Please help with son’s college list: Iowa resident, 4.0 UW, 34 ACT, NMSF, for Accounting/Finance, 1500+ undergraduates, <$40K; D2/D3/NAIA Baseball Pitcher, baseball is non-negotiable

Chance Me / Match Me
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Please help with son’s college list [2026 Grad, Iowa resident, 4.0 Unweighted, 34 ACT, National Merit Semi-finalist, D2/D3/NAIA Baseball Pitcher, for Accounting/Finance, 1500+ undergraduates; baseball is non-negotiable

Demographics: US Domestic, Iowa, Medium-size Public HS

Budget: <$40K, ideally < $30K, would love to use NMSF status for reduced costs ( likely no financial need); has options for full-tuition but those are places without baseball

Intended majors: Accounting/Finance/Business Economics/Finance Technology

GPA: 4.0 Unweighted, no rank, 34 ACT (1500 conversion to SAT), National Merit SF

HS Coursework

English - Composition x 2 terms (currently), Literature x 2 terms, both through dual-enrollment

Math - Pre-calc completed, Calc currently, both through dual-enrollment

Science - 3 years through AP Physics (5)

History and Social Studies - AP US History (4), AP Psych (5), AP US Gov (currently)

Language - 4th year Spanish

Other courses - Economics, Woodworking, Marching Band, Symphonic Band, Personal Finance, Marketing

Awards

National Merit Semi-Finalist

AP Scholar

Community College President’s List

Band Letter x 2

Baseball Letter x 3

Baseball All Conference First Team, District Second Team, School Pitcher of the Year

Extracurriculars:

School Baseball

Travel Baseball

Marching Band (peer-elected percussion leader)

Volunteer for community free meals – intergenerational food prep team

Shopper for little free food pantry

Umpire for USSAA Baseball

School Investment Club, founder

Schools:

Baseball is non-negotiable for him; club baseball is not what he is seeking

Prefers upper-midwest / midwest from Nebraska to Ohio, possibly Pacific Northwest

Seeking excellent finance, fintech or accounting programs with strong industry/alumni connection

Lots of interest/offers from very small colleges (<1200 on campus); while the baseball programs are very appealing, the schools feel too small; 1500+ feels better, would be fine at a large school but those are D1s

Wants to go to a school for four years; not interested in transferring to chase baseball opportunities

Wants some academic challenge and an engaged student body, but will also be prioritizing baseball. Some level of selectivity would be welcomed for similarly engaged peers in the classroom and beyond.

We know baseball recruitment is well underway, and he has offers, but it’s time to get some input on the search. Thank you.

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How about Missouri Univ Science and Tech? Or Wayne State?

Said to have good baseball, business, merit scholarships.

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Not in OP’s preferred geographical region, but UT Dallas is D2, offers a full ride to NMF, has a good business school (ranked 53 by US News), a decent baseball team (https://utdcomets.com/sports/baseball), and is in a warmer climate good for year-round baseball. Most big NMF schools (e.g., Alabama, Tulsa, UT Arlington, Washington State, USF) are D1, with UT Dallas being one of a handful of exceptions that also has baseball. Being in DFW metro also helps with internship opportunities and flight to/from Iowa.

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Where is he in the recruiting process? What colleges have shown an interest in him for their varsity team. If this is non-negotiable…I think you need to start there.

@TonyGrace

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None of these are in your geographic area, but academically Babson and Bentley are two of the best smaller business schools with baseball. Will be hard to come in on budget, but might be doable with merit. Bentley is D2, but no money for baseball, however, the coach will pull for the right player to get big academic merit. If you stack merit and being an RA, you might get it to work.

I can’t think of any NAIA schools that would come close to the education you’d get at Babson or Bentley.

For other D2 schools, University of Tampa might get in your price range. For D3 Rhodes might work.

In your geographic area, Carroll and Carthage will get you there with merit.

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He has heard from most coaches in the American Rivers Conference and some in the Midwest Conference. Most of these schools are very small (and felt small when on baseball recruiting visits), no merit and/or no business majors. The high academic schools who have shown baseball interest are D3 and offer only need-based aid. Based on vwlizard’s comment, is it really possible that recruited athletes get bumped up academic merit at D3s?

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I don’t believe they are supposed to do that. IOW, merit aid is supposed to be awarded to athletes the same as for those who are not athletes.

@MYOS1634 @Shelby_Balik

I’ll again tag @TonyGrace who knows far more about this than I do.

Your problem is…you really are looking for a very large merit scholarship for this student. Do the D3 schools he is considering have a chance to get to your price point.

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What do you know about Carroll’s academics and industry connections? I only know what I see online.

