HS athlete to NCAA conversion rates

Parents Forum
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<p>Here’s an NCAA link on the subject:
<a href=“http://www.ncaa.org/research/prob_of_competing/[/url]”>http://www.ncaa.org/research/prob_of_competing/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>For the following men’s sports, HS players end up playing college NCAA sports at this rate:</p>

<p>Sport / HS:NCAA conversion
Basketball / 2.9%
Football / 5.8%
Baseball / 5.6%
Soccer / 5.7%
Ice Hockey / 12.9%</p>

<p>For women’s basketball, the conversion is 3.1%.</p>

<p>As my kids play lacrosse, I took a stab at guesstimating the men’s & women’s lacrosse conversions rates using the number of high schools and NCAA colleges reported on laxpower.com.</p>

<p>Men’s lax HS:NCAA conversion rate = 9%, women’s = 15%. </p>

<p>As one might figure, the women’s recruiting scene is significantly more frenzied than the men’s (although men’s is a bit crazy too relative to other sports), as there are fewer girls HS teams for more women’s college lacrosse teams…aka title IX.</p>

<p>I’d be curious if anyone else knew of such conversion factors with other sports, like track, volleyball, swimming, etc.</p>

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<p>Wow. I assume this is all NCAA Divisions. I would be curious as to wrestling as well.</p>

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<p>yes, I believe it is for all divisions…I calculated the lacrosse #'s w/ all divisions.</p>

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<p>FYI to those interested…</p>

<p>In order to do a rough calculation by sport on the probability of a HS athlete competing in NCAA play, 2 sets of data must be estimatable: (1) how many HS athletes graduate nationwide every year in that sport, and (2) how many freshmen become NCAA team members by sport.</p>

<p>The latter can be estimated using the NCAA’s periodic report on participation:
<a href=“http://www.ncaa.org/library/research/participation_rates/1982-2004/1982_2004_participation_rates.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ncaa.org/library/research/participation_rates/1982-2004/1982_2004_participation_rates.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>However, the former appears to be more difficult to base a ballpark. For lacrosse, the laxpower.com website does a fairly thorough job at capturing all HS teams, so at least national team number can be estimated. However, I haven’t had much luck yet finding other such web sites, say for wrestling, which can give me a national total.</p>

<p>Anyone with such info, please post a link or reference for that HS sport & I can run the numbers.</p>

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<p>Question: Is the first set of numbers the total number of high school students (i.e. 9th through 12th grade) or just seniors playing? That would make a difference in the ratios.</p>

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<p>^^ oh nevermind, I read the table more carefully this time.</p>

<p>I’m wondering about swimming, so if anyone has that info. it would be appreciated.</p>

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<p>sorry, I’m coming up dry on finding web sites that can help me estimate # of HS teams playing a particular sport…laxpower.com does it for lacrosse, but I can’t find any others like it for swimming, golf, volleyball, softball, wrestling, etc on a comprehensive national level…</p>

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<p>momof2,</p>

<p>i have a lot of experience with the swimming college scene. if your kids are at the top level i’d say the number is close to 80% if not more. overall there are a ton of opportunities so the number has to be at least 33%.</p>

<p>pm me if you want more information.</p>