Hi all, I appreciate all the wisdom on these boards. My 2026 son is in the thick of soccer recruiting, he’s looking at a range of D3 schools and some Patriot league schools. I’m curious if others had kids deciding between schools in these leagues and any thoughts, or advice they might have. I’m not sure what offers may (or may not) come along for my son in the coming months or so, and he plans to choose the school he feels is the best for him. But just trying to understand the differences around the soccer programs in these leagues. Thank you.
One is d1 and the other d3? Not sure if you can get meaningful comparisons since not too many have athletes in both conferences.
I would say cross that bridge when you come to it.
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Agree that the biggest difference is divisional. NESCAC athletes generally do not participate in post-season play and the seasons themselves tend to be shorter. Also its membership has been more or less set since 1982 (Connecticut College was the last member to join) whereas the Patriot League has been slowly adding members as recently as this year (William and Mary will be competing in football starting in 2026.)
Also, the rivalries within NESCAC tend to be older and more laden with tradition (“The Little Three” - Amherst, Williams and Wesleyan; “The Battle of the Birds” - Wesleyan and Trinity; “The Biggest Little Game in America” - Amherst and Williams; “The Maine Colleges” - Bowdoin, Bates and Colby.) Most of its members have been playing each other since the very early part of the 20th Century.
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NESCAC soccer athletes, such as would apply to the OP’s son, might play all the way through to the national championship game.
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If your son receives offers from schools in both leagues, be sure to check out the travel schedules & distances as most athletes in these leagues are students first rather than training to become pro athletes. Demanding academics require substantial time for studying and/or for labs from well-rested, non-jet lagged students.
The good news is that there should be no cross-country travel on a regular basis if at all.
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The Patriot League was founded as a D1 non-scholarship league, to be similar to the Ivy League. Over the years, they have added scholarships, which vary in number depending on both the school and the sport. As a D3 league, no NESCAC schools offer scholarships.
With the exception of Tufts, NESCAC schools are all true liberal arts colleges. Most Patriot League schools are universities with broader academic offerings than the LACs with the military academies being uniquely what they are. Even Bucknell & Lafayette, which are classified as LACs, both offer engineering and Bucknell also has a business school, making them atypical compared to the classic LAC model. Colgate and Holy Cross are probably the only true LACs in the Patriot League.
Geographically, NESCAC schools are concentrated in New England + Hamilton in Upstate NY. The Patriot League schools are spread across the Northeast from Boston to DC and west to central Pennsylvania, making for longer travel to away games in some cases.
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Others have commented on the D1 vs D3 piece and the classic LAC environment of the NESCAC vs most of the Patriot League schools being a bit larger and they are well covered.
As far as the level of soccer goes and level of program commitment the conferences are more similar than different despite the D1/D3 differentiation.
Using Massey Ratings as a rough guide there is no real difference between the top teams in either conference, their skill levels are likely very similar. What that means is that the Patriot League schools are in the middle of the pack as D1 programs but the NESCAC schools are usually top 10 and often compete for the national championship. That id something that your S might want to consider as he visualizes what his college career might look like.
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When was the patriot league created? When I was in college Army and Navy competed in the Ivy League. At least that was the case in Swimming. Ivy Championships were called Easterns at the time.
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Wouldn’t nearly all the spots be filled by now in the Patriot league for class of 26?
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The Patriot League is relatively young, it was founded in 1986.
Normally I would expect things to be fairly settled. Top targets would have been offered starting last year but the rosters are fairly large. With the transfer portal and NCAA lawsuit things are now in constant flux.
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Wasn’t the same thing once true about Colgate? I seem to remember “Colgate vs. Cornell” being a thing back in the day.
I was there in the 90’s. I will have to look up when championships shifted for swimming. I don’t know about other sports. Colgate vs Cornell could just have been a regional rivalry thing. Most sports play out of league games during the year.
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Colgate and Cornell still compete in the same ice hockey league (ECAC).
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The “E” standing for Eastern. Starting to make sense.
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I love threads like this. I was today years old when I learned 99% of what is in this thread. CC at its best!
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I believe that is for football. For soccer, NESCAC does very well in men’s soccer. below are the list of champion in the past 10 years.
Apparently, if you want to win an NCAA title, go play for a coach whose name starts with J…
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Hockey is pretty different than most other sports as far as the conference/league goes. Several D3 schools ‘play up’ in a D1 conference because in 1970 when the NCAA conferences was split into divisions those schools wanted to continue hockey with their traditional rivalries. The WCHA, for example, has 3 Big 10 teams (Wisconsin, Minn, Ohio State) but then a bunch of other Minnesota schools known pretty much for hockey (Minn State, Bemidji)
DU and Colorado College always want to play in the same hockey conference but of course don’t play any other sports in the same conference(maybe women’s soccer?) because DU is D1 and CC is D3
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Another example is Union College, an LAC where hockey is the only D1 sport. Not only are they D1 but they’ve gone to the Frozen Four twice in the past 15 years and won the national championship as recently as 2014.
Hobart is an LAC which also competes at DI in one sport only - Lacrosse. They were so successful at DII and DIII, winning 15 national championships at those two levels combined that they reclassified to DI in 1995 to preserve their historic rivalries with Syracuse and Cornell and have been to 5 DI NCAA tournaments in the 30 years since then.
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My daughter is currently an athlete at a NESCAC and she was recruited by two Patriot League schools as well. For her, she was looking to intersect the highest level of academics with highly competitive athletics and she found her fit at a NESCAC. As others have mentioned, a lot of similarities. Some may come down to size, depending on the school. For my daughter at least, it came down to the individual schools she liked the best in terms of academics, curriculum, program, program success, teammates, culture, and coach; that was more important to her than “D1” vs. “D3” which is all relative. A Patriot League school she was in talks with was finishing near the bottom of D1 and the NESCACs were near the top of D3. It ended up being two NESCACs that she was choosing from at the end. The NESCACs have pretty specific “guidelines” and timelines around the recruiting, pre-reads, etc. Your son would likely be submitting materials for a pre-read at NESCACs in the next few weeks (if not already), with an official date of 7/1. I would think Patriot League schools would have offers out to many 2026s by now. All this to say, it’s pedal to the metal for a 2026. They should know what their top choices are in terms of school, curriculum, team, coach, and what’s most important to them, asking specific questions of coaches about process/what’s next, and know if they’re going to be submitted for a pre-read (if applicable). Good luck!
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