OP- do not ignore large U’s in favor of lesser small colleges. Like any large city large U’s are made up of smaller neighborhoods/groupings. Students cluster with people they live with initially then with those in their major. Your son should not sacrifice the most appropriate school for his interests because he wants a too small environment.
I know the OP is not from WI. Just pointing out that Lawrence does not have a better than other options reputation in its location.
OP- your son should be looking at options. Keep options open at this stage. Most schools will place him at the top like in HS. He needs to figure out if this is what he wants or if he wants to be challenged by better students. This happens at state flagships (think honors) and elite schools.
You and he also need to realize that his passion for soccer will change as he knows it is not viable as a professional. There are many good athletes who choose academics over sports and find time for keeping up with comparable athletes while getting the academics they deserve.
It isn’t clear from your post whether your son’s 4.0 is out of a possible 4.0 or whether it is out of a much higher possible score. Some public schools weight GPAs out of a possible 5.0 or even higher. That information plus board scores would be important to know.
Without knowing that and assuming that your son plays at a very high level, here are my thoughts. Pomona is tough. It gives very little in the line of an admissions bump for athletes. The NESCAC is far more predictable. One or two impact players (slots) will be recruited with allowance for a dip in admissions standards. The rest will be in the mix of the bulk of applicants (tips). There are a number of soccer programs that vary from year to year in performance (of course), but have had very top years. Of those on your list, I would include Bowdoin, Haverford and Vassar. Colby, Bates and Hamilton tend to end up in the middle to the bottom of the pack in NESCAC standings, although Hamilton had a good year this year. However, the NESCAC is such a good league in soccer that it is not unusual for 2 or 3 teams to make the NCAA tournament.
I have always been a fan of Conn College soccer because the coach works really hard to recruit good kids. The team is always a NESCAC wildcard with good players. My sense is that Trinity is not quite as vibrant of a program, but not far off.
If you are looking at Dickinson, I would look at F & M which has a strong soccer program.
Other thoughts: Wesleyan (had an off year this year, but has been very strong in the past) and Hobart. Also take a look at Carnegie Mellon. Don’t forget the Div. 1 Patriot League schools (Bucknell, Lafayette, Lehigh, Colgate).
Since you are at a distance from these schools, I highly recommend making contact with the coaches NOW. I usually suggest meeting face to face with the coach, but that may be tougher for you to do. Ask your son to send emails to the coaches with grades and soccer experience and suggest a telephone call with the coach. Try to figure out what positions are graduating, so you can tell what the program needs and how your S will fit into the program. Making tapes is critical. Make a CV of achievements in high school to send off to coaches as well. Make sure to request an unofficial transcript before your HS closes for the summer.
Don’t forget that geographic diversity is important to the eastern LACs.
Setting aside the soccer/recruiting part of the thread… as far as his list goes I agree with considering St Lawrence as a target, Patriot League schools as targets, perhaps consider Allegheny for a safe LAC (in addition to his “safe” state school). I’d also mention UVM but I don’t think there could be enough aid there even with merit to warrant a look.
I am a bit biased as my daughter’s there, but I strongly recommend F&M (as have others). It’s got a good preppy vibe, strong sports support, and phenomenal financial aid (100% of need). Also great grad school & job placement and alumni support. It has a bit of a reputation as the safety school for kids applying to HYP, and there are definitely some of those kids there, but we’ve been really impressed with the quality of everything. Run the NPC and do some research – I think you’ll be pleased.
@Pheebers thanks to your (and others’) recs, we’ve added F&M to the list, thank you! @lr4550 agree about UVM. DS17 was admitted to their environmental science program this year, and the school appealed to him but he chose to go elsewhere because they couldn’t come close to matching the merit and grant aid money (esp since we’re out of state).
@gointhruaphase to answer your question, his 4.0 is unweighted, out of a possible 4.0 at his hs. When weighted by colleges, I don’t know exactly what it would be, but decently higher, since he’s taken two college credit classes in partnership with the local community college and honors/AP offerings. I do have a question about this:
Should he do this now, at the end of sophomore year? Seems premature to me, since he will take the PSAT and SAT next fall. Should we wait to send in fall of junior year when he has these stats in hand?
My D3 soccer player started emailing coaches spring of sophomore year, and met with several that spring – we were trying to gauge whether he wanted a LAC and D3 soccer so it was a way to determine which fork in the road he was going down. At that point, the coaches knew he had a high gpa in the most rigorous curriculum, but no test scores.
So yes, I would start the initial contacts now. This is the relative down period for most D3 programs, as the spring season is ending and after tomorrow coaches will know who is coming RD and might fill out some roster needs. Programs are looking ahead to recruiting, planning their tournament and camps.
@camel1234 – I’m interested in learning more about that, since the NESCAC statement of practices does not prohibit merit awards, but historically, I understood the NESCAC schools only provided need based awards.
He’d be a good match for University of Richmond. Our eldest goes there. We have a similar budget and our daughter will graduate with under 5k in student loans and we’ve been able to pay out-of-pocket for the rest. That includes study abroad and the summer internship that they paid for (every student gets one despite financial status.)
I agree to look closely at the NPC. We’ve been searching for our 2nd child. The calculators range us paying from 13k to 24k at full needs schools. Pay attention to how they meet need. Some fill in extra loan even over the standard 5500 standard loan. Some add an unreasonable work study (4K is hard to earn through work study… just getting a campus job with the budget to pay out that much can be tough… some schools work study jobs are hard to come by period.)
@Midwestmomofboys - Everything I read here on CC, and the Kiplinger’s Best College Values list indicated that ConnCollege and the rest of the NESCAC schools did not offer merit aid - but they did offer my son a $20K annual merit award for 2017-2018.
I can’t give you any explanation for their policy change, though I do suspect that they are trying hard to attract more male students. I’ve posted a link to the thread I started last year so you can see the stats and results for my average-to-almost-CC-level-excellent kiddo: