^That’s wonderful that he has family in MA for those short breaks. Where my D goes to school, there are no extra days at Easter and she chose not to drive the 5 hours each way for dinner. There are also a couple of 3 day weekends that a student might like to get off campus and have some time with extended family. Not to mention if/when he may get ill or hurt, nice to have someone close by for emergency contact.
As someone with a kid on FA at a school fairly far away, I’d just like to say that travel is often included in the FA package and does take into account where the student lives. It seems to assume 2 round trips a year. Very nice to have family close for a variety of reasons though.
For midwest colleges that would match him well, I just want to reiterate Grinnell and Carleton. My youngest and his friends went through this whole rigamarole this year, some combining high academics and D3 sports.
Another that somewhat sporty kids tend to love is St. Olaf.
It would seem that a valedictorian in a class of 350 and potential National AP scholar would be a shoo-in for a top college but under holistic admissions the reach colleges are still uncertain. A sports hook with a coach’s endorsement (i.e. admissions pre-read) would significantly boost the student’s chance of admissions at one of the reach schools.
You mention Pomona as a (unrealistic) reach, but with you son’s stats, I don’t agree. Coupled with soccer, it might be a fit for him. Pomona-Pitzer has a great men’s soccer team- one of my son’s former club teammates plays there and I think your son has better stats. If I were you, I would be bombarding the coach and assistant coaches there with emails containing links to a high-light video and including you son’s stats (your son, not you, should be sending the e-mails). While they cannot contact your son at this point, your son can certainly contact them. It is definitely not too early to start sending out emails to coaches at target schools. As you acknowledged, while D3 can’t offer athletic scholarships, the coach may still be able to tip the scales towards getting him admitted, and his stats may help with an academic scholarship. Have him put together a short e-mail including stats, a head-shot (always good for coaches to be able to put a face with a name), a video link, and soccer accomplishments. Always include a schedule of up-coming tournaments with specifics and invite coaches to attend. Always cc all assistant coaches as often they are the ones doing initial recruiting-also always check the school website for the current coach list before sending out emails as coaches change often. He can start leaving messages for coaches too- while they can’t initiate contact, I believe they can talk to him if they happen to answer (It’s been a few years since we went thru this so not sure if rules have changed). Have him be persistent but not obnoxious- I am still convinced that my son ended up playing soccer at his top pick because he called the coach so much that when the coach first met him, he commented “so this is the infamous “John Smith”” with a laugh. My son always texted the coach after tournaments with an updated report; goals scored, games won, etc. Soon the coach was texting him first asking how his games went. If your son ends up at Surf Cup, have him be sure to let the PP coach know his schedule as I know they attend. This goes with any school he is interested in. While D3 doesn’t recruit as early and D1 or 2, they are still always on the look-out. We came up with a list of academic fits and then DS started reaching out to coaches at those schools.
In my experience Scipio is somewhat overstating the scores needed for the top schools. 
^^I agree that it is certainly feasible for kid with great grades and other achievements to get into some of the reaches with scores lower than 1570 or 35, but I was just aiming at scores that would put him in the admissions stratosphere, so to speak, where getting into the very top colleges becomes a realistic possibility rather than a long shot with Powerball odds of success.
OP – listen to Scipio. He speaks the truth.
Your kid’s PSAT scores are top 3% – 97th percentile. Maybe that gets your kid NM commended, but it is well short of NMSF or NMF. Good, but far from great, at the schools being discussed.
If your kid is a recruited soccer athlete, that is WAY more than he will need to get in. Because the recruited athlete hook is POWERFUL at these high end LACs. The only better hook is being African American. But if he’s not a recruited soccer athlete, that score is BELOW AVERAGE at many of the schools being discussed.
Let’s take Pomona as an example. 25-75% ACT range is 31-34. ACT 31 is roughly the 96th percentile.
If he’s not a recruited athlete, he isn’t going to get into Pomona with his current standardized test score. He’s a below average applicant at a school with a 9% admit rate.
If he is a recruited athlete, he’ll sail through the admissions office with flying colors. You can use soccer to get him into one of these fancy LACs. And then the fancy meet full need financial aid available at those schools will be how you pay for it.
Agree with Northwesty & Scipio. A highly recruited athlete can have an Academic Index as low as 176 to be admitted to a top school. This student’s test scores look like they will be comfortably above that threshold. Check out the book “The Essential Guide to Ivy League Athletic Recruiting”.
