My junior daughter is a solid lacrosse player who fell in love with the sport freshman year while on a break from club basketball. She does not play club lacrosse but has attended several showcases and camps.
She has strong interest from a few NESCAC colleges but has her heart set on playing for an ivy. She emailed colleges that are a fit for her academically and whose coaches have seen her play, and early responses have been that all recruiting spots for her class are full; the coaches invited her to tryout if she gains admission on her own.
At this point, we’re not sure what to do. Should she focus on narrowing down her choices among the NESCAC schools that have shown interest and/or continue to chase her ivy league dream? Are colleges likely to have spots for walk-ons? My feeling is her class was filled before the rules about early recruiting changed and that we are late to the party. We’re new to recruiting so any advice is appreciated.
My sense is that you are a couple of years too late for the Ivy League schools. A local junior I know committed to an Ivy League school in 8th grade!
Walking on is also difficult at D1 schools (assuming of course your daughter gets in to the Ivy). If it were my DD and she absolutely wanted to play in college I would pursue being a recruit at a NESCAC school where she is not late to the recruting game.
Understand that lax isn’t like other sports at an Ivy. The Ivy teams are often rated in the top 20 of D1 schools so making a team is hard. Last year Princeton was #7, Cornell #11, Penn #12. In the country. Pretty tough to make those teams. I think it will also matter where she is playing now. If she doesn’t play club, you are comparing her to other high schoolers in your area. That’s fine if she’s in Baltimore playing with the top kids in the country. If you are in another area of the country, you’ll be shocked at the high level of play the mid-Atlantic kids play. D1 players are also, on the whole, bigger.
Nothing wrong with following up with the D3 coaches that are interested in her while still applying to Ivy schools. Does she want to go to an Ivy if she can’t play lacrosse?
@cupugu Thanks for the reply. That’s my feeling too with the ivies. 8th grade—wow! Early recruiting started so much earlier than we realized.
@twoinanddone You make a great point about skill comparison. We are in an up-and-coming area for lacrosse (Colorado) but traveled to the East Coast to attend showcases and camps. She noted that the girls were stronger/faster than expected. Ideally, she does want to play either lacrosse or basketball in college but she fell in love with an ivy while at camp and would love to attend even if she can’t make the team.
The NESCAC would be a good academic/athletic fit for her too so I will continue encouraging her to follow-up with those coaches who’ve shown interest.
I don’t think it is an “either/or” at this point in time. Your D may continue to communicate with the Ivy and “work-over” as many other appropriate schools as she can. That said, it seems rather unlikely that she will be an athletic recruit at the Ivy. I have come to believe that an invitation to tryout for a team if an athlete is admitted to a school is “coach speak” for “we don’t see a fit here.”
I don’t have experience with chasing an Ivy without a hook – the folks I know that have gotten in were academically perfect. And, there were many academically perfect kids I knew who didn’t get in. Instead of just giving the stats of the 25-75th percentiles that were admitted, I wish schools also would give the 25-75th percentiles who were rejected. The kids tend to look at those admitted percentiles and conclude, “hey, I am in that range,” without knowing how many within that range are rejected. All I am saying is that falling in love with any school before you are accepted is a dangerous thing, but you know that.
The greatest danger is that your D is so in love with the Ivy that she refuses to apply ED to a NESCAC. Most of the NESCAC coaches are up front that athletic recruits are expected to apply early and that coach support is far less meaningful in the RD round. Most D3 athletic recruits (particularly in the NESCAC) do apply ED in exchange for coach support with admissions. There are a number of threads on this site about this topic, and there are some folks who did not apply early but still were admitted. Although they are less likely to surface on this site, if you ask the NESCAC athletes who are close to their coach, they will recount many instances of those who chose to apply RD over ED and were rejected.
BTW, NESCAC women’s Lax is quite strong. Just check out how many NESCAC teams are invited to the D3 NCAA women’s lax tournament as proof (winner of league is automatic)
@gointhruaphase I appreciate your thoughtful reply. Deciphering “coach speak” has been a challenge throughout this whole process. Hours spent reading threads here and on LaxPower have helped tremendously.
I warned her against falling in love with a school but she’s a teenager. Certainly, she has some wonderful schools to consider as far as lacrosse, but they might not be the best academic fit. We’re applying the “broken leg” test and considering academics first.
Thanks for the tip about ED. There is some pressure with needing to make a decision in order to meet those deadlines. Hopefully, she will have a better idea of fit once we have a chance to visit schools this spring/summer.
