Competitive alpine skiing in College

Parents Forum
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Does anyone have insights on competitive alpine skiing opportunities at the following schools?

Stanford, Duke, UCLA, Georgetown, Cornell, Notre Dame, USC, Princeton, UPenn, Northwestern, UVA, UCSB

I believe Harvard, Dartmouth and BC are in NCAA so to get on a team in those schools would be nearly impossible as they source from ski academies, right?
Or do each of those schools also have a team that compete in USCSA as well?
Even so, I wonder if even for a 2nd tier team in those schools, they’d be ultra-competitive skiers from ski academies…

My daughter has been racing since age of 10 and is now junior in high school and would like to continue ski racing but she only trains/races on weekends…so not competitive enough anymore at this age (when she was younger she’d consistently place in top 3 in local races but she doesnt ski enough hrs anymore in high school to remain that competitive)… well …she loves to ski and would still like to do so in college; so trying to figure out a bit what are the options?

I also assume that w/ this kind of profile, her ski experience would just be treated as another extra curricular during admissions, correct? Should she even contact coaches (if there’s one at those schools - how do we even find out?) to see whether they’d take her at that school if she were to be accepted?

Any insights from anyone that’s gone ahead of us would be GREATLY appreciated

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Here’s the link to Cornell’s team:

It’s student run and competes in USCSA.

The contact info for the captains is on the site so your D can reach out to them with any questions.

The mountains closest to Ithaca aren’t the greatest but still a lot of fun.

And yes, her skiing would be treated like another EC if she isn’t recruitable.

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thanks so much!

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Not an expert by any means, but a quick search turned these up:

https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■/ivywise-knowledgebase/resources/article/dr-kats-list-five-colleges-for-skiing-and-alpine-sports/

Hope it helps.

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My D24 has been racing for ten years. She will do a club team in college, she’s not committed enough to do D3. You can search D1,D2 and D3 ski teams online. Denver, Dartmouth, Boulder are some big ones.
My kid will do club team depending on which school she lands at. I know Syracuse and Lehigh both have club teams, they compete vs other schools in the Northeast and I think school subsidizes some of the costs. Check each colleges clubs and organizations! They will list it if they have a club.

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Thank you!

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thank you

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Skiing at the club level won’t help admissions. It only helps at the D1 level. Those athletes are all ultra low FIS point holders.

You can find a list of all the club teams linked below.

https://uscsaregistration.sportngin.com/

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Thanks

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This looks more on-point: USCSA - Prospective Athletes - USCSA - United States Collegiate Ski and Snowboard Association. There is a list of member institutions.

I would certainly consider the distance to snow with any school. Stanford has a club but it takes at least 3-4 hours to Tahoe with luck - kind of makes it hard to spend much time on the mountain if you have classes M-F. Westminster University is just 45 minutes to Park City, which I suppose is why it had a long running partnership with USSA for their Olympic bound skiers.

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Neither Westminster or The U have club teams. Both have just their NCAA teams. There’s no better place to go to school than SLC if you love snow sports. I have several friends who did either medical school or their residency there. They all were able to ski at least 50 days. One skied 100 during residency!

One also needs to consider if the quality of free skiing matters to them. There are a bunch of great race hills in the northeast, but the free skiing is pretty weak.

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Thought I’d provide some additional detail on alpine collegiate ski racing for posterity.

Within the NCAA circuit, which is the most competitive, there are divisions in the East and West (EISA and RMISA respectively). The schools that compete in each are technically from the various athletic divisions I, II, & III. For instance, in the East UVM and UNH are both D I schools and can offer athletic scholarships to skiers. Dartmouth and Harvard also are D I but follow Ivy rules and thus can’t provide athletic scholarships. Also competing in that league are D III schools like Bates, Colby, St. Lawrence and Williams. There a total of 23 schools with alpine programs across the East and West. So that amounts to about 40 athletes of each gender being admitted per year. About half of those are international students who have significant international racing experience.

