<p>I have been reading threads for a while and am blown away by the top academic and athletic talent of these student athletes. Well deserved opportunities are coming their way. I am hoping to learn a little more about the experiences of student athletes a notch or two below that level.</p>
<p>My D (Jr. year) is a solid student (3.7, 1300 SAT) and a strong swimmer but not-elite (100 fly 1:00.5, 100 free 55.0). She loves being part of the team and wants to swim in college. Her biggest hope is to be able to go out of state to college. To accomplish that she may need a slight boost in admissions and some extra help with grants.</p>
<p>She gets strong math and science scores and is thinking of something that bridges technology and business. There are good programs that fill that need at RPI, WPI, Clarkson, CMU... Where do you need to fit on their roster to feel some love? She is somewhere in the top 10% to top 3rd... She swims high school and summer league but not club.</p>
<p>If parents contribute in state amounts and normal merit aid would cover another $15K (based on net price calculator), that still leaves $25k year gap. If you can catch the coaches eye, I understand that the merit aid could be increased to include leadership awards or other. There is a lot of guidance on these boards for more prestigious schools, but what should we expect from teams that don't compete at that level?</p>
<p>Likewise her grades put her in the mix, but more of a reach than lock. Again, some good guidance on more well known schools, but I am looking for some information on schools that are less well known.</p>
<p>Any advice or experiences that people could share to help us understand what lies in front of us?</p>
<p>The times you shared would put her in the mix for scoring for some D3 schools. I would encourage your daughter to talk to the coaches of the D3 schools she is interested in to see what they could do with admissions. Obviously the more she is likely to contribute to the team and the importance of the swim program to the college could affect whether that coach will ‘go to bat’ for her. I assume you have researched the times on the college websites to see if your D could contribute to the teams? Some of the D3 schools have faster times than some D1s. Of course this doesn’t address the financial gap you mention since D3s don’t offer athletic scholarships that would have to come from somewhere else - perhaps from some of the resources of the private schools you listed. A frank discussion between D and coach may be in order. Hope your D has an opportunity to swim in college.</p>
<p>At schools like RPI, Clarkson, and WPI they give A LOT of money to girls. This is because there is a low percent of girls at the schools. They are also great schools. Your daughter would be a great recruit at both RPI and Clarkson. I suggest you check out collegeswimming.com to see where your daughter stands time wise. Also, I would wait a little until the coaches finished recruiting this year’s class, but contact the coach and ask where your daughter would stand.</p>
<p>DB
I would look up times on collegeswimming.com for the different schools you are interested in. The times needed to be recruited by a D3 school can vary by quite a bit. Your D times should be within the top 3 times from last year for 2 events.</p>
<p>The ability for a coach to influence a merit or need based FA awards can vary. I would ask each coach about this and try to verify their answers.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies. I really appreciate hearing from people who have been there before.</p>
<p>I have looked into times at these schools and she would be in the in the top 3 for WPI/RPI/Clarkson (50/100 free and 100 fly). I have heard that you need to be delivering points in the conference finals to be worthy of “support” but these schools are not highly competitive and are seldom in the finals. She would be touching on the slower lanes in the B finals despite being 3rd fastest in the stroke, so I am not sure that the general guidelines apply in the case of these schools.</p>
<p>She loves to swim, loves being part of the team and imagines that the team community will be a big asset to being 2000 miles from home. I am encouraging her and trying to set reasonable expectations, but I don’t really know what that is!</p>
<p>You are correct-often the information out there feels like it is written for faster/more elite kids.</p>
<p>Here is what we did. You may find it useful. Go to the USA Swimming website and take a look at the conference results from last February. There are several conferences, but the idea here is to cast a wide net. Take a look at the 100 Fly and 100 Free times and see where your daughter fits within each conference. Lets say she would make the A final for three different conferences. Next, take a look at the schools in those conferences. See if they have the size/location/cost/programs that fit your preferences.</p>
<p>What we found in D3 is that some of the schools were too small or really just too slow (and maybe the team would not be as committed as our kid). So check all those factors out. Not finding what you need? Take a look at the B Final and see where your daughter would fit. There were about 3 conferences where our daughter could come in and contribute immediately and we liked the schools too. So thats where we concentrated our attention. A lot of work to run all those numbers, but it was worth the extra effort.</p>
<p>Cast your net wide and take a look at the NWC, the MIAC, and the SCIAC. Good schools and some good coaches in those conferences. </p>
<p>Be really sure about the trade-offs involved with teams that are not highly competitive. Your daughter needs to decide if she prefers being on a team that wins every conference, loses every conference, or somewhere in between. And it is good to be on one that is trending up too! </p>
<p>Best of luck I definitely think your daughter can find several schools where she can excel as a student athlete!</p>
<p>dobestican;</p>
<p>There are many, many swimmers who are in the same place as your daughter. Based on what we have seen, there is a place for swimmers across the US in a college somewhere. You definitely need to look at a very wide net of schools (think 15 or so) where she could contribute to the team and to the conference scoring. B finals score–so even if she could make the 16th place in the B final in the conference meet–as the only swimmer doing so from the team, she is more valuable to the team than if she cannot score. Swimfishmom had the approach. It is slow and painful, but it works. The most critical thing is identifying schools where you know she can contribute to the team, you think are good options academically and you are willing to contribute towards tuition.<br>
A couple of other thoughts:
- Don’t rule out D2 schools. They have scholarship $$ and some would be in that time range for the 100 free and fly.<br>
- D3 schools range wildly in academics, swimming and coach support. However, there are some programs where coaches do have significant influence in getting more aid, others not at all.
