My son, a current 8th grader heading into 9th grade next year, was offered admission to a few prep schools with the hope to play hockey throughout his tenure at the school.
We are hoping to hear about the experience of an athlete going to prep school as a freshman - with the hopes of eventually playing varsity and eventually D1 in college.
Did you find that the school helped develop your child as a freshman athlete all the way through the senior level?
We are hearing that a lot of these schools focus heavily on senior and PG recruits for varsity and that most kids who join as freshman at prep schools may not receive the development they need to progress to varsity.
Did you find that the coaches at the schools helped their players with the college or juniors process?
We plan to talk to the coaches at the revisit days, but would love to hear from the perspective of parents who have been through this with their child.
There are a few points to consider here if we are talking about the highest levels of B/S hockey (though this will vary by school and coach):
Seasons: Most B/S will only allow an athlete to play their sport in the target season and one other season; some students will be required to play another sport during the hockey off-season, especially in 9th and 10th. I think it’s great to be a bit more well-rounded, but if you have a child who’s focused on hockey, the requirement to do another sport may not be ideal.
Outside coaching/teams: Similarly there are many restrictions on whether athletes are able to play on outside travel teams because of requirements to play for the school team and logistics. This can stunt a player’s growth compared to someone who is playing more often and in a more competitive league.
Experience: If your child wants to play D1 in college, then typically they would be close to a varsity level already. At many schools there are fewer players who are starting on JV and working their way up to varsity, though this depends by school. At many schools, recruited athletes make up the vast majority of the varsity teams and there are few walk-ons/promotes from JV.
The professionalization of youth sports is very much a factor at B/S, so coaches are very focused on college placement, because it attracts more athletes to their program.
Ask the hard questions of the coaches since they are in sales mode now. Which schools are you considering?
If you are targeting college programs, you have one set of concerns. The post above highlights some of the headwinds there, unless perhaps you find a school that it something of a hockey academy.
If you are simply asking whether a good player will get good coaching and can develop in a BS program, the answer depends on the school and the sport. My kid had amazing coaching in his sport at BS. At the same time, most college coaches were only interested in players coming out of elite leagues - and that’s not uncommon - so for the kids who were hoping to be recruited, the BS program alone would not have been enough.
Thank you so much for the info. Right now he has offers from Avon, Salisbury, Kent, Westminster, and Canterbury. He’s going to go to the revisit days and talk to the coaches again before he commits.
We’re in the same boat with our S29 for a different sport and have heard similar things about senior/PG recruits. We’ve looked at rosters at his different options to get a feel for the distribution of underclassmen between squads (totally unscientific, I know, but it was interesting). Together with our kiddo, we’re also putting together a list of questions (very similar to the ones listed by @FixItDad) to email coaches ahead of our revisit day in case there is little time for thoughtful conversation with them at our revisit. Our experience with S27 (different sport again…) was that coaches were available to chat on revisit day, but that it was pretty scheduled and busy and, as newbies to this process, we didn’t show up with a real plan to have a serious talk with coaches. We met the varsity coach for S27’s secondary sport, they talked about S27’s goals, learned a little about preseason etc., but we didn’t ask the hard questions about recruits, collegiate placement, club play etc. We were going about his decision-making process in a much more organic way, for lack of a better word. So this time around, we’ll be a little better prepared and hopefully have some of that info ahead of our revisit. That way we can make the most of the time and get a better feel for the school experience as a whole on our visit rather than just the sports.
In hindsight, I don’t think my S27 would have chosen a different school or program, but I think we’ll be having a heart-to-heart this spring about if he wants to continue his primary sport next year. He also has friends who have shifted their interests after a year of continuing their recruited sport for a variety of reasons and not all are related to the program.
My point in sharing this is that our approach with S29 will very much include talking with him about the “broken leg test” and making sure he can see himself happy and engaged at his top choice school if he is injured to the point where he can’t play his sport. He does know high school athletes on track for college recruitment who have had to step back from their primary sport due to injury, so on the plus side, he understands what I’m talking about and doesn’t answer me with the typical 14-year old eyeroll/“that’ll never happen to me” reaction. But it is a tricky balance to strike with a young teen who has big goals in his chosen sport.
My son’s sport was soccer, so not sure if it is completely applicable to hockey.
But –
no the boarding school didn’t really develop him, the club team did.
no the boarding school coach did not do anything with recruiting except at the very end, to offer his opinion of my son’s offers (he had played at one of the schools).
if the goal is d1 college – and even for the top d3 teams – your son needs to be good enough to be on the varsity team in 9th grade, and ideally be a starter.(That tells you he’s on the right trajectory, although of course there can be late bloomers).
