While my daughter is good enough to play D3, she has a greater academic and social interest to attend a larger D1 college and play club lacrosse. She will graduate in 2016 with a 4.00 GPA and 30 or 31 ACT. Will top high competitive/academic colleges give her any special consideration as a D1 club athlete?
I’m only familiar with soccer but don’t know of any colleges that recruit for soccer at the club level. It may be different for lacrosse. I know there are few opportunities for varsity lacrosse on the west coast so maybe schools here will recruit at the club level. I have not heard of that happening. Don’t rule out D3 lacrosse without looking at programs at specific schools. It is sometimes pretty low key at D3’s and she may find she still has plenty of time for academics and a social life.
Thanks takeitaklin. Hope I can if ‘club athlete’ is ever considered a hook to get into a highly competitive D1 school
Not really. What advantage would there be? No money for the club player, and usually the coach is focused on the D1 varsity team (if there is one). If it is a D1 school without a D1 program, only club, it’s unlikely there even is a full time paid coach with enough time to recruit. My niece played club for a D3 school, very competitive, and I doubt they even knew she was coming to the school before she showed up for fall tryouts. Niece could have played D1 but she didn’t want to. Other students on the club team knew she was going to the school because they’d played together in high school/youth club for years, but no coach was putting together a club team from applicants to the college.
There may be a few teams, like Florida, where both the D1 and club are strong teams. I can picture a situation where someone contacts the varsity coach, the coach doesn’t think the student is strong enough for varsity, and recommends the student to the club coach. The club coach might put in a word with admissions, but I doubt it would have a lot of weight.
^^^agree. My son’s varsity coach at his D2 program did refer a couple of players to the club team but there was no recruiting for the club team. Try-outs for the club team were held after school started for anyone who showed up. The club teams use student coaches and players pay to play on the team. Typically, unless a student will play at the varsity level in college, a club sport is counted the same as any EC for admission purposes.