@ucbalumnus, I could totally see him ending up as a Philosophy major.
@Publisher, I’ve added Vanderbilt to the list of schools to explore, thanks! We’d already eliminated SMU. And, Emory (which he actually likes, because we’ve visited a few times, while visiting a relative who lives near Atlanta) is only an option if he did actually give up athletics.
@nomatter I think he just sounds like the kind of young man who would do amazing things with his free time :). Plus, choosing a gap year would get him out of the recruiting pressure. But I completely appreciate and understand your perspective and I think it’s wise to get in and get it done.
NCAA eligibility does not go away, as far as I know. He doesn’t have to be involved in his sport all four years. He can be in control. I don’t know if this is still possible but I know a really fabulous woman who did not play her sport in college at all. She was NCAA-eligible in grad school, though, and she went on to win gold medals for her research university at the NCAA championships in her sport while getting her PhD. Her parents hadn’t allowed her to join the national team training for the Olympics after HS because they thought college was more important. It did work out for her and she ended up a very young tenured professor in a very competitive field. Sports are fickle (injuries, etc.) and I think he’s wise to guard himself.
@nomatter, Have you and your son been able to do any college visiting? I know for my son, the wish list of gotta haves and negotiables didn’t really begin to gel until after he had the opportunity to get on campus get a feel for the character and culture of each school. After visiting some schools rose on the list and others fell off altogether.
This is particularly true of small LACs. Each has a distinct though nuanced personality which is difficult to grasp from afar. Often it’s a love it or hate it reaction.
It’s great that the NPCs that you’ve tried indicate that need-based aid is a possibility. That will widen his long-list considerably.
I don’t know that I’d agree that your son has no “meaningful” ECs. His athletic prowess, for better or worse, is certainly one, and that channel has tangents like fitness, nutrition and whatever direction his work with the national charity for athletes takes him.
I would guess that his peer tutoring involvement is another channel that he could develop. Possibly his artistic ability or interest in environmental issues are other directions that could be pursued depending on how much energy he devotes to them.
Please understand I’m not suggesting fabricating activities, but rather enhancing and explaining what he’s already doing. In other words, explaining how his existing interests reflect his persona and will contribute to the campus community.
He has a year to put together a compelling profile. He doesn’t have to DO anything differently, he just has to think about how to communicate within the confines of the application format who he is, what he cares about and what excites his intellectual curiosity. It seems to me that there’s a lot of material to work with.
Vanderbilt says that about 42% of undergraduates are in fraternities and sororities, which is a relatively high percentage compared to most colleges (but lower than at places like Dartmouth, Bucknell, Washington & Lee, and Depauw).
Given the student’s preference for less partying/alcohol, high fraternity and sorority presence may not be desirable. Also, fraternities and sororities on many campuses tend to be racially (self-)segregated, which goes against the student’s preference for diversity if that is true on the given campus (can be investigated by looking at chapter photos and the like).
@nomatter I heard you when you said you weren’t interested in gap year programs because you were concerned that this could derail him from getting his undergraduate degree. I just wanted to throw out for your consideration that there are several gap year programs that are geared to very high performing kids who will be definitely going to college afterwards, and that he’d be in a social situation where going to college afterwards is expected. One that I’m thinking of is NSLI-Y, which is a US State Department program that sends kids at the government’s expense to a foreign country for a year to learn a language and study there. Also, typically kids who go on these kinds of gap year programs get accepted to college, then after they get accepted they contact the college and ask if the college will agree to allow them to defer coming for the one year while they attend this gap year program. It depends on the college whether they allow this kind of deferral or not. One of the schools my D applied to said they generally won’t allow deferrals but will for NSLI-Y because it’s such a good program. So, for instance, your kid will get into Rice and NSLI-Y, Rice will allow him to defer for a year while he’s in China with NSLI-Y, and the whole time he’s in China he knows he’s coming back to go to Rice the next Fall. He, friends and family know he’s coming back to Rice and the expectations are set among everyone in his sphere.
I don’t mean to segue this thread, because asking about great gap year programs is a totally different question than where your S should apply to college, but I wanted to pass this info along. If you end up being interested in finding out more about gap year programs it might be good to start a new thread for input from additional people.
@nomatter: As my impression is that your son’s college preference parameters are so broad as to make it difficult to offer a refined list of schools, it might be wise to enroll him in a summer program at a college or university that interests him. This may help him refine his search even though summer sessions differ in many respects from the regular academic year.
Consider exposing him to an urban campus in a different area of the country. Even narrowing his preferences by urban/suburban/rural & Northeast/Midwest/South/Mid-Atlantic/Texas should help.
Also, several companies offer summer tours of multiple college & university campuses. Probably most efficient in New England or Mid-Atlantic states due to high density of a variety of colleges & universities in close proximity to one another.
