviewing content from elementary or middle school.
Learning Takes Time, So Space It Out
Khan Academy offers free SAT practice tests, videos, examples, and resources and has a program you can use to track progress. They claim after 20 hours of practice, you’ll see an increase in scores. That might be, but you won’t want to do it all at once. Learning research shows that intermittent practice is the best for memory because it causes you to retrieve information again and again, strengthening connections between concepts. So start early. Instead of cramming, space out your practice into small chunks over a longer period of time. It is better to practice 30 minutes a day for 10 weeks than 10 hours each day for 10 days.
Dialogue, Notice, and Wonder – to Bust Anxiety
Many students freeze when they look at math word problems. It is like reading another language. Rather than just jump in, start in a safe space. What do you notice about the problem? What do you wonder? Can you make a list of things you know? A list of things you don’t? This will start your journey to the answer by thinking through the problem and trying to understand it first, rather than just plugging away.
You Do the Talking and the Work, Not the Other Way Around
The person doing the work is doing the learning. So, if your tutor is doing all the talking, and you are doing all the watching, you are not learning. Your helper should be prompting you, questioning and re-directing but never ‘telling you how to do it’. You will remember more if you are actively working on the problem yourself. This doesn’t apply if you are taking a practice test, but it should apply when you are reviewing materials.
Find Anchor Examples
These are problems to which you know the answer and can use as a “gut check” for math concepts that are more difficult. Can’t remember how to find 38% of $79? Start with something easier, like 50% of $10, then apply the same approach to the more complex one. For example, 50% of $10 = ½ of $10 or $5.00. To get the answer, you multiply 0.5 x $10 = $5. With this understanding, you can use the same pattern with the harder problem: 38% of 79 = .38 x $79, or $30.02. Math is a study of patterns. If you can find a simple example, you can extend that example and use the same approach and pattern to solve more complex problems.
At Simplify, our “Get Ready for the SAT and ACT classes” use all of these strategies to help students prepare.
Contact us to get a set of free anchor examples to help you refresh your foundational skills needed for the SAT and ACT.
Sources:
Can coaching truly boost SAT scores? For years, the College Board said no. Now it says yes.