- To get a coach’s attention quickly, after you have picked your target schools, go visit them unofficially. Parent and swimmer making the roadtrip to visit some of the schools indicated serious interest to the coach. That is critically important to the process.
- I am not sure where you live, but there is a wide, wide range of D3 swim colleges in Ohio, PA, and VA. That corridor is rich with swimming opportunities, I am sure there are others. Then you can drop into a state, visit a bunch of schools on your target list, get a sense of those that might fit your objectives. </p>
<p>Best of luck, feel free to PM me if you have specific questions.</p>
<p>One other thought after re-reading the OP…your daughter does not swim club at all? She has a great story of potential improvement for the colleges. A 1.00 fly time with no year round swimming…might get some attention from a lot of coaches if they know she only swims 15 weeks a year and hit a 1.00 100 fly/55.0 100 free combination. </p>
<p>Does she play other sports in the other seasons? An all around athlete? This could be a much better story than just her times and grades. I would say that visiting schools to tell your story might be more critical than ever here…when coaches are combing lists of swimmers times/academics there is no “space” there for a comment on not ever having been a club swimmer…</p>
<p>Swim4school - Thanks for the posts. We live way out west but are planning a spring break trip to the east to touch as many schools as possible. The first priority is a academic match for my D includes some technology so that limits the pool. Second is a good fit for the team. We have used that approach but we may be missing some schools because we didn’t know about their technology component. “Working backward” may identify some fits we did not see before - a good idea from Swimfishmom.</p>
<p>The summer/high school combination has been perfect for my daughter. Her high school team is very good usually placing 3rd in state. Lot’s of club swimmers help there but the coach/program are very good and produce a large number of state qualifiers every year even if they don’t make it to finals.</p>
<p>The summer league is also competitive (but not at club level, only 75 min practice 5x/week), but has a great team feel that is hard to replicate in club. I believe that team feeling from the high school and summer league is more analogous to the college teams and is a big part of what has (and will) keep her enthused about swimming. </p>
<p>I agree that we need to weave that aspect of her training/personality into the hard numbers. I think letters and visits are key here.</p>
<p>Hey doinbest. Three years ago my D was in the exact same boat with very similar stats. Fast forward 3 years and my D now swims DIII at top rated LAC on merit.<br>
Her college list was nuts. Reach, target, comfort for three cartogies: Accedemic, swim, scholarship. Basically she applied to 3X as many schools as her peers. After all was said and done she had several acceptances across the board. I think what tipped the scales for her was letters of rec and interviews.
Good Luck.</p>
<p>Stevens Institute of Technology has invested a lot into their swim program in recent years. There may be an opportunity there. Also the atmosphere at RIT who hosted the Liberty League Championships was very positive - check out RIT also. Ours only swam high school and summer because they were involved in so many other activities, the coaches they spoke to were interested in their potential to improve in college. Another opportunity may be at Brandeis - they reopened their pool and are growing their swim teams again. Excellent science and academics there also.</p>
<p>One more to look into - University of Rochester. Great science and a great swim program.</p>