My ‘28 soccer player is getting interest from some Ivies and Patriot League schools. He wants to study engineering, and is wondering if that combo is realistic or if should focus on D3.
Any suggestions for specific schools where soccer and engineering might work ? He will need significant financial aid.
That’s up to each coach, and your S should ask this of every coach he speaks with. Generally, at the Ivies and Patriot league schools combining engineering and a sport is not an issue…but again, up to the coach.
Whether or not the student can handle the schedule is another factor that each student should thoroughly ponder and discuss with student athletes who are engineering majors.
Regarding needing significant financial aid, I would run the net price calculators at the schools he has been in contact to get a COA estimate. Some of the schools will do a more formal financial aid pre-read for the recruits who are shortlisted by the coach.
I would think that engineering + a sport must be able to work at the engineering/tech schools since almost everyone at those schools is in the same boat. I’m thinking of schools like RPI, WPI, RIT, Stevens Tech, and Rose-Hulman. All are Division III.
The Ivy and Patriot League are comprised of schools where academics come first, so I would think that engineering + sports must be doable at those schools because of the priorities.
I don’t know how to quote, but I guess I am looking to hear stories of students who successfully juggled both, or who tried and ended up dropping one. He knows he can ask the coach, but he wants that btdt feedback.
Daughter was a STEM major (has just earned her PhD) and played softball all 4 years at a NESCAC. It was doable, but even at a D3 required some understanding from the coach and Profs with respect to classes, especially labs. S was asked by an assistant coach (who had tried to recruit him at a D3) at his Ivy to walk on. S was an Econ, not engineering, major and after a few weeks decided that playing D1 baseball meant giving up a lot of his whole college experience and went back to Club baseball. He had been recruited by MIT and Caltech, and it was clear to him on his visits that it took some special focus and talent to play sports and have a high level STEM focus – not him. On the other hand, a close friend of mine was a ME and was captain of the heavyweight crew team, so it definitely can be done. So depends on the kid if he has the drive and frankly the time management skills.
You do need to run NPC’s. Schools have different levels of generosity and FA comp
Soccer is not my sport but in general pursuing athletics and engineering at Ivies is doable and plenty of athletes do it. My sense is that there are not soccer-specific impediments to this combo unless the current coach frowns on it. My kids were in a different sport but knew plenty of soccer/engineering people. Also plenty of athletes who switched from engineering to other majors, but that’s true on non-athletes also
Obviously, the logistics of engineering majors make them less flexible than majors like economics, for example. But usually those scheduling issues can be mitigated with thoughtful planning.
This is definitely a good topic to discuss with the coach. They’ll tell you the challenges and might put you in touch with current athletes to discuss it. You can find out more on OVs also. These are really the best ways to get school and program specific info
You might also consider the possibility that interests might evolve, and is the school still a good fit if that happens.
On the need-based aid, HYP (mostly P) probably have the best aid for most people these days, but keep in mind other Ivies will match if you’re recruited by other Ivies. (For example, if you prefer Cornell but had recruiting contact with Princeton, Cornell will match the Princeton formula)
Personally I would not limit to D3 schools for this reason. It might be just as logistically challenging a combo at some of those as it is at, say, Brown.
This is just so student specific. It depends on many things…how efficiently the student works/juggles multiple competing demands, how strong they are academically, how much they want to give up of the rest of their college experience, etc.
How certain is your S about engineering?
I know students who have majored in engineering and played their varsity sport at the Ivies and Patriot League. I know others who decided it was too much and quit their sport (not sure I know anyone who changed their major from engineering to something else while playing.)
My kids (Ivy) teams have several engineers. Time management is key, but my son can also manage an on campus job and an extra curricular club, as do many of his friends. A little forethought on schedule planning and shifting more demanding classes to the of season semester can help.
Sometimes kids switch out but I don’t think at a higher rate than other students. If anything, there is a lot of mentorship and support within the team itself and that can really help. You also have to be honest about what kind of preparedness you are coming in with. If you are as prepared as the average NARP, and many (most?) are, its not an issue.
I can’t really speak to the Patriot league, but the Ivy play schedule typically minimizes missed school days and that really helps.
This is really what drives the possibility.
I do, but again, it had less to do with the schedule than the student’s preparedness for the required hard sciences. They switched within the first month.
An honest take on what kind of school environment your athlete is coming from might help. My kids attended a pretty demanding prep school. College for them is, at worst, business as usual. For many of their friends though, even some who were first in their high school class, it is a huge step up in intensity.
He is coming from a very demanding STEM magnet school.
I feel as though if some students can do it, he will be fine because he works both hard and efficiently.
With the strong STEM background he should be fine. He’ll likely be able to place out of some of the core engineering requirements, which will help with scheduling flexibility. That, plus planning ahead a bit will help a lot.
Here are some stories from Princeton Engineering about athletes and engineering. But Princeton isn’t unique in the Ivy League in having a lot of athletes pursue engineering.
Also keep in mind some of the students (athletes and non-athletes) who switch out of engineering do so not because it’s too much, but because they’re exposed to fields they didn’t even know existed. One of my kids’ teammates was doing fine in engineering and took a math-intensive econ class on a whim; ended up switching to Econ and pursuing a Ph.D in economics.
He is very set on engineering, and has been from very early childhood. He would pick engineering over soccer if it came down to that.
