EddietheEagle wrote:

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Does the LTA ever help out at all with an information desk or knowing where to point players in the right direction? It sounds as though to be forewarned is to be forearmed is very much the name of the game. It's difficult enough trying to find the right school or university place here let alone swimming in the shark-infested waters of the good ol' U.S.A.

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 My understanding is that it's the exact opposite.

The LTA are only interested in the very top few. And they do not want those top few to go to college (and, indeed, the top few probably would not go anyway, and that's the right decision). I don't know if it's true but I heard that the LTA were against Jodie taking up her college place (don't know about Emily App). And were certainly miffed when Cam dropped out of NTC to go to college.

So really, there's not much hope of them providing college advice when college is not really part of their radar (whatever they say about many different paths, blah blah). 

I was just reading on the BBC Sport website about a new app called Skouted owned by a former Manchester United player. He says their plan is to release functionality for tennis. Basically the player signs up to the app (for free) and uploads video footage. Agents/Coaches can then login, view the footage and make contact, to offer places on their teams. Sounds pretty interesting for potential future US College applications.

Born2WinTennis wrote:

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Kent County player Tiegan Aitken has signed for Gonzaga University for fall 2020 courtesy of Sarah Borwell at Tennis Smart.

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 Morgan Cross and Esther Adeshina have also signed up for US college tennis programmes (Esther at Tennessee, and Morgan at Arkansas)

North Florida served Jack Findel-Hawkins really well despite playing in the weak Atlantic Sun conference, geographically they are well placed to have some more challenging tennis programmes on their roster. Jacksonville offers perfect conditions to develop as a tennis player.

Matt did really well at ASA Miami who seem to be giving Tyler a run as the best Community College Team in the US. Matt won the tier 5 national singles championship and was named as a 1st team all American in his first (freshman year) year.

I see Matt like Jack is from the South West (Somerset) and played football (?at Millfield) until he was 16 ... as did Tyrone Mings who has progressed through the back door of non league football (Chippenham Town) to the Premier League and full English International caps. So perhaps not entirely focused 24/7 at tennis? 

It will be interesting to follow his progress, not that I know too much about Matt but the guys who are generally decent sportsmen who go to college can get a real foot up in terms of the level at which they play. Lloyd Glasspool had great success at Texas (Admittedly very strong conference and programme) but it will be interesting to keep an eye on Matts progress.

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Saturday 14th of December 2019 05:24:09 AM

Having some time to kill at the airport I was interested in reading about the college experience for student-athletes especially with respect to GPA and major.   Admin please delete if too long/dull!

One recent study suggest that the vast majority of students (89.3%) who compete in Division I athletics are, indeed, student-athletes whose participation in their sport is a component of their overall university experience (1). According to the NCAA, they go pro in something other than their sport. This is a big success for the NCAAs academics first mission. However another article reports that despite the NCAAs insistence that it is concerned about student athletes academic growth, it often feels as though student is a poor second to athlete. (2).

There is a general consensus among the college tennis student-athletes we know that the tennis players are on the whole some of the more academic student athletes (higher GPA)  but that fewer of them take STEM subjects than non-athletes  and whilst not specific to tennis players, the NCAA does have some interesting data.

Number of Student-Athletes by Country, Divisions I and II and type of degrees awarded
In 2017/18, 63% of D1 male players and 62% of females were internationals, with players coming from 97 nations. For D1 men's tennis, there were 820 US men, 782 from Europe including 125 from the UK, 238 from South America/Central America/Caribbean, 78 from Asia, 77 from Africa/Middle East, 65 from Australia/New Zealand, and 49 from Canada (3).

NCAA Majors for all male athletes(A) compared to athletes in non-revenue sports(NR) and non-athletes (NA) 2017/18 (4)

Numbers are %
Business A 31 NR 37 NA 23

Social Science A 18 NR 16 NA 15

STEM A 15 NR 21 NA 37

Communications A 8 NR 6 NA 4

Liberal Arts A 7 NR 5 NA 8

Park/Rec/Fitness A 6 NR 4 NA 3

Health Prof A 4 NR 4 NA 4

Psychology A 3 NR 3 NA 3

Other A 8 NR 4 NA 4

Athletes playing non-revenue sports, have 60% more business majors than non-athletes and about 45% fewer STEM majors than non-athletes
The NCAA instituted the Academic Progress Rate (5) to hold colleges accountable for the academic progress of their student-athletes through a team based matrix. Successful teams with high APR's are publicly commended, but those with low scores face potential penalties.

I could not find any comparable data for the 5 main British tennis unis.

References
1. https://thesportjournal.org/article/student-athletes-vs-athlete-students-the-academic-success-campus-involvement-and-future-goals-of-division-i-student-athletes-who-were-university-bound-compared-to-those-who-would-not-have-attended/
2. https://time.com/3827196/why-student-athletes-fail/
3. http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/number-student-athletes-country-divisions-i-and-ii
4. http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/division-i-diploma-dashboard
5. https://web3.ncaa.org/aprsearch/aprsearch

Must be time for a new thread, I keep seeing announcements.

Today, from instagram
scarlett.hutchinson
"So excited to have signed with Fairfield University womens tennis team for Fall 2020"