How many high school classifications does your state have?

If I recall correctly, Tennessee also breaks its private schools down by aid giving and non aid giving. So if the private school doesn't give scholarships it competes with the public schools but they also use a multiplier to determine enrollment. The multiplier being 1.5 or something. So if the school had 300 students, it would have 450 to determine its classification.

What most people don't ever seem to get is that enrollment is no predictor of success in high school sports. Very rarely are the state's largest enrollment schools also sports powerhouses anywhere in the country.

 

North Dakota is funky with football. They have AAA, AA, A and 9-Man. 2/3's of schools co-op with at least one other school with some having an alliance with as many as four other schools. It has to do with many North Dakota high schools having less than 100 kids total.

In basketball it is just A and B.

 

We also have widely divergent districts. The largest (i.e., District 3) might have eight times as many students as the smallest (i.e., District 5).

This map is outdated only in that the state has added District 12 -- the city of Philadelphia's Public and Catholic leagues.

 

Louisiana has seven classes: Five football-playing classes (5A, 4A, 3A, 2A, 1A) with 5A being the largest. Small, non-football schools are divided into Classes B and C. So seven total.

That's probably one class too many in Louisiana. There are 50-something teams in each class and 32 make the post-season.

In Texas, there are five classes, then there's a division for six-man football. But over there they subdivide in football to Division I and Division II in each class. Four teams from each district make the football playoffs. The two larger schools of your district's qualifiers go to the D-I playoffs and the two smaller ones go to the D-II playoffs.

So it's possible to go to the D-I playoffs one year then, because the teams who qualified changed, you can end up in D-II the next. Or, you can be in the D-I playoffs but have a smaller enrollment than some teams in the D-II playoffs just because of the way the numbers fell in your district.

I could be wrong on those last two graphs though. I didn't spend enough time in Texas to really get all the details down, but that was my understanding.

I'll add that in Louisiana, public and private schools compete in one organization (which is controversial, given the dominance of a handful of sports factory private schools).

In Texas, publics and privates are split and publics and generally much stronger at sports, mostly because of what most non-Texans would probably consider to be an overemphasis on sports in public schools. Texas 5A schools (enrollments of about 2,200 and up) often have facilities that rival those of, say, a Sun Belt Conference or FCS university. They have funding through the ears, huge coaching staffs, etc.

So it's very hard for a private school sports factory to find a niche in Texas. Why go to one of those when the local public school IS a sports factory too?

 

Agreed. However, this year began to show the imbalance of basketball power now that the Philly schools are in the mix. They're beginning to show absolute dominance.

And the one area that still doesn't belong to the PIAA -- the Philadelphia area prep schools, or Inter-Ac League -- have created an uneven playing field because of its ability to recruit. And the Catholic League is doing some heavy recruiting, too. Great story here.

http://www.phillymag.com/health/articles/the_prized_recruits_of_prep_school_sports/

 

Three "classes" in Virginia, but six divisions for football, and five divisions for some other sports, like basketball and volleyball.

The big schools -- AAA -- are in one group for basketball, but there's a Division 5 and Division 6 for football.

AA has Divisions 3 and 4

A has Divisions 1 and 2

The private schools do not compete against VHSL members for championships, and there are several divisions of private school leagues ranging from largest to smallest enrollment.

Dumbest thing this state ever did was split into divisions for basketball. The enrollment difference isn't large enough to justify it. Maybe in football, where the big schools absolutely should be separated because of the difference in participation and depth. But in hoops, it's just watered down. In one region in Division 4 this year, three of the four semifinalists had losing records, ensuring a team with a losing mark made it to the state quarterfinals. Total joke. It was a lot more exciting when there were just Group A, AA and AAA champion. Five state champs in basketball/baseball/softball/volleyball is a total joke.

 

Wow, I forgot how convoluted the CA system was. I know for the North Coast Section they go five divisions for football, six for basketball. Football divisions are enrollment based, with the ability to appeal to move up a division. They also have leagues that include teams from as many as three divisions which makes things even more hectic.

Then you have the two small sections, Oakland with six and San Francisco with eight. I know Oakland is considered Division 2 for Football, with school enrollments going from 250-2000+. Not sure about the other sports.

 

Minnesota's system is screwed up. The divisions change per sports with six for football, four for basketball, two for hockey, and two for most other sports.

 

New York's NYSPHSAA (encompassing around 750 schools, including some of the Catholic schools) varies by sport:

-- two classes in ice hockey, outdoor track, boys volleyball, bowling
-- three classes in field hockey, lacrosse
-- five classes in football, soccer, basketball, cross country, girls volleyball, baseball, softball

All things considered, five classes is overkill in all of those sports except basketball. We could go back to the four-class format of 7-8 years ago without risking rioting in the streets.

New York City's catholics (CHSAA) and publics (PSAL) are separate entities with their own championships. They join the main association (NYSPHSAA) champs in playing down to overall state champs in three classes in a handful of sports (basketball, most notably).

There's also a fourth statewide body -- the Alliance of Independent Schools -- that's mostly insignificant in the big picture.

 

gregcrews already touched on it, but Kentucky has six for football.

32 teams each 1-A (smallest) and 6-A (largest) and all 32 make the playoffs. 2-A, 3-A, 4-A and 5-A have roughly 35-45 teams. Eight districts per class and the top four in each district make the playoffs. There will be several 0-10 teams in the playoffs.

Track and cross country have three classes each.

Every other sport has one class. And in Kentucky, publics and privates compete together (a public school has never been in the state volleyball final).

 

Didn't someone mention in a thread similar to this at one point that there's a state where the classifications aren't decided until the playoffs actually begin?

I imagine that being a nightmare.

 

The two states I've been in are slightly convoluted. New Mexico has a 5-class system, but seven classes in football (5A-1A, eight-man and six-man). Montana has a four-class system, with six-man football thrown in (AA, A, B, C, six-man).
Illinois system has grown from what I remember; back in high school it was just AA and A.