Schools where sports is a big part of its culture, and academics are important also

Parents Forum
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<p>Wash U, Emory, NYU, Chicago, Brandeis, Rochester, Case Western and CMU are in the UAA, a little known athletic asso. that happens to have some good DIII hoops.</p>

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<p>Wow, this year, there are more parents interested in sports than last year.
jrpar, I should have just asked you for a list and we would have had 50% of the schools :). Thanks.</p>

<p>Now if I have a 3.5-3.6 gpa putting me around the 75 percentile and a 1300 SAT score, which small schools do I have a reasonable chance of getting into?</p>

<p>What if I bat .400? .500? MVP of a decent league where one or two kids end up divsion 1? Will schools like Williams overlook my grades?</p>

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<p>jrpar, Can you email or PM me (I see you don’t take PMs) and tell me how your S picked Colgate over the other schools- particularly Davidson and Dartmouth? My S (hs junior) is interested in a number of the schools you mentioned and is an athlete. We are visiting Colgate over spring break. Thanks.</p>

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<p>CD, I hear you. </p>

<p>That is why I posted the link to the 2003 numbers, and only copied the top twenty schools for football in 2002. There are plenty of statistics available at <a href=“http://www.ncaa.org/stats/[/url]”>http://www.ncaa.org/stats/&lt;/a&gt; and I’m sure that they go back to the Stone Age of leather helmets and 5’10" basketball centers.</p>

<p>In 2003, Oregon was ranked 31, and for its six games had an attendance of 346,207 or 57,701. That represented an increase of 1,360 from the prior years.</p>

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<p>dstark,
In New England, some of the athletes we know with similar stats have attended Bowdoin, Colby, Holy Cross (may be D-1), Connecticut College and BC (D-1). Keep in mind that even if you don’t play a varsity sport, many campuses have great club sport programs.</p>

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<p>Oh yeah, and another measure of success – rising ticket prices. Guess you can’t have success without the costs associated with it.</p>

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<p>dstark, on another message board having to do with a sport, it was clear from a number of posts that 1300 is sort of the floor for Williams/Amherst for an athlete in anything but the big sports (football, hockey). The 3.6/1300 coupled with a strong athletic hook could get you into Williams if the coach wanted you.</p>

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<p>MomofWildChild, what other message board is that?</p>

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<p>dstark,</p>

<p>Based on stats, sounds like Trinity CT should get a visit. </p>

<p>It sounds like your notion is the same as mine was-- using sports as a “hook” to boost your son up a notch into a more academic school than might otherwise be possible without his sports.</p>

<p>Definitely visit some reaches, some matches & some safeties (academic RMS that are all athletic S or M… because if it is an athletic R, you definitely won’t be recruited.) </p>

<p>A school like Williams (provided your son’s athletics are good enough & the coach WANTS him) can overlook the grades & SAT score-- to a point. Your son’s grades & scores are likely to be “over the cutoff line” for a recruited athlete at any elite college, because they indicate a kid who may not be an academic star but can handle the academic work.</p>

<p>Every D3 is slightly different. Some places give their coaches ‘free picks’ for athletes meeting minimum standards (& this varies by sport: hypothetically football gets 15, swimming gets 1). Other coaches have no “picks.” Some coaches/schools recruit actively & intensely, others don’t. Some places have prospective freshmen already picked out and your kid simply <em>will not be</em> the #1 recruit, but instead will get a more vague " you’re on the list" or “at the top of my list.”</p>

<p>You want the coach to be explicit about where your kid stands, so you know if the ED app is a pipe dream (with anemic coach support) or an excellent shot (with fervent coach support.)</p>

<p>Visits and coach contacts will tell you which elite colleges/coaches would want him, and also which would he want. There may be coaches he just won’t like and others he will adore. I suggest you make a list with 5-6 Reaches, 5-6 matches, and 5-6 safetys, then use the visits and coach contacts to evaluate where the want is intense and mutual. Eventually you’d want 3 or so of each catagory to apply to.</p>

<p>Remember that if your son is being recruited <em>you will be asked</em> to apply ED or ED2 to schools. If the coach is going to really to go to bat for your son, he will want to know that this effort will not be wasted on a RD applicant who could choose a different place. Thus you want to get going now to do research. This way coaches can see him play if they are interested in him.</p>

<p>Also: get a highlight tape together; serious coaches will want it.</p>

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<p>dstark, send me a PM or email me and I’ll tell you the site.</p>

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<p>SBmom, not every sport or coach wants a highlight tape. In particular, the schools that were recruiting my son last year for football specifically wanted game tapes. I am sure they wanted to see how he blocked when he did not get the ball, or how he broke tackles when he did. A game tape tells the whole story, and at least for football, that is what the caoches wanted to see.</p>

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<p>Well one would need to ask each coach what he/she wanted to see. My point was, with a spring season sport, start shooting this spring-- because senior year will be too late.</p>

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<p>Yes, you can never have too much tape</p>

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<p>SBmom - Hopkins is definitely rah-rah for lacrosse, don’t know about baseball… but dstark already dissed it. Hmmph.</p>

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<p>Hey, I’m not trying to be mean. It does have the 2nd ranked baseball team in preseason polls. Should I reconsider? Are sports really important to that campus?</p>

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<p>Actually I think its baseball team is one of the best D3s in the East.</p>

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<p>"Now if I have a 3.5-3.6 gpa putting me around the 75 percentile and a 1300 SAT score, which small schools do I have a reasonable chance of getting into?</p>

<p>What if I bat .400? .500? MVP of a decent league where one or two kids end up divsion 1? Will schools like Williams overlook my grades?"</p>

<p>Based on what I know about Williams (I’m an alum), I think your son would have a better chance if he plays two sports, not just baseball alone. The stats are a little on the low side for Williams; but that’s not to say that Williams hasn’t taken students with this profile. I just think more often the student plays football and baseball too…</p>

<p>Trinity would be a great match.</p>

<p>You should start a dialogue with coaches at each of these schools. The coaches will be able to give you a pretty good idea of your son’s chances.</p>

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<p>This kid is not my son. He is a friend who will be captain of 3 high school sports, with baseball being his best.
How preppy is Trinity? Compared to Williams? Are the students down to earth at these schools?</p>

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<p>Sorry I misunderstood!
I think the student bodies are pretty similar at Trinity and Williams; Trinity might be a little bit “preppier” than Williams but maybe that is splitting hairs. Yes, I think students are down to earth at both schools. But your friend would get a good feel for this by visiting the schools.
The Williams baseball coach wrote a great article about athletics and admissions; you could find it by searching past Williams threads or the ephblog.com archives. Great statistical info.</p>

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<p>Here’s the link to the article about athletics/admissions by the Williams coach:
<a href=“http://www.ephblog.com/archives/images/its_all_about_who_gets_in.htm[/url]”>http://www.ephblog.com/archives/images/its_all_about_who_gets_in.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;