I’m wondering if there are any thoughts about the following D3 conferences:
NESCAC
UAA
Liberty
NEWMAC
in terms of:
relative competitiveness/strength of conference
evenness of teams within conference
depth of rosters
anything else
Obviously, NESCAC is mentioned quite frequently and I’ve seen the Massey ratings for various teams across conferences. It’s hard to gauge whether there is a significant difference in terms of the overall experience of playing in one conference vs. another, based on choosing schools that might be a better fit.
This is coming from the angle of a player who turned down mid-D1 offers for D3 schools that are a better fit academically.
So, your dd went to the camps, overnight, pre-read, and deciding which one to ED? Are you talking about mid-majors D1 like Pepperdine, Santa Clara, BYU level or are you talking about mid P5 D1 schools?
If your dd is a stud and great student, go for a school that could
win a D3 natty. Williams, Amherst. The usual suspects. I would say MIT, but that 50% chance EA a difficult choice. Really can’t go wrong as long as she fits in the school and soccer at this level. Maybe my dd will meet yours one day. Good luck.
Have you consulted d3soccer.com and d3boards.com? This year may be a bit unpredictable due to the pandemic impact including lots of gap years, D1 recruits falling to D3 due to crowded rosters, etc.
I don’t know women’s soccer; to get a sense of the competitiveness/how they play, find some old games of the schools in question, and watch them. I found that to be helpful on the men’s side.
Agreed with @cinnamon1212 and @Mwfan1921-- check out conference threads on d3soccer boards, lots of chatter about programs (last year has been quiet, obviously, since there was no fall '20 season in D3).
Also, look at the conference websites to see conference match up outcomes – is one team consistently winning by a large margin or are many matches close over the years. Look at team websites, to see player bios for competitiveness of recruiting (were they all state player of the year, national champion). In terms of strength of the program, how many players made the D3 all-conference team from a particular school and is it consistent over the years. Do specific programs win conference year in and year out and go to the national tournament? Is there at least one other at-large bid to the national tournament from that conference most years? Do the teams that play in the national tournament from that conference advance deep in the tournament, year in and year out or do they routinely get knocked out in the first round? In terms of rankings, Massey is a good resource.
As the parent of a Men’s D3 player, the big differences among programs that impact a student’s experience are factors like travel and coaching style/personality (screamer? passive-aggressive?), conference schedule and conference rules on spring season, international travel etc. UAA has longer distance travel but back-to-back games on weekends (I understand, never dug deeply into UAA). What is the mid-week travel for games? Class schedule – does a particular school schedule class during the 4-6 pm window when most teams are practicing, so that students have to juggle schedules to make sure they don’t have class which conflicts with practice? Or does the school have an open window during that time for sports and other ECs to meet without conflicts? Spring season/off-season training – NESCAC does not have a formal spring season but there are captain’s practices (which are presumably mandatory for anyone interested in a starting role but can’t be “officially” mandatory). I understand, but defer to others, that NESCAC schools do not do an international training trip, whereas other conferences allow it so that basically a 4 year player gets to travel and train internationally before one season (my kid did that, very cool). I also understand, but again defer to others, that NESCAC does not to early pre-season move in or if it does, it is a few days, not 10-14 days early like some other conferences. Again, my kid loved having 10+ days of pure soccer, with 2-a-days, before other students moved in.
If specific programs of interest are accessible to you in-season, go to a weekend game and talk up parents in the stands (there are not usually a lot of adults at games, so chances are, adults in the home stands are parents). Find out what they think about the program, the coach, the team culture etc.
Great post by @Midwestmomofboys . I’d also note that conference results may vary year to year. A new coach comes in, recruits heavily (maybe forgoing some slots in coming years), develops the team over the next few years, has great success with a senior dominant team, then is rebuilding again. A few superstars on a well coached team can make a big difference too.
While nobody wants to play on a team that never wins, I’d focus on the “back story” items above more than simply results.
Thanks for the replies. I realize that individual schools may have variability in the strength of their team from year to year-- I guess I was just looking to see if NESCAC vs. NEWMAC or Liberty was sort of like ECNL vs. NPL for club soccer. There is a noticeable dropoff in the overall competitiveness of those leagues and also within the depth of the team rosters – it’s not clear if that is really the case across these specific D3 conferences.
All of the schools being considered have decent soccer programs from year to year, but NESCAC and UAA seem to be elevated as a higher level of women’s soccer overall. Is that reality or just good marketing?
I have no experience with women’s soccer, but I think @Midwestmomofboys post should be pinned at the top of this forum.
Dig into the teams in each conference like you would for schools in general. I’d lean towards academic/financial/social fit first. Then I’d focus on player bios to determine if your child will see the field for the first time during freshman year…or junior year. Team strength changes from year to year, as do the league standings, and coaches can come and go. Good luck!
Again, with the caveat that my experience is the Men’s side – my view is that any perception that NESCAC and UAA play a different level soccer than other conferences is likely marketing. On the Men’s side, there are generally a few teams that are consistently at the bottom of the conference, whether it’s Liberty, NESCAC (though there’ve been some shakeups there and it happens less on the Men’s side now in NESCAC) etc. But otherwise, there is often a lot of parity among the top half of a conference, with any team being able to win on any given day. Some of the strongest soccer is not played at the elite academic schools but rather at schools like Messiah, Calvin etc. on the Men’s side. A quick look over at d3soccer on the women’s boards shows that Wheaton is a perennial women’s powerhouse.
In Men’s D3, every year, parents of 1st years grumble in person and on message boards about “oh, no, the quality of play is so low compared to my player’s elite soccer experience, this is all kick and run, not technical at all.” Followed by suitable gasps and shudders. Yup, playing 2 games a week, for 8-10 weeks, with 1/4 of the team turning over every year and limited off-season training on the ball, often means coaches go for results, not the beauty of the play.
Watching my kid’s college experience, the value of D3 athletics was in the intangibles – the instant family, the discipline and perseverance that gave him confidence beyond his sport, the multi-tasking skills, the ability to perform under pressure, to accept disappointment with grace, to accept success with humility, to celebrate other’s success selflessly. There’s a reason why college athletes are recruited in certain fields after college – they are team players, they work hard, they suck it up and work harder. While our family will remember the successes on the field (and the painful disappointments), those will fade. The life lessons are what he walked away with and has taken into his adult life.
I would say it is part reality and part marketing. I always consult the NCAA Division 3 tournament brackets to compare the prowess of the leagues. The top team from each league is an automatic entry, while the others are by invitation. In several tournaments, the NESCAC has as many as 4-5 teams in the tournament. For example, in the 2019 mens tournament, three of the four semi-finalists were NESCAC schools. That suggests to me a good deal of strength in the NESCAC, at least for that year. Flipping it around, the tournament results over the years also suggest that the winning teams are not always iron-clad victors, suggesting possible differing results on any given day.
There are lots of great schools, lots of great programs (as Midwestmomofboys has suggested), and the best place for your kid may not be in the best league or playing for the best team. In all likelihood, in four years your kid will be relying on the skills she has gained from college that have little to do with soccer. Look for fit.
Good luck.