No offense to any lax bros, lax players, schools with great lacrosse teams, people who carry lacrosse sticks, or…whatever else makes a lax bro a lax bro. But the kid has made “minimal to no lax bros” a pretty firm criterion for school selection. She says she’ll know it when she sees it on campus visits, but any way to help her screen for that ahead of time? Could one compile a lax bro index from some of the Princeton Review Top 20 lists? I’m only mostly joking here…
Smith, Wellesley, etc.
Reed and other schools out West.
Bryn Mawr . . .
Swarthmore, UChicago, Hampshire, UC Santa Cruz, Evergreen, Deep Springs, Sarah Lawrence, Harvey Mudd, Caltech, Reed, Oberlin…
In relation to their elite coeducational peers, Swarthmore, Carleton.
um… what’s a lax bro? Any lacrosse player? Or is there some attitude to it? I think I know a total of 2 kids who play lacrosse … it’s not a big sport in CA public schools… so no clue what sort of jock /entitled mentality goes with it…
@washugrad — this is a bit out of date, but for a humorous look at the Ultimate Lax Bro…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqg01Nk3SYI
The question is too funny. In all our college visits, only one time did we get any view of lax bro culture: a bunch of cute guys coming back from the field, lacrosse sticks in hand. Maybe she means avoiding a “sports rule” atmosphere. Just a lax aversion or all jocky attitudes? Lol, that may mean a college with weak teams. Lots of those around, even when the academics are strong.
“lax bros” isn’t a west coast phenomenon, so she can focus her search out here. Women’s colleges of course don’t have any bros, and the LACs without much athletic focus probably don’t have much of that attitude either (like Reed, but that’s already out west). Good luck!
Northeastern or BU in Boston
^yeah I would agree with looking at the West/Midwest for schools with no “lax bro” vibe. I go to school in the South and my school has a slight laxer vibe - though not as heavy as some northeastern schools.
Lax bros are definitely a particular demographic with a particular culture, and I understand why some people would want to be insulated from their presence.
1 Like
One of my kid also has an aversion to lax bros. Schools on her list that I think fit that included UChicago, Swarthmore, Carleton, Mount Holyoke, Macalester, and Harvey Mudd. I’d add Reed, maybe Grinmell. Haverford strikes me as a possibility.
Watched the video… so it’s like an airhead/ dumb jock with money thing? Yeah, not really a big demographic in CA in general, I don’t think, although I can’t guarantee there aren’t any pockets at places like Stanford or USC. But those might be places to consider if you are looking for highly ranked schools where you won’t find much of that. Also Cal and UCLA, but you have the ‘are they worth the OOS cost’ issue there.
To me, that sounds like wanting to avoid the athlete swagger (I’ve got a D3 athlete, so I’ve seen the variations).
Thing is, we’ve seen that at places you don’t expect, including Grinnell (my other kid nearly refused to get out of the car because of the cocky swagger, complete with long, blond, flow, on display as we pulled up to his overnight visit), and yes, we know students fitting that bill at both Oberlin and Swarthmore.
If you really want to avoid it entirely, and not suffer through the occasional one-off incident, then I think you are talking women’s colleges.
A family on my block consists of lax bros. One kid is very smart but he works as a lax coach. My sons can’t stand them. Lax bro and sis is a huge demographic where i live.
Coming to a school near you soon…
It is growing (fast) in the SF Bay area and in San Diego/Orange County areas. UCSB hosts a lot of lax tournaments for youth, high school, and college club teams. When my kids were in Orange County, one of the parents at their private school hired a very well known coach for the boys lax team for the 2-3 years his kid played. $$$ You now see California kids recruited to east coast teams, including kids from the private and public schools in the Orange Cty area… Univ of Utah is adding men’s lax this year, and it is expected that more PAC 12 teams will add men’s lax before 2020. Six of the PAC 12 teams now have women’s lax, and I think the others will soon add women’s lax.
There are plenty of schools without lax and OP’s daughter can go to one of those, but has to take all the Ivies, NESCAC, almost any school in NY, PA, NJ and Maryland, Duke, ND off the list. I think even a school like Smith will have the lax bro’s hanging around. It’s a regional thing and not just a school by school thing.
Back in the day the Condor League was the going concern for CA lax, but yeah, growing fast.
Fastest growing high school sports.
https://coachad.com/articles/lacrosse-remains-fastest-growing-high-school-sport-others-closing/
My senior would also like to avoid lax bro schools and refused to consider Elon for this reason. (Whoops. Just realized that sophomore sibling is turning into a lax bro, right down to the hair and the hats in that video lol.)
There is plenty of lax in the mountain west. DU even has a stadium dedicated to lacrosse.