<p>“What do talented players that do end up going to a d3 school for non-sport reasons do? Do they just have to resign themselves to being far superior to anyone on their team and opposing teams?”</p>
<p>no, they resign themselves to being on a 2nd tier team/program</p>
<p>Hold on I think we are getting all twisted around here, throwing out schools and the like that are the exceptions rather than the rule. My point is that it is not really about the school, it about the major and the AVAILABLE time to study that major due to either a D1, D3 or Ivy athletic committment. I stated before that your mileage may vary, and I meant it.</p>
<p>Again, it was engineering and baseball for my son. I think most would agree that engineering is a difficult major at an Ivy. Yes, he works his butt off. I’m saying there was going to be more AVAILABLE study time for the D3 and Ivy baseball programs for my son than a traditional D1 school…and there has been. There is absolutely no question about it. He could not study engineering and material science at his current level and play 56 baseball games (D1) including 2 mid week games every week for 13 weeks plus post season. He did not select his school based on free time…he selected his school because of the academics, athletics, “fit”, and his specific situation. </p>
<p>We have friends who want to be professional baseball players, so they have selected D1 national powerhouse programs and they are working their butts off in their athletic efforts. Most carry a light major because their focus is athletics. These players sought the best coaching possible to help them go pro. They look at college as finishing school before they go pro. The price they pay is waiting in line for the next opening in the lineup to get into a future game, and two-a-day workouts. I wish them well. They (too) will have as much AVAILABLE time as their major will allow them.</p>
<p>What is abundantly clear to me after reading many posts on CC is that there are an (almost) infinite number of combinations of kids/sports/Divisions/colleges/coaches/locations/majors. The challenge, as a parent, is to help your child find the best fit among the options offered to him or her. There is nothing to prove here, folks, only ideas, approaches and opinions to explore.</p>
<p>Great point by 3xboys and fenway who has essentially the same message. Won’t happen but this is probably a great place to end this particular thread.</p>
<p>Pretty interesting discussion although I have to admit I come down on the side of, in general, the time commitment at a DI school will in many cases be higher in season and also typically also “off season” (very different NCAA regulations on this one).</p>
<p>My high school had a sports and college admissions event which was on leveraging high school sports for college admissions and participating on sports in college … it was Q&A session with a panel of “experts”; a couple coaches from the high school as well as a local D3 men’s soccer assistant coach and on of BC’s compliance officers. There were two points made that will always stick out to me.</p>
<p>1) The bball coach mentioned in 9 years there had been 11 scholarship basketball players … not at our high school … in our league of 12 high schools which is located right next to Boston … about 1 a year … right about at the 1% of high school athletes will play D1 … to be a D1 talent is truely exceptional!</p>
<p>2) The BC compliance officer mentioned that the time commitment of being a varsity athlete was pretty much a year round commitment … this answer was given in response to a question about playing two sports … he then mentioned across all the men’s and women’s teams he believed there were 3-4 people playing two sports (excluding folks like cross country and track or indoor and outdoor track) … when he made this comment the D3 soccer coach face lit up. The D3 soccer than explained there were 5-6 dual sport players on the men’s soccer team alone and he would guess there were probably over 100 at his school. Sure seems to indicate a higher time commitment at BC to me … (and also it’s tougher to be a D1 level player in two sports)</p>
<p>A HS classmate & friend of S1 was recruited to play both basketball and baseball at Notre Dame next year. Given the challenges he will face, it’ll be interesting to watch his college experience evolve…both academically and athletically.</p>
<p>Per pacheight:</p>
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<p>Why thank you. It’s good to hit a new personal best. I’m not sure why you think it is stupid. Are you saying I am so obviously wrong? Not sure how much time you have spent looking at CalTech, as they would have been of absolutely no athletic value to your family, so if you don’t know much about it, please don’t accuse me of stupidity. Obviously, solid data are lacking so we will never settle this question with any certainty but being familiar with the schools, I stand by my statement. Now if we were talking social or emotional IQ, not academic, then I would have no argument.</p>
<p>Again per pacheight:</p>
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<p>I was going to comment earlier on the utter stupidity of this comment but refrained out of politeness. Now go take your morning meds please.</p>
<p>ETA: TTJ, agree. Just had to defend myself from the slander :D</p>
<p>I’m sure there are lots of students that need or want the study time provided in d3 programs. But that doesn’t mean the students in d1 programs in the same majors, possibly at the same school, need that extra time to be as or more successful academically.</p>
<p>And to say all the 2400 4.0 kids at hyps have lower iq’s than the 2400 4.0 kid at caltech is ridiculous.</p>
<p>One more difference I noticed (at least with DS sport/schools) When he narrowed down to the final 4 schools</p>
<p>Both D3 schools had coaches who had been there 20 years or more
Both D1 schools had coaches who had been there 3 years or less</p>
<p>In general I think there is more likely to be a coaching change over your 4-5 years in school in D1 than in D3. </p>
