<p>This should probably be in another thread, but I would agree wth sfgiant. In general even top DIII schools will not be competitive with “bad” DI teams in basketball and football. There are good reasons for this, but like most things in DI sports it’s ultimately about money. But in other sports (such as tennis or swimming) I think otherwise, a top DIII can beat a poor DI school. </p>
<p>For example, look at men’s swimming where Kenyon has won something like 20NCAA DIII titles in a row and compare their times to those at Texas (the No 1 DI swimming school this year) and you will see that Texas has several swimmers in each event better than the the best swimmer in that event at Kenyon. But if you instead look at the best times at Southern Illinois (not to pick on SIU, I chose it because it’s relatively low D1 and close geographically to Wash U) you can see that Kenyon is competitive with SIU. I chose swimming because it’s a sport where we can judge quality objectively. </p>
<p>Making some small attempt to stay on topic. Every DIII school handles the admission of athletes differently. But in general if a coach at a DIII school has made contact with you and “recruited” you it is a plus in the admissions process. Coaches can and do submit lists of applicants to the admissions office in which they are interested, but in general the rule is you have to be admittable on your own merits. The coach’s interest can put over the hump, but if you are at the bottom of the hill looking up, being a great athelete won’t get you up the hill and over. And of course since it’s DIII there are no athletic scholarships. Not to say no scholarships, just no scholarships explicity for your athletic prowess.</p>