<p>Athletes are certainly admitted to D3 schools because of their athletic prowess; lots of threads here on CC about this, although there are no scholarships other than those for financial need. Admissions standards are lower at many “academically superior” D3 schools for talented athletes, including Bowdoin. </p>
<p>There’s no benefit per se of D1 vs D3, but my son was interested in having the option of watching relatively big time sports. </p>
<p>I’m not sure I understand the reference to playing D1 sports in high school. There wouldn’t necessarily be a correlation between playing high school athletics at a very large high school and the ability to play D1 sports in college.</p>