Need some advice. Our D is being recruited for track. She has gone on several visits and has narrowed the choice to 3 schools. One school (DIII) is much more academic, small and not as competitive athletically as school 2, but she would have the opportunity to really shine in her events. School 2 is a big university, great, very competitive athletics but academically is not as personal as the small school. School 3 is also DIII, academic but the sports program is not as developed as the other 2 schools. Both DIII schools want her to commit early decision… I know it is late to be making this decision. At any rate she is not ready to commit early and is very stressed about making any decision. We think she wants to choose the big school, although she has not said much one way or the other… (She has been processing everything for the past month and a half).
We are trying to let her make the decision… Trying not to give too much advice. I think she might be concerned about the pressure of a big program and the smaller programs might not be competitive enough. Any thoughts?
Because your post is more general than specific, the advice we can give will also be general, since we do not know the schools, her grades (or academic aptitude) and how good she is with track. But my general advice would be as follows after having spoken to many coaches/parents/students for my own daughter’s lacrosse ambitions.
- If she is really into track (i.e. olympic level, etc), then obviously she should go to the university where she will have top notch coaching and competition.
- If not, every unbiased coach tells us to select the school that she really likes to go to OVER the school where she thinks she will thrive in that sports program. She can quit sports anytime if she has a change of heart in the future, the coach can get fired/be ill/be recruited elsewhere and the new coach might not like her, she can get injured, etc. It will be more difficult to change schools if than to quit the team if either becomes an issue in the future.
Hope this helps. School first, and if still there is a tie, then the track program second. Pretty easy decision…Good luck!
I think it is more important to get a good fit with the coach and be happy at the school overall. For track it isn’t necessarily the level of the program that dictates what meets they go to and a good mark or performance will get noticed no matter what school she is at. That is one of the things I love about track, the stopwatch or tape measure doesn’t care what school you go to.
My son is at a D1 school and most of the big meets have teams from all levels participating. Take a look at the school schedule and see where the school has gone in the past. It is a mixed blessing though, bigger meets, more travel, means more time away from classes. The only difference, besides the coaching, that helped my son determine what level he wanted to go to was that the national qualifying marks for D3, D2 & D1 can be vastly different (depending on the event) so it may come down to how competitive she is and if she wants to qualify for national meets as a freshman or does she prefer to have a stretch performance goal.
Thanks onthetrack and ohiopop. She is a top student… Top 5% of grad class and 32 ACT. She liked all 3 schools coaches. They were all encouraging, spent time with her and overall there were no issues. Last night she opened up a bit more and I think is going to make a decision within the next week. Several of her friends have started committing to athletic programs and I think that is another reason she is stressed.
To second what OnTrack2013 said, T&F is very unique when it come to competitions. You go to a track meet and there will be all kinds of schools participating, Large P5 D1’s, smaller D1’s, D2, D3, and even JUCO will often all participate at the same meets. So unlike football where a D3 will never play a D1, a kid can go out there on the track and compete with schools at all levels. Every meet will be like this until their conference meets, and then regionals and nationals.
So if a kid thinks he/she should have gotten that big D1 offer, they have a chance to go out and prove it by beating them at meets.
She needs to find the best academic and social fit, a place she will be happy if Track wasn’t part of the equation.
My D is in a similar situation for track and cross country. She was recruited by nearly every NESCAC, some D1s and other D3s. She decided to focus on a couple of NESCACs (because of academics) and just recently submitted ED. She had several overnights that really helped her decide. Coach said my D would be supported throughout admissions but her ACT (31) and being from the same state as the school may not help. She still submitted and now the waiting game begins. Told her to have a plan B for EDII or RD and to re-initiate conversations/emails with other coaches.