I had the same thought. If he is passionate about volleyball, maybe start there. Another parent posted recently about a son who plays volleyball and mentioned there are very few D3 teams. I was curious and looked. It is a relatively short list, but it might be a good starting point. I noticed, for example, that Bard has a men’s varsity team. There are also lots of schools with club volleyball. Based on my own experience, I think it may be a mistake to write off the entire South and Midwest on the assumption they would be too much of a culture shock for a Massachusetts kid. I’m from New Jersey and had the same kind of ideas until my son started looking at Midwest schools a few years ago. He’s also Asian and grew up overseas in the most diverse environment you can imagine, but he’s happy as can be at Denison in Ohio, where he has a very diverse set of friends. For a sports-minded kid, the Midwest schools can be a great fit - a lot of them have excellent facilities and at Denison we’ve found there’s a real focus on how sports can help students develop leadership and other life skills. Many of these schools also offer good merit money. I find that I am kind of ashamed at the “coastal” prejudices I had been carrying around all these years, and I am glad both that my son will have a broader mindset and that now I will as well. So I guess I would encourage OP and her son to broaden their range at least at the initial stage, both geographically and in terms of type of school - he sounds to me like a kid who might do very well in an LAC environment.
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