How difficult is it to make a D3 sports team, for example tennis? Is it necessary to have been one of the best on you high school varsity team?
It depends on the school, but not necessarily. If you don’t make the cut, there will almost certainly be club sports that you can play and compete in!
You’re not likely to get recruited unless you’ve played in tournaments and have a ranking. But it’s also possible to be a walk on
It varies greatly depending on the school (and the conference), but in most cases, given that there are so many more high schools than colleges, the best high school players tend to be the ones who can play in college. Of course, there are kids coming from "powerhouse " schools in certain sports where many kids will play in college as well as kids coming from schools where even the best player is not going to be competitive in college.
You can look at the rosters at schools that interest you and look at the bios of players (and Google them + tennis) to see how competitive they were prior to college to get a sense of whether you might fit into their program.
For Division 3, the best tennis teams IIRC are Emory, WashU, and the University of Chicago. Contact a coach to see if you can be recruited.
You have to get recruited to play in D3? I thought that was just D1 and maybe D2
D3 recruits, but it’s also much easier to just walk on. As mentioned, varies greatly school to school. Reach out to coaches at schools you’re interested in. Some with respond, some won’t.
The issue with planning to walk on is that the coach may have recruited players and feel he cannot deny them roster spots. As a result, there may not be openings. This again varies by sport and school, and most coaches are delighted to find a great player just falling into their program BUT they are also unlikely to rock the boat with recruits for someone who is not going to really have an impact. You really need to look at this for the schools you are considering.
I would estimate that around 80-90% of Division 3 athletes are recruited, and perhaps more. As @Gardenstatelegal suggests, walking on depends on available spots, schools, teams etc. One always hears about so and so, who walked onto a team. It does happen. But assuming the coach already has recruited a full team, then the walk on needs to be better than the recruits. Think of it this way, the coach has invested time and effort to recruit a kid. Perhaps he or she has gone to multiple showcases to see the recruit, had several meetings with the recruit, planned overnights, picked the recruit up at the airport, overall schmoozed the recruit, and pushed the admissions office for support to get the recruit admitted. The coach will be coming at this from a “I have already decided this athlete is the one” perspective. So, a walk on has to be better, and perhaps much better, than the recruit. Then there is the suggested angle that before committing the recruit ask the coach if recruits are cut. Many (not all) coaches will not cut recruits the first year. If you want to play, and you don’t get any traction from speaking to the coach, then do not assume that you will be able to walk on.
I know several kids who have walked on at D3 schools (and even some D1), so I think it happens more than you think. But the size of the team is a factor. So a team like track, lacrosse, crew, swimming which tend to be bigger may have more walk-on opportunities. Tennis has a small roster, so those teams may be 99% recruits
D3 is more about using recruited athletes to get admittance to the school. If you get admitted on academics alone you will have no problem getting to try out for the team as a walk on. If you’re better than 1 of the roster players you will make the team. The key is better not equal to or less than.
@Wisteria is right… most D3 crew teams need walk-ons because few coaches get enough slots to fill a novice 8. Track and swimming make it easy to accommodate extras at practice - the weaker ones may not travel - but it leaves room for them to get better. Lax programs are big (not sure why), so it may be easy to get on a practice squad at some schools. Tennis will be limited by number of courts, so while the roster can be bigger than the number playing in matches, there’s a governor in there on numbers. Reach out to coaches at the schools that interest you. Even if you’re not recruited, you’ll be on their radar and you can check in with them at accepted student days next spring to see what your prospects are.
I know kids who have walked on to teams, including D1 teams. It is not unheard of, but at the end of the day, recruits outnumber walk-on at almost every level.
To the OP- it depends on the D3 program. Some are far more competitive than others. Also depends on your HS. Playing Varsity is one thing in a HS school with a grad class of 160, quite another in a school with a class of 800, and with a tradition of winning in that sport. I know a kid who has been on a varsity baseball team for all 4 years at his smaller private school. He likely wouldn’t make even a JV team at one of the big public 4A schools, and certainly wouldn’t make varsity.
It doesn’t hurt to try and walk on. If you are better than the recruited players then you will get a chance sooner or later.
I would agree with the post above that 80-90% of D3 players are recruited on some level.
The college coaches won’t be very interested in your high school tennis since many junior tennis players don’t play high school tennis because the competition is too low. .
College coaches will ask you for your star rating, listed on tennisrecruiting website, and your UTR, listed on Universal Tennis website. The star ratings are determined based on USTA Tournament results, while the UTR is based off of both USTA and ITA tournament results.
You can research both sites to get a feel for the level of player a specific college usually recruits. The highly selective D3 schools are attracting more and more 5 stars: Chicago, Williams, Amherst, MIT, Emory, etc. all have a number of former junior 5 stars on their rosters.
I would recommend contacting coaches during your junior year of high school. Not all programs even hold tryouts for walk-ons.
Good luck!