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I can’t speak to its baseball or business, but I know a top stats student attending Carthage on big merit who is having a terrific experience and is getting an excellent education.

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Yes, some do with National Merit.

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Out of your geographic region but my son played baseball at Oglethorpe in Atlanta. He was an accounting major and started right out of graduation at a Big 4.

I understand having a regional preference but if that changes there are several schools in the same conference that might work. Someone mentioned Rhodes already. My son looked at/applied to most of them and got a combination of merit and financial aid.

Although, i do understand you didn’t want the south. However, those are solid schools and your son would be at the top of stats and baseball in warmer weather is nice in March :slight_smile:

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Then if cost and baseball work at these schools, it seems like they should be your son’s top choices. Since we don’t know what those schools are (and I fully understand why you aren’t posting those here…and agree with that), it’s hard to give suggestions.

Are you hoping someone on this forum will give a shout out to one of the athletic recruit/NM schools you are considering?

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How about Gustavus in Minnesota? DIII, MIAC conference which is nice because the member schools are fairly close together so less travel. Not sure this is still the case, but they have traditionally given full-tuition merit scholarships for National Merit. It’s a school with very solid academics. My classmates in medical school who had gone there were well prepared. There is an Accounting with Finance major. The alumni network is very strong, although concentrated in the Midwest (which may be a plus depending on the applicant’s desires. I know some pretty darn successful and wealthy Gustavus alums, although in classic Midwest style you won’t know that by talking to them.)

ETA: here’s another fun thing about Gustavus–they belong to National Student Exchange. NSE would allow him to do exchange semesters at any of the other ~200 participating schools, while paying no more than he was paying already in tuition at Gustavus (which might be $0)

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That would be great. I’ve already been offered a few suggestions that he hadn’t seriously considered, but has heard from for baseball. More than anything, we don’t want him to sacrifice academics for baseball. He’s a somewhat better student and test-taker than his sibling and that sibling is finishing up at a well-regarded national liberal arts college, and it has stayed under $40K each year with merit aid.

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You are more likely to sacrifice academics – or at least selectivity – for merit, as opposed to baseball. To me, getting a private school down to $30,000 or $40,000 a year seems quite difficult.

And no, recruited athletes are not given preferential treatment with merit. The NCAA monitors this, I believe.

Edited to add, I see he wants finance, etc. That’s a prestige driven universe. If he is thinking of investment banking, private equity etc (and I realize it is early and he may not know) sacrificing prestige to chase merit may close some doors unfortunately.

The Babson and Bentley suggestions were good ones. Nescac schools also feed into that industry. Trinity (CT) may have merit?

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I agree with the selectivity part. But I don’t think that the academics would need to be sacrificed, and I think getting a strong private school below $40K is very doable. At least in the Midwest. As just one example, St. Olaf has strong academics and goes into this price range with merit.

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I’ll add Case Western to the mix. Checks a lot of boxes.

  1. with his academic stats he is likely to get a good merit award.

  2. Cleveland is one of the 12 cities with a branch of the federal reserve, so there are good opportunities and fewer ambitious students vying for those opportunities than in some other cities.

  3. as an open door university he can explore his many varied interests fairly easily

  4. they have baseball

  5. it is a nice size (7,000 undergrads) and they have a business graduate school.

  6. It is selective

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Thank you for the Midwest perspective.

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CWRU has baseball, yes. But will this student be recruited to play on their team?

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I know it more from who they play in baseball than I do academically.

Bentley is D2. Because all of their athletic money goes to football and not baseball, they will try to get you the best merit they can. Their merit is not automerit, but subjective and holistic, so there is some latitude as long as they can stay within the margins of what non-athletes have recieved. I’ve only seen it happen with high stats kids who would probably qualify for top merit anyway. Like a lot of the <2000 student D3s, I feel many D2s also fall into the pay to play category, but with the “prestige” of saying 2 rather than 3. Bentley is one of the top academic D2s, and not one of the tiny D2s, so I don’t see that they’d have the need to do this, but considering Assumption does give out athletic scholarships in baseball and they compete for local kids, they probably have to push hard. I guess saying that, you can add Assumption to your list. Especially if you’re going to expand to Bentley and Babson.

Remember, D3 has a pay to play element to it nowadays. That’s why I caution you against going to those very small schools without a viable major. They are keeping their lights on by recruiting kids that want to play above all else. If it comes down to one of those schools or expanding geographically, I’d expand geographically.

St. Olaf may not have the exact major, but it was the only small D3 where my son could see himself playing (was only interested in large D1 schools academically, so decided not to play, but said the only D3’s he could see himself playing at were St. Olaf and RIT).

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