In order to begin to get onto these teams a male athlete needs to have at least ~55 FIS points or less in each discipline (SL and GS) and a female athlete around 75 FIS points or less. Schools like UVM and Dartmouth would look to see under 30 points while the smaller LACs like Bates and Williams may accept athletes with slightly higher. If you or your child hasn’t been racing FIS (internationally sanctioned racing) then you/they aren’t making these teams. There are numerous skiers at these schools that have raced or are racing at the World Cup / Olympic level. Part of the reason for this is that the age eligibility for skiing is higher than for all other sports except ice hockey. Most athletes take a couple of years off (gap / PG years) between high school and college in order to lower their FIS points to make a team. Gap years are almost always required for males and sometimes required for females.

For the school year 24/25 there will be a new EISA division B league. There are 4 teams slated to be part of that league in its inaugural year. (Clarkson, Vermont State U, Hobart William Smith and Babson) All of these teams are coming from the USCSA circuit, which is a different collegiate ski and snowboard governing body than the NCAA. It is likely that a team or two from the A league will drop down to the B league in future years. These teams are “easier” to make than the A league. If you have lower than 120 or so FIS points may get you on one or more of these teams. One of the coaches has said lower than 100 FIS points in both disciplines for a male athlete. To be clear, most general high school ski racers won’t have anything near these points. Just about all of the kids getting to this level have attended a ski academy or similar type of program that allows them to ski 120+ days a year for many years.

All of these NCAA teams, East and West, and in both the A league and new B league are varsity teams. NCAA rules apply.

In addition to the NCAA governing body, there are other schools that compete in the USCSA league. There are some varsity teams competing but the vast majority of the teams are club teams at the schools. The caliber of the teams and athletes varies widely from school to school. Some club teams have top skiers with FIS points in the 50s or 60s (good enough to potentially ski at the top level) and may also have skiers who’ve never raced before. A few of the USCSA races are FIS scored, some more are scored US Ski & Snowboard races (the US governing body) and the majority of the races are solely governed by USCSA. The links to the USCSA in a prior post is good to look up the schools that currently have a team, though they encourage students to start club teams at schools where one doesn’t exist.

Many of the schools that have a NCAA team also have a USCSA club team. Univ of Colorado, UVM and St. Michaels College are examples. The one limitation for these club teams is that they are prevented from attending the USCSA national championships.

To respond to the OP’s specific schools. Dartmouth does have a smallish club team and the DOC promotes a lot of other skiing activities. I’m not aware of Harvard having a club team. BC has a small but competitive club team that seems to have been just established. Cornell has a large club team that has racers with low FIS points to those that are just beginning. Penn’s club team active but not that competitive. Stanford also has a club team that has a mix of athletes from what I can tell. The other schools on your list with a couple of exceptions are not in the snow belt and so their teams are going to be less competitive and training opportunities few and far between.

A few additional links that may help:

Video of webinar with various ski coaches. U of Colorado, Boston College, Clarkson Univ, Colgate student rep

Video of webinar with variety of student athletes from Cornell, Bates, St. Lawrence, Vermont State U, & Colorado Mesa Univ.

Skiing pathways after high school video by a coach at a ski academy when filmed and is now head coach at Colby

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Those athletes are going to be at the tail end. Our son’s points were in that range and he didn’t even bother considering NCAA.

That’s not to malign skiers in that range. They’re FAST. It’s just that there are so few slots they largely go to NorAm and Eurocup racers.

Most mortal racers should look for club teams.

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lol yep. My kid is fast …for Oregon. When she races against full time race kids from Jackson hole, Utah,etc it’s a different world

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Agreed it’s the tail end and only is for a few of the teams in the east. 55 points likely won’t get you on the carnival team (what the races are called in the east), though if you have those points and the academics Harvard and Williams are options and you’ll likely race. With 55 points you might be able to walk on to Boston College’s team but won’t go to races and with the same point profile you don’t stand a chance of getting onto the teams at UVM, Dartmouth or Middlebury. There is one school, Colby-Sawyer College, whose athletes have point profiles are much higher, ~100 points. I suspect that they will drop down to the B division in the future.

What you and I are describing is really for the top few percent of all ski racers. The overwhelming majority of H.S. ski racers (all mortal racers) should look at club teams.

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Do you know anything about Lehigh or Syracuse club teams?

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Does club help with admissions to these schools?

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A friend’s son skied at Lehigh - he was just a regular HS racer prior to that - and it was pretty low key at the time. I think he graduated about 4 years ago.

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Yeah she just wants to have fun and make friends so that works