DD was a three sport varsity athlete all four years. She did not get any development from coaches at her school - most are just completing a work requirement from the school to coach and do not have much experience to develop their students. She is going division 1 due to her own training outside the school year while at home. As a boarder, she was not allowed outside training that many day students receive.
Wow! So surprised reading so many of these. DS’ second sport, to meet requirements, was one he’d never played before. Was coached/developed to a point where he was offered a roster spot by lesser D3 schools where he’d been accepted (without sport).
The coaches for his first sport were really good as well.
Me too.
I think the takeaway is that it probably depends on the school culture, the sport, and the kid in question.
Sample size of 1: S27 is highly proficient at his sport, which is an individual sport. If he got a little fire in his belly and decided that he wanted to go D1 (and he certainly has the technical ability to do so), I have zero doubt that his coaches would be on board with developing him accordingly to get him to the next level, even if the next level in that sport is dominated by club and academy athletes with access to more off-season training. He has the elite level coaching experience to do so, but he’s not going to to push that unless S27 opts in.
S27’s friends, some of whom are hockey and lacrosse players, have seen both sides of the experience. Some started on JV as freshmen, have been working their butts off this year, and managed to make it through the first round of cuts for varsity, or they worked their way back on to the varsity squad after being cut because of incoming recruits.
Setting aside the collegiate recruiting, since I agree that coaches have little if anything to do with that part, I do think school culture and coaching/teaching philosophy matter a great deal, as well as the individual athlete’s motivation, and that it’s not always as cut and dry across schools and programs as it seems.
I would add that the boarding school coaches are good – they also want to win! – but they just aren’t at the club coaches’ level of expertise. My son’s club coaches were all also college coaches (Yale, Wesleyan, Trinity). I will say the former Bates soccer coach is now at the Frederick Gunn School. But that’s unusual.
We have a son at one of the schools you listed.
The questions to consider -
Was your player recruited to any of these schools?
Is your player a high level player (Top 20 AAA team / national camp / district camp / regional festival selection)?
If so, talk about a pathway to varsity and what that looks like. If neither of these, the chances of playing varsity as a freshman are very low, esp at Avon, Salisbury, Westminster or Kent. They are also low regardless, since all of these schools recruit every year. The JV / Varsity B teams at these schools are also full of AAA level players.
Roughly 1-3 players from the JV teams move up each year. The season is short, and many players play split season teams in fall. For freshman, some schools require kids to play 3 different sports and not all schools allow hockey strength / conditioning in fall.
My impression is that they expect players coming onto varsity teams to already be mostly developed.
Choose the school based on the school fit - environment, classes, teachers etc.
Our son loves his school but we were very clear with him when making his choice that varsity hockey would probably not happen. He is happy with his choice.
With the hockey landscape changing for college recruitment, fewer players are going to go from prep schools to D1 - now the Canadian players are in the picture, that is where a ton of commitments are going.
I feel that the chances of making a team as a freshman also differs boys vs girls. By 9th grade, many girls have finished growing (they’ll grow in strength but not height).
Have you ever looked at a group of 9th-grade boys? Some look like young men, are 6’2" with facial hair, and could be driving the school bus, and some look like they should still be in 5th grade.
In all seriousness, with some notable exceptions, your ability to get great coaching to drive your athlete to new heights should not rest on boarding school coaches. Your student will likely have more demands on their free time, less flexibility in travel team options, logistical challenges with tournaments/competitions, and no ability to switch coaches if their coaching style doesn’t mesh with your kid. My kid had a new varsity coach this year who had never even participated in the sport!
The two boarding schools that I know well have roughly 1/3 of the senior class moving on to play their sport in college, which is mind-blowing. The majority of these kids are heading to D3 (mostly NESCAC) but a healthy percentage to D1 Ivy and a smaller collection of D1 non ivy. The kids that I know who are ultra serious about their sport tend not to choose boarding school (I don’t know any hockey kids though!)
Honestly, unless he was recruited by the coach and told there is a spot for him on the varsity, I would not count on it. How many seniors who play his position graduated? How many players are coming in? The JV to varsity pipeline is possible but in no way guaranteed—most of the kids who start on JV will be recruited over year over year, especially at boarding schools who take post grads. All of these schools will accept reclassed players at every grade level as well, so coming from 8th to 9th unless your player already reclassed, he’s going to be competing against much older kids. It is rare for boys hockey players—especially those who are not reclassed—to go D1 without a PG year and/or juniors.
IME, Avon and Canterbury’s varsity rosters are predetermined with returning and recruited players. I can’t speak for the others. But I agree with previous comments that only a small number of JV players make a varsity roster as upperclassmen.
As far as development goes, in most sports that is done on your own time - club teams, private coaching, camps, etc.