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Eastside Prep fields eight sports across 20 teams: basketball, cross country, rowing, soccer, tennis, track and field, Ultimate and volleyball. Upper School athletes compete under Washington Interscholastic Activities Association rules, which require seven practices before a student may compete. Middle School sports for fifth and sixth graders largely run during the school day. Rowing is open from eighth grade upward. There is no football program.
The Eight Sports Eastside Prep Fields
A school of 538 students cannot field everything, and Eastside Prep has not tried to. What it offers instead is a set of sports where a smaller program is not a disadvantage, and two that most independent schools its size do not run at all.
| Sport | Notes |
| Basketball | Upper School and Middle School teams; optional summer practices |
| Cross country | Co-ed, fielded in both divisions |
| Rowing | Co-ed, open from eighth grade upward |
| Soccer | Both divisions, boys and girls teams |
| Tennis | Upper School |
| Track and field | Spring season |
| Ultimate | Upper School; optional summer practices |
| Volleyball | Both divisions; optional summer practices |
Rowing and Ultimate are the distinctive entries. Rowing is a substantial commitment with a genuine competitive pathway, and it is unusual for a school this size to sustain a program. Ultimate has a real culture in the Pacific Northwest, and a student who plays it seriously here is not playing a novelty sport. Both are also, practically speaking, sports a student can begin at Eastside Prep without having played since age six, which is not true of most varsity pathways.
Eastside Prep does not field a football team.
How the Seasons and Divisions Work
Upper School fall practices begin in late August, ahead of the school year. Washington Interscholastic Activities Association rules require seven practices before a high school athlete may compete, so students who miss the opening week will sit out early contests regardless of ability. Fall Upper School offerings include tennis, Ultimate, soccer, volleyball, cross country and rowing.
Middle School athletics run differently by age. Fifth and sixth grade sports largely take place during the school day, which removes the transport problem that usually makes middle school athletics hard on working parents. Seventh and eighth grade practices run after school two or three days a week. Middle School fall offerings include soccer, volleyball, cross country and rowing, with rowing restricted to eighth grade and above.
Participation carries administrative requirements that catch new families out. Athletes need current physical exams, concussion and sudden cardiac arrest documentation and a student-parent agreement on file before practice, and Upper School athletes must complete concussion baseline testing, valid for two years, before fall practices.
Applying as an athlete?
Athletic commitment is worth showing in an Eastside Prep application, but it has to be shown in the right place. We can help your child do that.
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What Athletics Means for Your Application
Athletics will not carry an Eastside Prep application on its own, and any consultant suggesting otherwise is selling something. What sustained athletic commitment does demonstrate is the thing this school genuinely cares about, which is a student who can hold a hard, long-term commitment alongside academics. That reads clearly in the interests and activities form and in the recorded student assessment. Our broader piece on competitive sports in private school admissions covers how much weight to expect athletics to carry.
One practical note. Do not send an athletic resume, highlight film or coach letter. Eastside Prep declines supplementary materials outright and states they will not be shown to the committee. Your child’s sporting life has to come through in the required forms, which means a specific story about a season beats a list of results.
Balancing a rowing schedule against a senior thesis is a real workload question rather than a rhetorical one, and for many students the deciding factor is not talent but executive function. That is worth assessing honestly before your child commits to both.
Talk to someone who knows this school
We will give you a straight read on whether the athletic and academic load your child wants is realistic.
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