But L’ville has classes every Saturday so you can’t just bolt out on Friday. When we were there for revisits and asked (couple years ago granted), they said maybe once in the fall you could get permission to go out for an all weekend tournament in 9th grade. Otherwise, maybe showcases within driving distance on Sundays, but tournaments are often two days and also may not be within reasonable driving distance. It does get a little more flexible by junior year, but as OP said a lot of recruiting is done or in final stages by then.
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#3. Is formulated from user comments on thread to initial question (several opinions that BS not best for serious athlete) and discussions with current faculty stressing boarding school tends to be “and” discussion rather than “or.”
College coaches first call club coaches before 9/1/2021 for 2023 players, (if you are declassing to 2024, it will be 9/1/2022), and then call school coaches to ask candidates’ character. I bet the Lawrenceville coach has more say in the process, and when my son talked to him he hinted that is the case. Mr. Tsai, a class of 1982 and former Lawrenceville/Yale lacrosse player, donated at least $60M and more likely more to Lawrenceville in 2019. I don’t think it is a coincidence the new and renowned coach was invited to join the school around the time of this major donation. Good luck, and I hope you can find a good balance between clinics outside the campus, and captains practices in fall/winter.
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It is definitely a little different at each school. If your kid is a good enough player to get B’s and still get into the school he wants to go to that’s a different story. Maybe that is more “doable” but still I’d really nail down how many Saturday classes can he skip, how many afternoons can he leave for practice. Often they say yes but then you find out it’s after his afternoon school commitment (whatever sport he’s playing at school because most require it - plus there are Saturday games for school - not skip able so Sundays only?) which leaves zero time for homework.
Also. How will he manage skipping classes? We were told good students can make it work and once you’re there they want to limit you to one or two days of missing school. Additionally missing class is pretty much always super stressful. I really don’t have personal experience with Lawrenceville, I just don’t imagine it’s that different from what I’ve seen in MA (maybe it is different - I’m not sure about the academic stress there).
To be honest I’d say they rely on the kids who are already good enough to be D1 recruits and not the kids who need to still be developed. Those kids are going to end up at D3 NESCAC schools because they’re good but can’t get good enough at BS to jump to the next level.
Hello - my son graduated from Lville in 2018. He was a 4 year varsity athlete. Entering freshman year, he was ranked in top 10 nationally for his age group. Once the pace of the academics set in, he found it difficult to keep up with the sports as well as schoolwork. Eventually he stopped playing in national tournaments after 2 years, and focused only on academics and the school team. Because of this, his ranking took a hit and he was not competitive for college recruiting.
The saturday classes don’t make things easier. Getting time off on weekends to attend a tournament is very difficult. The athletic director basically gutted the squash program after his first year of arrival. The headmaster didn’t really care to hear the complaints from squash parents.
So I agree with others that you should have a conversation with the athletic director and coach. If your child really needs to travel to outside tournaments to be competitive for recruiting, Lville won’t make things easy on you. Lifetime is a possibility, but 2 seasons per year your child will be doing another sport. For PG students there is a lot more flexibility.
Good luck
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I’ve known lax players from L’ville who go on to attend top D1 lax programs. They don’t play club during the school year but do play on travel teams in the summer from their home communities. I don’t think it’s been a problem to ‘just’ play for the L’ville team and still have a full recruiting experience. Lax players can’t commit until Sept of junior year, so there is a lot of shifting that goes on a freshmen and sophomores, and the summer following sophomore year.
I also know a top (TOP- on the Tewaaraton list as a freshman) player who played on his high school team (won the state championship twice, so a good team) and he played golf in the fall and did the travel team in the summer. I don’t think he played any tournaments during the school year. He had pretty much the choice of any D1 program he wanted, except probably the Ivies (academically not a fit). His brother is just starting high school and is a really top lax player, but has a lot of learning disabilities. It will be interesting to see which schools will be willing to support his academic needs while he supports the lax team. Again, probably not the Ivies but I can see him getting recruited by Duke or Syracuse.
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