It will be hard to get a spot on a roster junior year for class of 2019 because they committed before the rules changed last spring. We are in the mid-Atlantic and girls from our school have been committed to Ivy/Stanford since 8th grade. Mine is a freshman so she is just starting now and can’t really talk to coaches until next year - so this answer depends on what year your child graduates (for those who might have a current freshman and be freaking out that their child isn’t committed). For current juniors though it’s pretty late for Ivy League but good timing for NESCAC as I know several girls talking to the NESCAC lacrosse coaches and making decisions who are current juniors.
One thing I will tell you that may give your daughter hope is that a 2017 grad from our school got into an Ivy on her own and then the coach let her walk onto the team after seeing her tape (and hearing from the high school coach). Again, this is mid-Atlantic and she was a good player. She just didn’t want to let lacrosse be the reason she went somewhere and she clearly had the chops to get in.
As someone pointed out earlier, there are some great NESCAC schools in D3 including Middlebury and Trinity that are known to be more lax powerhouses. Most NESCAC schools have strong lacrosse teams as well as strong academics - including my alma mater Bates whose mens team went undefeated in the regular season against its fellow NESCAC rivals. But I digress. Good luck OP.
@mountainsoul, regarding timing, all of the top D3 lacrosse teams will complete pre-reads by end of Summer, and the coach’s will have submitted their list of slot and tip players for ED I after overnights in the early Fall.
Not certain if you surf Lax Power, but you’ll see D3 commitments for Class of 2018-2019. While NESCAC doesn’t allow it prior to Pre-Read after July 1, it is still reflected as such at least by the prospective student-athletes - maybe showing it is a Recruit and not Commit is the distinction…
While some spots are likely open during ED II, I suspect all of the top teams fill their rosters in ED. Aside from that, some of the top programs actually over-commit and then have tryouts in the Fall of Freshman year.
Agree with @gointhruaphase post above. The nuance is that if your daughter is high up on a NESCAC/academic D3 coach’s list athletically and has great academics so that she would be in the top band, she may still get some support in the RD round. We had a similar situation as yours with S. He did not make the final recruit cut for an Ivy, with the coach telling him to walk on if he got in (btw, after he got in, the coach did tell him he could walk on with a no cut commitment so at least in this case it was not “coach speak”). He had several “offers” from academic D3’s (NESCAC and others) but he chose to apply to the Ivy EA and got in. He was very upfront with all the D3 coaches and told them he was not going to apply ED by late Sept/early October. Going into late December, a majority of the coaches reached out to him to see if he was going to apply RD or possibly ED2. His case may be an exception and it was also likely driven by the recruiting success/lack of success of the coaches, but I think it helped quite a bit that S was very open and communicated in a timely manner with the coaches. Lax may be a completely different world though.
@LMC9902 That does give me some hope! The coaches who responded to her with an offer to tryout have seen her play and gave her positive feedback. She has the academic stats and other hooks beside athletics for the ivy league so she won’t cross any schools off her list just yet. Lax players in the mid-Atlantic definitely have an advantage with the caliber of lacrosse played there plus great lacrosse schools practically in your backyard. It’s not easy (or cheap) to attend an east coast showcase when you live in the middle of the country. I agree that NESCAC schools have strong academics, but the choices for her interests in scientific research and/or applied math seem limited.
@Chembiodad Thanks for the reply! I haven’t visited LaxPower in awhile but will check out the listings for 2019s. D took the SAT this past fall and forwarded her scores and mid-year transcript to coaches who requested them. The response has been positive so we believe she is still being recruited (though I would not be comfortable posting it on LaxPower). Everything just seems to change so quickly! CC has many stories about recruits who put their faith in coaches only to be let down. We are very concerned about over recruitment which is why we are keeping academics at the forefront. If she were to tryout and not make the team, then the blow would be softened by being at a school she loves.
@BKSquared Your comment makes me hopeful too! I’m glad to hear it all worked out for your S.
@mountainsoul, sounds like good progress has been made in outreach. Agree on not throwing college names out too early, before NLI or EA/ED admission, as nothing is gained form the student-athlete’s perspective, although I do think club coaches and recruiting showcases see a lot of value in the practice.
Several of the NESCAC’s have a large % of Math majors - as much as 10%, and the # of courses shouldn’t be a concern. There is a CC thread that went through this Ivy vs top-NESCAC comparison of Math programs in detail and no difference was found - the particular analysis compared Penn and Amherst.
