I am a potential nescac recruit for swimming and am curious of the swimming atmosphere there. I realize that this probably differs from school to school, but how are the teams? Are they extremely intense? Do they have a good balance with academics? How time consuming are they? How close are the teams? I’m just curious about what I may be getting into. Thanks in advance for your comments.
Generally, NESCACs are academically oriented colleges where you would also swim, not colleges where you would swim and also do academics. This same philosophy, at least in principle, applies to every sport at these colleges, but I think it is even more likely to be the case with a mostly individual sport like swimming. Even at that, it has been agreed upon that NESCAC football teams, for example, must exclude themselves from post-season play. This should give you some idea of these colleges’ overall priorities.
Bear in mind, also, that at most NESCAC colleges 35-40 percent of students participate in varsity athletics in any given year. If your goal is to be able to both swim and have a full, typical college life, then you should be able to do so.
We recently did a tour of four NESCAC schools for our oldest son who is a swimmer. I don’t think there’s a better DIII conference for swimming anywhere in the US. And by “better” I mean the perfect combination of competitive and fun. The swim teams at the schools we visited – Williams, Amherst, Middlebury, and Bowdoin – all seem extraordinarily close, hard-working and fun-loving. Williams is traditionally the fastest (by a good margin). Coach Kuster is very well liked all around, highly competent, and surprisingly easy going. I’ve seen it suggested that he’s among the top swim coaches in the country. He still holds swimming records at Penn, his alma mater. Coach Nichols at Amherst struck us as friendly, highly competent, and also very savvy and smart. He is currently serving as the athletic liaison for admissions at Amherst, so you can rely on what he says about your chances for admission. He calls it like he sees it. If he tells you “you’re good,” then you’re good. Middlebury was probably our favorite. The facilities at Middlebury are absolutely gorgeous and so is the campus and the setting. And Coach Rueppel was fantastic. He obviously loves what he does; he wants his kids to succeed; and his coaching by all accounts is absolutely first-rate. But he also understands that school comes first, and he made that very clear (which we appreciated). We could not have been more impressed. As with the other three colleges, Bowdoin is one of the great liberal arts colleges in America, and our interactions with Coach Burnham were all excellent. He’s got a technical expertise that is truly impressive, and I can’t imagine that you could find a more thoughtful, intelligent, or caring coach.
Again, you couldn’t do better than these four at any other college in the country. But you could probably do as well at several of the other NESCAC schools or at Grinnell, Carleton, Pomona, Claremont McKenna, Kenyon, Washington and Lee or a half-dozen others. It’s an embarrassment of riches when you’re looking at top academic DIII swim programs.
NESCAC is a great conference with good competition and great rivalries. Students also don’t have to travel far which is great. Williams, Amherst, Tufts, Bates and Connecticut College are ranked in Top 25 - 30 nationally.