Can you tell me more about the matching aid? Is that at other schools too? How much interest from Princeton would he need? How would he prove it?
He likes our state flagship, UMD-CP, where he would play club. The costs there would be manageable even without merit and he has a good shot at merit. So, he’s planning to look at schools where there is either a good chance of merit or the NPC comes in at or below $35K. Princeton and a few others come in below, but others don’t. I‘d love suggestions of other schools that might either match Princeton, give similar aid, or where he had a good shot at merit aid.
It would be much easier to give you suggestions if you did a chance me/match me thread for your son…which gives a lot more detail about his grades, ECs, standardized test scores, etc. These are considerations for merit aid…and we don’t have that info about your son.
Would he be interested in club soccer?
There are 2 issues to work through. The first is whether your son is adequately prepared, capable, and disciplined. It sounds like yes. Playing a sport in college comes at some cost to a "normal " college experience, but it’sa choicemany make.
The second, which varies from school to school, is whether practice and travel interfere with classes, labs, study sessions, etc. While a swimmer has the flexibilty to practice without their team, a soccer player cannot. It’s one of the reasons crew practices early in the morning when everyone is available. Many of the D3 schools have a dead time in their academic day when practices happen. It’s also one of the reasons at big flagships that athletes get to register before everyone else and that teams have academic liasons. How this works varies by school, and soccer players at that school will be your best resource on that.
You’re asking the right question - just make sure the answers track for your situation.
Princeton is one of the most generous schools in the nation wrt financial aid.
If schools match FA offers, it is limited to those from peer schools. So Harvard and Princeton, not Princeton and Lehigh.
Do you mean for recruiting? To basically guarantee admission, he will need to be one of the athletes offered full coach support, often called a ‘slot’. This is what he has to hear from the coach.
I don’t know how many slots the Princeton coach has each year, probably 6-8ish. Princeton (and all Ivies) won’t do a formal academic pre-read until July 1 after his junior year, then for the green lit students, the coach can give verbal offers for a slot.
I will note that some Ivy coaches do have verbal agreements with students prior to July 1 and the academic pre-read (simply because the coaches have already looked at the transcript and test score and know what will pass muster.)
If offered a slot, your S would then apply SCEA, and some time after he submitted the application he would receive a likely letter (not before Oct 1), then a formal letter of admission in December. Assuming no issues in fall of senior year like bad grades or disciplinary issues.
In case it ends up being of interest to you, I can speak to WPI (and I think RPI is similar). My son was a rower in college, and part of the draw of WPI was how easy they made it to both do your sport and be an engineer (he graduated in May, double major in MechE and CivE). They practice in the late afternoon, in a campus wide designated dead time that is for clubs and sports. Because the labs and project work are similar for all athletes, the coaches know to work around those issues, and as far as I know, he never had to miss class or lab for practice or a regatta (it also helped that, in New England, most of the teams you compete against are geographically close so there’s limited travel time). There were a host of reasons we were looking for a D3 program for him (mostly because he really wasn’t tall enough for a D1 program, although he likely could’ve made a lightweight boat, but even if that, we couldn’t afford the schools that would’ve been a good academic match), but one of the things I really loved was how integrated the coach was into the academic community and how easy that made things. My son rowed, so not 100% the same, but he had friends in a variety of sports and I know they all felt similar.
We come from a likely similar geographic area as you (Virginia, but the DC suburbs, very academically competitive HS). I’d guess your son would feel comfortable and confident with the academics at WPI and get a great engineering education. If he’s recruitable to D1 schools he’d probably find the soccer level to be about the same as the top travel teams in the DC metro area.
I love this suggestion for a student who would pick engineering over his sport.
My GS is an engineering student at UMass/Amhesrt who plays club lacrosse. He is a quiet kid, so the team gave him all the benefits of making friends almost as soon as he arrived on campus. After 2 years those are still his best college friends. He gets to enjoy his sport without the life/death competitiveness of regular intercollegiate sports. It’s really a great transition into a life after college routine for adults who go to work every day and also play their sport in adult leagues.
It’s surprising to find some high level athletes on these club teams. My GS’s team includes some former D-3 players who transferred over to UMass where they are now playing on the club team. I have another GS who was an All New England soccer player. Unfortunately he tore his ACL and missed his junior year season in high school. To avoid future injury he decided not to play intercollegiate soccer although he easily could have. Instead he is playing club. One of his high school teammates was all state, but he is intent on going to med school. Therefore, he has eschewed the school team and is playing club instead. It’s impressive to see how many high level athletes are on these club teams. And really, do kids need the grind of intercollegiate athletics?
I was going to post something similar. I don’t know exact proportions but there are enough people in these circles know plenty of each.
I know some soccer kids who targeted UAA, aka Egghead Eight, colleges for this reason–they thought the odds were better of balancing varsity soccer and tough curriculums like engineering and premed successfully. So, for example, close friends of S24 ended up varsity soccer at CMU and Case Western, and actually both of them were UAA All Academic as sophomores.
Again, this is not to say it is impossible at D1s. But I think it is a bit of a risk.
Typically students competitive for Princeton would have a good shot at merit at places like Rochester or Case Western, both excellent enginering colleges. Or places like RPI, which of course is even more STEM-focused. There are plenty of others.