I am a NESCAC dad and absolutely agree on academics/school fit first as few will ever make a living in their sport.
Never give up hope, because you never know what is going to happen particularly if you have enough irons in the fire. I am not one who advocates for crossing schools off early, so I do encourage the communications to continue with the Ivy.
That said, context is everything. Perhaps @BKSquared’s son was being actively recruited by the Ivy, but didn’t make the final cut. Significant interest, but he pulled the long straw. That is a very different circumstance from a lukewarm email trail that ended with the comment “we are full now, but if you get in, you can tryout.” I stand by my general comment that this statement is not an encouraging one – unless, specific, individual circumstances like a coach saying “we really love you. . . if only . . . unfortunately our recruiting class was full 3 years ago.”
If you get the chance, ask how many walk-ons the team has had in the last 3 to 4 years. The higher up in the rankings the team is, the fewer there will be. One wouldn’t expect to walk on to BC or Maryland or UNC. The Ivy lax players are that same quality.
If your daughter cares about playing time, being a walk-on player might not be the best choice. Almost all D1 recruits were superstars in high school but there isn’t enough room on the field for all of them to start, to get enough playing time, to shine. If you look at most college teams, they are freshmen heavy and the seniors and juniors who remain are the ones who actually get playing time. There are 12 on the field at a time so the top 12 start, the next 6-8 sub in and out, and the rest cheer enthusiastically from the bench (which can be fun, but most want to be on the field). It’s hard to be fourth on the depth chart.
At the end of the day its all about the relative importance of academics and general “fit and feel” vs. continuing in a sport your daughter loves. One thing I would caution is even though Ivy league teams generally have a better balance between sports and academics than the average D1 program, they are still D1 and in sports where they are nationally competitive (like lax), the amount of time they need to spend in practice and in the gym year round is huge. Your D needs to be fully cognizant of that. S did the calculus that @twoinanddone mentioned above and opted to play club ball in his sport, which has worked out well for him. Rather than start at the bottom of the depth chart and have to put in huge hours in the gym and on the field, he practices once a week and otherwise just plays games where he is a starter. My D is a varsity athlete at a NESCAC and has started since freshmen year. Her schedule is intense during season but is manageable, even as a STEM major. She also has teammates that play 2 varsity sports, which may be something that is attractive to your D.
@BKSquared, absolutely agree on balance. As you noted, D3 can be intense enough when trying to balance a rigorous academic environment. Our DD is a NESCAC XC/Track (three-season) student-athlete and as such they are practicing 2+hours/day, 6 days/week, Fall/Winter/Spring - not the same as some D1’s, but a big commitment regardless.
The NESCAC’s make it easier for student-athletes to practice in the afternoon as all classes end by 4:00 - I assume other D3’s follow a similar policy. That’s in addition to morning weight-training and practices in some sports.
Really, how many schools have classes after 4 pm that are required for the major? My daughter does have one this year (she’s a senior) and it is the only section offered, so she misses one hour of practice twice a week. She wanted to take a morning lab one semester and her coach made her take the afternoon one because the coach didn’t want her leaving morning practice early (or on time). This semester she does have one class that is only offered from 4-6 pm, so daughter misses one hour of practice twice a week.
Your DD may want to look at Tufts, which is a bit of an outlier in the NESCAC because of its size. A good NESCAC women’s lax team, not the top. But most Ivies are bigger than not LACs, so it might be a better fit (without knowing what made her dream school dreamy.)
@BKSquared@Chembiodad You both make excellent points about balance and that is something D and I have discussed a lot. She was turned off by the practice schedule of a local D1 school (I believe they told her six hours/day not including lifting). I thought Princeton and possiby Cornell had similar 4:00 cutoffs for classes. Still, a school where she can play one or two varsity sports, complete a STEM major, and still have some free time would suit her best. NESCAC schools seem to fit the bill.
@twoinanddone Playing time is a also a factor. She could be a supportive bench player but she would prefer a larger role. My impression after looking at rosters and watching game film is she would be an impact player for some of the interested schools.
@gointhruaphase She was told by the coach at school x to keep her posted about the application process and that she would be in touch if D was accepted. The coach had already seen her play over the summer so I thought perhaps there was genuine interest.
Tons of helpful information as usual. A huge “thank you” to everyone who contributed to the discussion!