[81alum]

My theory has always been that this is more of an issue in boys'/men's sports because the boys who get into it have dreams of playing professionally, so they feel more free to slack on school. Girls realize that sports is only opening a door but don't get sucked into the idea they could make millions on their athletics so they still need to work/study. So there is a lot more intersection of top female athletes focused on also achieving in academics than boy athletes. So while there is variability, it seems like there is almost always some strong cohort of girls who are killing it on the field and in the classroom. A gross generalization, but I wonder if there's data to back it up.

I think you are right.   But we also have another problem in this country--the academic achievement for boys is simply lower across the board than for girls--sports related or not.  Something we are doing with our young people is not working for boys.  GPAs, graduation rates, AP tests, etc. girls generally have higher scores than boys.  Lots of possible reasons for this that might be interesting to speculate about--there probably is a lot of research going on at CERAS about this very point.

[81alum]

My theory has always been that this is more of an issue in boys'/men's sports because the boys who get into it have dreams of playing professionally, so they feel more free to slack on school. Girls realize that sports is only opening a door but don't get sucked into the idea they could make millions on their athletics so they still need to work/study. So there is a lot more intersection of top female athletes focused on also achieving in academics than boy athletes. So while there is variability, it seems like there is almost always some strong cohort of girls who are killing it on the field and in the classroom. A gross generalization, but I wonder if there's data to back it up.

I think you are right.   But we also have another problem in this country--the academic achievement for boys is simply lower across the board than for girls--sports related or not.  Something we are doing with our young people is not working for boys.  GPAs, graduation rates, AP tests, etc. girls generally have higher scores than boys.  Lots of possible reasons for this that might be interesting to speculate about--there probably is a lot of research going on at CERAS about this very point.