Thanks all. I’m taking this all in, knowing that scores and such are very subjective with a holistic process like admissions. @northwesty, I appreciate your realism (really, no sarcasm there…it’s why I asked the question in the first place). @takeitallin thanks for the road map for contacting colleges…we’re going to take this to heart. @Magnetron I like all the midwest colleges you mentioned. Hoping we can swing a trip to that part of the US soon to show S some of them. He’s never been to the midwest with the exception of a trip to Chicago, so he just can’t imagine himself there yet.
Lots of great advice here. A few more to consider would be Lafayette, Colgate, Hamilton, Franklin and Marshall. Male, soccer and great stats- a good package. You may need a more focused strategy to whittle down your choices, since most lacs will consider interest to be very important.
USNWR profiled an athlete accepted at a top 10 LAC with a 3.3 GPA and an of SAT of 1650 out of 2400. Though an outlier, by itself, indicates little that pertains to other students with similar profiles, it would seem to indicate that students in a somewhat higher academic range have a significant advantage in admissions, at least at this particular school.
Out of curiosity, does your son do any athletic training beyond regular soccer practice such private training with the coaching staff or working with a fitness professional? If he doesn’t and he has a desire to get invited up to the traveling academy team, then sitting here in the “peanut gallery” I’ve seen many HS athletes seek additional training, skill and/or fitness, in order to improve their situation. And now would be a good time to do it.
The downside is the additional financial obligation. The upside is the traveling academy team will offer him added exposure to college coaches around the country. Think of it as a bit like SAT prep on the academic side of the ledger.
D3 soccer recruiting at the top 25 LACs is extraordinarily competitive. The east coast coaches have often had the opportunity to watch players in the Northeast and Mid Atlantic region through DA matches, so a kid from a different region has to really stand out at a national tournament or recruiting camp to get a serious look. Fold in considerations about style of play, team dynamics, coach personality, and the list of potential schools which are a soccer “fit” can shrink quickly. Even when you think you have a good fit, things can fall apart for unknown reasons, and the coach doesn’t always tell the kid that they have moved on.
An effective search starts wide, with both admission and soccer safeties/sure things, matches and reaches, and works the recruiting process at all of them. There will likely be a sweet spot come fall of senior year, with at least one school which the kid wants to go to, can get in, and is a recruit, but it takes a while to get there.
I just want to add about Pomona that a coach we spoke to (different sport) strongly encouraged my kid to apply to Pitzer because she knew that admissions were much easier there. So athletics doesn’t hold as much sway at Pomona as other places. The athlete still needs the academic stats to get beyond the admissions office.
Tennis – that’s very misleading advice.
Pitzer is less selective than Pomona. For athletes, for non-athletes. For everyone. ACT range 29-32 vs. 31-34. So admissions will be easier there…for everyone. That says nothing about whether (or how much) Pomona eases up on its admission requirements for athletes.
But all these schools give SERIOUS breaks to recruited athletes. The only hook that is better (according to those who have studied it in detail) is being African American. I know a kid who got into Pomona as an athlete whose ACT score began with a 2 rather than a 3 fwtw.
The key to this particular game is to find someplace where (i) you are good enough in your sport to be a recruited athlete AND (ii) your academic stats are above the standard that school applies to ATHLETES.
You can’t be a dummy, but you can be average/below average as compared to the overall student enrollment.
@sushiritto regarding his club level, he’s at the level now of regional premiere, which is the top traveling team in our area. The next level for us (I think the one you’re referring to) is the premiere Timbers club (a level up from the regional Timbers club that he’s on). A friend’s son (from our son’s team last year) was recruited up to that level, but since it involved traveling across the US, he had to drop out of his high school and be home schooled. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not what my son wants to do. So all this to say, he’s at the highest club level he wants to/can/is willing to do.
Based on watching game play videos on YouTube for Div III schools he’s interested in and talking to his past and present coaches, we feel reasonably sure he has the ability to play at the DIII level…somewhere. Whether he’s good enough to get the attention he needs from across the country? I am not as confident. What an intense but interesting process.
Who has studied that in detail? Curious.
Look into Lawrence in Wisconsin for good merit money award, and pleasant small city environment. Geographic diversity-factor will help at Midwest LACs, as will being a male applicant.
@wrldpossibility Yes, I was referring to the top academy team.
I know and have known several male players, and female too, though there path is slightly different, who played at the top academy level (SJ Earthquakes). And all went to their local high schools.
There’s one girl who’s a classmate and friend of my D and plays for a U20 national team. She’ll disappear for a couple weeks every so often, but she’s an amazing student as well. In fact, she’ll be playing for Penn in 2018.