Alternatively, since UT-Austin is such a great in state opportunity, consider taking a course or two there over the summer.
Finally, consider attending a sports camp for prospects in his sport in a different area of the country. Gives exposure to many coaches with scholarship money available. Resulted in multiple athletic scholarships for my nephew including to top ten ranked universities (think Duke & Stanford).
Your son sounds like most of the Ivy athletes I know…serious about athletics but a student first and doesn’t want the athletic department to drive his college life. If you think that would be an appropriate athletic fit, I’d run the NPC for Harvard and Princeton. Those will give the best aid along with Yale. If affordable, I’d explore the Ivies. Be aware that aid will vary between them but most will match other aid offers. For athletes, this usually means that if you’re recruited by Princeton but prefer Cornell, Cornell will use Princeton’s methodology for your aid package.
One other suggestion: I think it’s a mistake to wall off the athletic issue when you’re filtering schools. For one thing, identifying the appropriate competitive level will help you narrow the pool. There’s really no point having people suggest Nescac schools if those wouldn’t be a good athletic fit. There are so many great schools out there, it’s not like there’s just one or two ideal ‘fit’ schools for any student. And, for another thing, some of the admissions questions disappear if he is a recruited athlete. At the Ivies, for example, coaches can help with admission (see the athletic recruits sub forum as others have suggested). So, whereas a non athlete may view Brown as a long shot, a recruited athlete can view it as a potential match if he has coach support. No need for recruited athletes to worry too much about ECs and such. Same at Stanford and other selective schools.
I’d also add that I’ve known plenty of athletes who wanted to be students first but went the P5 route because they loved their sport and that was the best fit. It worked for them.
@nomatter Rice U. Several really smart and neat kids from my kid’s high school chose Rice even OOS. We tend to judge the schools by the kids who decide to go there or attend there, and I have to say on that basis, I am very impressed by Rice and Pomona.
But usually, the best course is to let your kid decide. Usually, kids know where they belong. We only told our kid to apply to several top UCs and one Honors College as a back up, and didn’t give it any thought until our kid out of blue said he wanted to apply early to Stanford. One bad thing about public colleges, including Honors Colleges, is that their “merit” money are not reserved for kids who decide to take gap years. In other words, they don’t really encourage gap years. If you are a National Merit Finalist, you have to take the merit money from Honors College right after high school or it’s lost forever.
With D1 schools pay attention to their conference. So many are very far flung these days – especially the power conferences like SEC, ACC, Big 10, etc. Larger and more far flung conferences mean more and longer travel which eats into a student athlete’s ability to engage in other parts of the college experience. DIII and smaller/lesser known D1 conferences are often better from this perspective. Look at colleges’ schedules this year for his sport to get a sense of the travel required.
U Michigan Ann Arbor may be a good option as its sports vibes are fanatic and it’s pretty diverse + big. Ann Arbor sounds like the place your son wants (it’s basically the best or second best college town) and it’s only like 45 mins from Detroit. Only thing is OOS no aid tuition is high but I’m sure you’ll get some aid
@politeperson & @melvin123: I am in total agreement. Also, Rice & Pomona College @websensation is solid advice.
In addition to the post above by @politeperson, consider the advantage of being an athletic recruit at a school like the University of Virginia or Duke University. Not only will admission be almost assured & come with an athletic scholarship if in a revenue sport, but the coaches will discipline for drinking or drugs as will the NCAA in the case of drugs.
As an athlete, several schools with a large Greek presence and robust party atmosphere become reasonable option for one wishing to avoid those activities.
I agree that your son seems to fit the mold of an Ivy League athlete, but cost of attendance may be a factor if unable to qualify for financial aid since no athletic scholarships are awarded in the Ivy League.
Academic interests and parameters would be very helpful. Is your son interested, for example, in a core curriculum such as that mandated by Columbia University or does he want near complete academic freedom such as that found at Brown University.
Is business school an interest ? Engineering ? Computer Science ? Or ???
Finally, your son also seems to fit the mold of athletes at the military academies (USMA @ West Point, the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs or the Naval Academy at Annapolis).
Is Notre Dame under consideration ?
@nomatter you also mentioned that you don’t want sports to dictate where he goes to college as you don’t think he’ll be a professional athlete afterwards. But I think you should consider whether he’ll still want to play, and at what level, and how this would impact his college choice. My D plays a college sport and there’s no way she’ll play professionally after college. But she’s so happy she’s doing it now and it’s been a huge positive in her college career. It keeps her in shape, gives her a healthy lifestyle at school, and gives her a nice group of kids to hang out with. Her school also has special job fairs for the athletes, academic tutors just for them, and provides free healthy food at the workout room. And there are mixers with other colleges’ sports teams, which could be useful for networking in their future careers.