<p>Several friends of DS who chose a D1 school partly based on the coach now find that they have a new coach their sophomore or junior year</p>
<p>pacheight has to be a middle school aged kid or an immature adult who never grew up. I find so many posters that are helpful in cc, but your ignorant and stupid (redundant ? :)) posts are annoying as well as waste of time and space. I am going to d3 for soccer and I turned down 5 d1 offers, including 1 ivy. My cousin was voted Mr. soccer of his state and he is attending d3. I have many friends who played ussf academy soccer, that are attending d3. I won’t go into friends and acquaintances in other sports who are incredible athletes attending d3. Just don’t make stupid statements, it’s not too late to change yourself. :)</p>
<p>Talented athletes that go d3 are still 1st tier athletes but they are competing in a lower level. It’s not very often the best d3 program beats the top d1 teams…why is that an insulting notion. D3 is second tier from a competitive stand point</p>
<p>@pacheight
from a competitive standpoint D3 is just as competitive as D1; the reason why D3 programs cant beat top d1 teams: D1 athletes are just athletes, D3 athletes are STUDENT-athletes. I know this is very cliche but its true, D3 athletes must be admitted into the school based on their own grades, the coach can give a push but it wont let a C student with a 1600 SAT get into lets say Wesleyan to play the sport. D1 athletes are scholorshiped and at top tier programs they often just have to pass the NCAA clearing house reqs. (these are low)</p>
<p>bigA, I wish the best for you. When you’re in college and if you’re into sports you’ll learn that d1 sports are at a whole other level than d3. From Stanford football to UCLA Baseball to USC Golf to Cal Water Polo to Harvard Tennis to Brown Rowing you’ll find the athletes are bigger, faster, and a lot better than d3 athletes. You’ll also find that many are science and engineering majors and that they had 2200+, 4.0 stats coming in. A lot of these athletes have rock star academics and athletic talent.</p>
<p>This is an extremely high performing, highly competitive, group of individuals.</p>
<p>d3 is fine but let’s not pretend that the programs are as competitive as d1. Or that d3 athletes are somehow more academic than scholar athletes at Stanford or Harvard or Brown, etc etc…</p>
<p>Biganthony, I have to side with Pacheight… my son plays D1 golf at a UC and there is no way that any D3 team could come even remotely close to what these guys shoot. The academic rigors are tough at a UC as well so between conditioning, training, meetings practice rounds and school there is pretty much NO time for anything else. Thankfully he loves it and is planning on going pro (as most top D1 players are) after he graduates. D3 at least for mens golf is for guys who are not that serious or that good but still want an opportunity to play in college.</p>
<p>In swimming, Denison and Emory ( both D3 teams) are certainly better than the majority of D1 teams… I would love to see how well they would do against an Auburn, Georgia or Stanford.</p>
<p>Csifan, are you serious!!</p>
<p>Swimfan73…I am. I encourage you to compare the top times of the Denison and Emory swimmers against Xavier, Boston College, Georgetown, Univ of Richmond, Loyola, Bucknell, Duquesne, Georgia Southern, Fordham, Cornell and Davidson to name a few D1 schools. We swimmers tend to step up to meet the competition, which leads to my curiosity as to what type of insane swims Coach Parini and Coach Howell could get out of their swimmers against the best D1 schools. Check out the NCAA Division 3 results…it was a wicked fast meet in most events.</p>
<p>Wow, I didn’t mean to get this amount of controversy going…I really don’t think it is right to say D3 is more “academic” or D1 is “more competitive” I do think it is really very dependent on the sport and the school.
However, the rules for D3 greatly limit the amount of time the coach can demand from the athlete, and of course money and recruiting differ.
The point I wanted to make was that for all the time, money, and angst devoted pre-college, many student-athletes quit their sport-others give up a great deal to continue.
What do you think is best for YOU-or your child-here’s the collective wisdom.</p>
<p>Bucknell, Richmond and the others, please. how about Cal and Stanford? How do you think Emory women or men would do against them?</p>
<p>The lighter playing and practice schedules offered at D3 schools is testimony to the D3 philosophy that encourages D3 athletes to pursue their other interests and talents (music, arts, internships, travel abroad, double major) at a significant level. While there is undoubtedly more prestige involved in a D1 offer and scholarship from certain big name schools, the student athlete at <em>some</em> D1 programs may have less time/opportunities for double majors, lab intensive majors, time-intensive ECs. In contrast, <em>many</em> D3 programs have proven track records of offering the well-rounded athlete the opportunity to spend more time in activities other than the academics and sport. From our inquiries over the past 2 years, we found no D1 program (where D wanted to attend) where she could double major in time intensive majors as well as pursue an EC with a demanding time commitment (12-15 hours a week). Or if she could do it all, she would never sleep! </p>
<p>However, that being said, I don’t think D1 or D3 schools should be denigrated in any way–they both have unique programs to offer a variety of talented student athletes. I think that the most important reason to pick a school, whether D1 or D3, is for its academic programs. Success in sports requires more than desire and ability…success also involves some luck (coach, team chemistry, staying healthy, position fit). What I would say to all prospective student athletes: if you have the opportunity to play your sport(s) in college, go for it and play your heart out. This is college–a once in a lifetime opportunity!</p>