Prep season is only one season. But then there’s a winter sport (required) and a spring sport (required). Soccer at prep is only in the fall and the prep team will not do anything outside of the season (except for pre season).
Black rock is different and you’d need to figure out which schools have that as an option.
Regularly though a BS is not going to help coordinate anything with your club team. So getting to every practice and game will be up to your kid, and maybe a really nice day parent. Every school will tell you it’s doable. Technically I suppose it is doable but it is also brutally hard.
I’d look for a school where a spring sport is not required. I’d look for a school that was in the black rock area. Or find a school with much less rigorous academics. Other than that I just don’t think it’s a healthy path.
South Kent might also be an exception. I don’t know anything about it. But I suspect academically it’s pretty far down the rigor scale from Milton and Taft.
My nephews attend Lawrenceville. I know for a fact that one of them has a boarding roommate who plays for a club. They say it’s brutal on him and he may not continue next year. He is not doing it alone. There is another student playing for the same team. (by coincidence) The two boys Uber together to games and they have been excused from the club fall practices. I don’t know if they are also excused from spring practices. I am also unaware how competitive the club team is (ECNL, etc…). Apparently, his parents drove “from his hometown” last June to bring the boy to the try outs. Lawrenceville has nothing to do with it- other than granting him permission to leave campus for weekend games and tournaments.
So, where did the college id coaches put your son’s level at?
Where did your club DOC and coaches place your son’s level at?
Schools like Tufts, Amherst, WashU, etc are not only top academic schools, but often top D3 soccer schools. Look the D3 NCAA brackets.
We just had NLI/Ceremony day and LOTS 2022 did not get committed, 2022 that should have been committed. 2023 is not looking super, either. 2024 will probably be hard also. This is triply harder for boys to get committed.
So, get a brutally honest assessment of your son’s ability to play top D3 soccer before putting your 16 year old boy into the meat grinder of boarding school and club soccer far away from home. The words you want to hear is impact player at any D3.
How far along are you? BS applications? SSAT/ISEE? Interviews? Sending film and getting a tip from the AD? Sending film to the clubs to see if they will take him? Long journey…Good luck.
Commitment probability for 22’s and 23’s is directly proportional to both exposure, and how early the players started contacting coaches. Targeting correctly is also incredibly important. Boarding schools alone don’t offer enough exposure to reliably produce recruits generally.
I agree, but this extra year of eligibility is messing things up.
Less overall spots or more spots being taken by higher level players. Cascading effect? Feels off. Too many tears for the '21 and '22. Couple '23 that should have been first wave verbals…nothing. We are preparing for the worst case scenario.
I just picked up my kid from a boarding school in CT for a break. He did a fall club sports and he enjoyed playing at highly competitive level but is not looking forward to it. He regrets he was away from the weekend activities organized by the school to jump start community building process. He insisted he rather wakes up 4 in the morning on Sat and drive hours to a club games rather than driving Friday eve and have a good rest. He rather stays at school Friday night to enjoy “most beautiful time of the week hanging out with friends and dorm masters.”
His school does off season practices and even tournament participation here and there without violating their prep league’s rule. After all coaches are concerned about lack of club sports practices among boarding kids.