<p>Hi There -
Fist time post. Which of the top prep schools offer the most competitive sports? Do any have a non-trivial number of students who are signed to play in college?</p>
<p>I'm comparing this to several 200 students per class prep day schools that have an average over 10 years of girls being signed annually to colleges including Ivy+2 and mostly Division 1 with stats like this:
2.3 Girls Soccer
2.0 Girls Swimming
1.5 Girls Volleyball
1.1 Girls Basketball
I didn't find the equivalent information readily accessible on the few HADES websites. The local great day schools dominate sports including playing up several divisions against public schools several times their size. Think football line being 30 pounds lighter per lineman but winning the state championship every year.</p>
<p>The better local day school has an SSAT average of 90%...only the two Phillips are higher. Locally, we also have highly competitive, nationally ranked year-round club sports that are key to college signings. Can the HADES schools offer sports at this level? The reason I ask is that my daughter is a gifted athlete and academically suited to HADES...but given how fierce the college competition is these days, I hear that having the athletic edge can make a huge difference getting into the Ivy+Stanford. I suspect that the best HADES schools offer a somewhat better education than our best local day school, but how much of the athletic edge is lost in that trade-off?</p>
<p>The HADES schools, most specifically known exeter and andover, DEFINATELY have wonderful sports programs. It is not unheard of our abnormal for an athlete to play for an ivy league school. If your daughter has both than that will make it not only easier to get into a HADES school due to them wanting to recruit good athletes, but also a way better candidate down the road for the Ivy League.
The coaches are more than open to emailing, talking on the phone, etc so I would get into contact with the coaches of the sports your daughter plays at schools you might be interested in. They can give you a better feel of their specific program, but if your daughter is a serious athlete as well as student, then a boarding school would be most likely the best option due to the college counciling available, the prestige of the schools, etc. I don’t know specific stats of how many kids go on to play sports in college from each school but just looking at the matriculation of the schools you can see that not one kid went to a ‘bad’ school. (speaking from the three lists I just recently have looked at, exeter andover and deerfield) These schools know what extra oomph a candidate needs for the ivy league, and definately will provide tremendous athletics as well as anything else possibly needed.
All that being said, I would recommend touring the schools in the fall and getting an interview. You can talk to the coaches in person while there. What other schools besides HADES can brag that the most kids from their senior class go to Harvard or Georgetown or Yale? </p>
<p>Best of luck, hope that your daughter finds the best fit for her!</p>
<p>As has been said often on this site, boarding school is an end in itself. There’s no guarantee that bs will get a talented, intelligent student into a better college that he/she would get into from home, and most people here on CC would NOT recommend basing the boarding school vs. day school decision on hopes for college matriculation (particularly when the local school is a good one) If college matriculation is your primary concern, I’d say go with your gut and keep her at home where you know she’ll stand out both academically and athletically. </p>
<p>That said, is there something else in particular you’re looking for that the local school doesn’t provide, other than “somewhat better” academics? I don’t know that that would be enough for me to send my kid off, especially if her other interests and talents were nurtured so well at home.</p>
<p>The best research you may do is to go to rosters of the particular ivy teams and see where the athletes are from. You will see some BS again and again on rosters for particular sports, but largish Catholic schools do tend to predominate. I imagine the total experience is quiet different from a BS one. Some sports used to be a province of BS’s but that is no longer the case. If playing on a particular team at IVY/S is your goal, then you need to look at both colleges and the schools you’re interested in on a case by case basis.</p>