Ivy League Recruiting

twoinanddone
Sat, 03 Oct 2015 20:17:02 +0000

And for lacrosse they have to. The Ivy schools are competitive in lacrosse (M&W) but are competing for players with Maryland, Princeton, Virginia who are all filling their teams with sophomores. I’m sure the Ivy school are using all the right terms like ‘committed to the admissions process’ and the kids and their families hear “You’re going to Yale!” and that’s what they tell people and that’s what the lacrosse community thinks. BTW, I know girls on crew who also told everyone they were going to Yale as high school juniors, and they did go. As at any school, and even after siging the NLI, everything is contingent on being accepted, it’s just that it’s much harder to get accepted to an Ivy.

As doubtful said, most of these student athletes go to top high schools and are pretty wealthy. Many have taken SATs as 8th graders and know if they will be competitive academically at an Ivy. If they need to improve scores, they take prep classes and do what is necessary, but if they can’t get to Ivy levels, they go to Virginia or Maryland or Duke or Hopkins. Not a big downgrade. I know two who could never have gotten into Ivies, so as sophomores committed to Virginia. Both graduated on time, both not top students in any way, both employed within months of graduation, so college was very good experience. One played on the U19 national team too.

Like @doubtful, most of the kids I know attend the schools they committed to as sophomores. For girls, I only know one who didn’t, she was the top player in the state, All American, committed to U Florida (a high ranked D1 team), and before signing her NLI switched to Liberty. Obviously a family choice (her sister committed to Liberty too to play the next year). Every other girl I know went to the school she committed to. Boys have, in my experience, switched around a little more. One committed to Princeton but there was a coaching change and he immediately changed to Army (still as a sophomore in HS) and he does go there. When he was a sophomore, he definitely posted ‘Committed to Princeton’ on his social media pages.

Many players do not stick with the schools they originally start at. If you look at the rosters for teams, you’ll see the last school played at is another college. The best player (by far) on my daughter’s team is a transfer from a top D1 program who just wanted to move closer to home and was just one of many top players on her D1 team but is now a superstar on the D2 team. Lots of switching around at the mid D1 ranked schools for girls. I can name 5-6 kids who went to the school they committed to but didn’t play one minute in a game. Some stayed at the schools, others transferred.