If you think he’d like to play on the team while he’s in college, I think it is really important to find out just how accommodating the college is for athletes, as well as how demanding each prospective college’s program is in his specific sport.
With regard to the specific sport, I know multiple people who quit their sport because they didn’t want as intense an experience as demanded by that coach. It’s important to know the total number of hours a week required for practice/weight lifting/team meetings, as well as the travel schedule for both JV and Varsity.
With regard to the college itself, some colleges are very accommodating to athletes and others aren’t. Some questions to ask, and to find out if it’s a college-wide policy or individual prof policy: Do they let them reschedule their tests? Do they have lectures taped so they can listen to what they missed? If a class has multiple sections, can they sit in on different sessions in accordance with their game schedule? Do they have special tutors for the athletes? Is there flexibility for when kids take classes? (Meaning, if your kid does a Fall sport, can he take a lighter load in the Fall and a heavier one in the Spring, or is the school known for having prerequisites that are only offered in one semester and not another). Also, I think it would be interesting to see for your kid’s sport what the other kids are majoring in. Are the athletes being pushed into the easy majors, or are they being given sufficient academic support? And what is the 4 year graduation rate and 5 year for that sport?
I’m sure there are many other questions to ask and sometimes you have to dig behind a college’s answers that might look good but don’t tell the whole story. This comment is from the perspective of having a miserable relative at Princeton who said several profs have been very unaccommodating and have an attitude that academics come first so they aren’t going to give special treatment to athletes. That doesn’t sound bad until your kid has a conflicting travel schedule and has to decide between staying on the team, giving up the class, or accepting a lower grade in the class due to penalties for missing quizzes/tests and not being allowed to make them up or reduced points for taking them late.
Sorry to ramble on. My point is that being on a team can have multiple positive results both while in college and for networking later on. If it’s at all likely that your kid will want to play in college, you might want to start another thread asking for recommendations of colleges that are supportive of their athletes and will still allow their athletes time for academics and other activities, especially for X sport.
I agree with the others that I think your S has a good shot at going anywhere he wants. So I’m trying to think of some additional factors that might help narrow the list.
Does it matter to him if a school is on the trimester or semester system? Trimester system has fewer classes at a time but each class is more intensive.
@Publisher asked if it mattered to him if the school had a lot of core classes or not. This can make a big difference in his experience, especially first year.
The best trimester system is at Dartmouth College due to taking just 3 courses per term. Although I haven’t checked the Dartmouth website recently.
Also, some schools call it a quarter system. Northwestern University is one, I think. But students take more than 3 courses at a time. I suspect that this could be hard for an athlete if required to travel. Too many missed classes, quizzes & exam conflicts.
Your son may prefer a regular semester system, or a school which allows a lot of pass/fail courses.
Important to think about whether or not graduate school is a goal of your son.
It sounds like it would be too early to know if OP’s S will be interested in grad school. Whether the quarter or trimester system could work might depend on whether he could stack his classes to the off-season or not, and how much the teachers work with him. I once took some classes at Villanova, and they videotaped each class and you could access any recording from your computer at any time with your class password. I don’t know if they still do that, or if anyone does, but that’s a pretty ideal situation for kids that have to miss class for one reason or another.
@melvin123 said, “you also mentioned that you don’t want sports to dictate where he goes to college as you don’t think he’ll be a professional athlete afterwards. But I think you should consider whether he’ll still want to play, and at what level, and how this would impact his college choice.”
I think this is excellent advice. If your son wants to play his sport in college, in my opinion, the type of athletic experience he wants also needs to factor into the initial search criteria. For example, my son, who was also looking for a rigorous academic experience, was recruited by major D1 programs and schools in the Ivy League. He immediately eliminated the major D1 programs because he felt the athletic time commitment would be too much. He then was able to narrow his search to schools in the Ivy League and top academic D3 schools. After visits, he was then able to choose the school that was the best fit for him.
OP, I don’t know what sport your son plays, but for my son’s sport, coaches have already begun making offers to high school juniors.
Good luck in putting all of the pieces together and finding both an excellent academic fit and an athletic fit.
It might not be affordable, but the University of Vermont fits some of your other criteria. My nephew, who is mixed race (white mom, black dad), has been very happy there. He’s majoring in environmental studies or science (I can’t recall which) and is also very involved with performing arts. He is not into partying and drinking.
Some non-Power-5 NCAA D1 conferences are quite scattered these days, such as AAC, MWC, WAC, and Pioneer. Big “Ten” is compact in comparison. Big South, Ivy League, NEC, Patriot League, Southland, and SWAC are probably the most compact NCAA D1 conferences (all of these are FCS).
The University of Vermont is very social & in a beautiful location, but it is not racially diverse. And, if planning to get a non-professional graduate degree, then the OP"s son might want a higher ranked undergraduate school.