Please help a shy kid with college list (31 ACT, looking for small universities and LACs).

College Search & Selection
1

After helping D’17 with a long and stressful college search process, I thought I’d have a little break before starting with my son, but I’ve been recruited to help my sweet nephew who is a rising senior.

He is a good student and a lacrosse player who is quite shy and doesn’t have many ECs outside of lacrosse. He attends a fairly competitive suburban hs in the southeast and will apply to the state flagship and another excellent state school. He has always liked UNC-CH due to attending lacrosse camps there, and he will apply (I’ve told them how competitive it is for out of state students). Now that I’ve visited many LACs over the past year and a half, I really think he would like and do well at a smaller school. I really see him thriving and growing at a school like that. He agrees and is open to LACs and smaller universities (but he’s also open to large). Location is not super important but the southeast and east coast may be preferable and a large college town or near a city is desired. I think he is a strong enough lacrosse player to play at a division III school, but they haven’t really pursued the whole recruitment thing (but does travel lacrosse in the summer and plays in several out of state tournaments).

He doesn’t do very well in language arts and his ACT reading score is low. He has always been a very literal kid - college essays will be a challenge. Very sweet and quiet - teachers like him but may not have a lot to say about him in letters of rec.

GPA: UW-3.7, W-4.2
ACT: C-31 (M-36,S-34,E-29,R-26)
AP Gov (3), AP World (4), AP Chem (4), AP Stat (4), APUSH (5)
Senior year AP classes: Physics, APES, AB Calc
Lacrosse: 6 years lax, 2 years reffing, represented Team Georgia in Brine National Lacrosse Classic, JV Captain, JV and Varsity Scholar Ahtlete, Captain of 3D travel club lacrosse team
Some volunteer lacrosse coaching and some other limited volunteer work.
Clubs: DECA, Invest club, Junior Beta Club
Gold in the National Spanish Exam

He really doesn’t know what he wants to do or study but he likes history and statistics. He’s not interested in engineering or comp sci at this point. I could see him majoring in stats or accounting possibly.

Family will be full pay and are prepared for that, but I’m sure they would be interested in some merit if possible.

In a couple of weeks, they will visit Furman, Davidson and Elon.
Other schools of interest: U. Richmond, Wake Forest, Boston College
I have suggested: Lafayette, Villanova, Clark, Tulane
Mercer as a safety

I’d love other suggestions. Thanks!

2

Loyola MD reminds me somewhat of Villanova, but is about half the size, is an easier admit, and offers merit more readily. Very good business school, nice neighborhood on outskirts of Baltimore. They do have a lacrosse team but I have no idea how competitive it is.

3

My S is a quiet kid who will be in a similar situation in a couple of years. If your nephew is visiting Lafayette and Villanova, two other PA colleges to consider are Dickinson and Franklin & Marshall. They are not as sports-focused as Lafayette and Villanova, but they do have lacrosse teams he might be able to play for. And my impression is that they seem like pretty welcoming places. Also, they look to me to be reasonable match schools for your nephew’s stats. Dickinson has some merit aid, while F&M does not.

4

Loyola is a top Lacrosse school in Division 1.

I think that at this point if he were recruitable even at Division III he would have heard from coaches by now. I don’t know much about athletic recruiting so some parents should be able to give you more info. I’m going to tag @RightCoaster as his son was/is a lacrosse player that had some recruitment and he knows more than I do.

As far as schools you could look at some of the mid-west LACs that have lacrosse like Beloit, Aurora, Monmouth College, Cornell College if he wants to keep playing.

5

How about Rhodes

6

I am going to add on to a couple of midwest colleges to look at - Carthage College and Lake Forest College. They have D-III Lacrosse programs and with those stats, would get merit aid (both around 20K range).

7

My D went to Lafayette and loved it. Some other schools she liked that may work for your S are Franklin & Marshall, Muhlenberg, and Dickinson.

Adding on to @LuckyCharms913 some of other Jesuit schools (ex. Fordham, Fairfield, Loyola MD, Loyola New Orleans, maybe UScranton as a safety) as well as Providence may be good fits as well. Siena could be another nice safety for him. FWIW my shy son went to Fordham and thrived.

I don’t know if any have good lacrosse programs though.

8

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I should clarify though that lacrosse is not that important to him in choosing the college. He is a strong player and has really enjoyed it, but would be fine to play club lacrosse if the school is a good fit and they have a club team. If he really wanted to pursue it, he would have done showcases this summer but it is not really a priority.

9

@Dolemite - see my post #7. You are right that he would have heard from coaches by now. I don’t know a lot about lacrosse but he does have a friend/teammate who was recruited as a sophomore to play at JHU. The kid is really not much better than my nephew but he pursued recruiting, used connections etc. It’s just not that important to my nephew but I’m sure he would like to play at least at the club level.

10

Is he planning on trying the ACT one more time in September? Is he planning to apply to UGa, GT assuming that those are his in-state publics? GT may only look at Math and English for the ACT.

How about College of Charleston - they have an Honors Program. USC-Columbia Honors. At UAH he’d get full tuition I believe.

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Thanks @Dolemite . Those are good suggestions. I am going to suggest he try the ACT once more. I know UGA only looks at English and Math for the ACT but I wasn’t aware that GT might do the same. I believe he’ll apply to both. I agree with College of Charleston and USCarolina. Thanks!

12

I don’t know about the lacrosse part of the equation but he’d probably have a reasonable chance of merit at Denison (Granville, OH, 30-45 minutes from Columbus) and College of Wooster (Wooster, OH, about equidistant from Akron/Cleveland). Granville is a small but charming town. Wooster is larger.

Dickinson in Carlisle, PA, might also be worth a look. Merit there tops out at 20K. Closest city is Harrisburg.

Centre and Rhodes also offer merit scholarships, I believe.

13

I don’t know lacrosse specifically, but there are definitely some sports where it would not be too late, although it would need to be dealt with ASAP. This may be something to consider because if he can get recruited it could help him get admitted with coach support to a LAC that otherwise might not admit him. Probably not to a top lacrosse school, because if he was at that level he would know.

However, if he doesn’t want the commitment of playing in college then you can just let this factor go. I think my D will be in that situation in a few years. Probably good enough to play and maybe even get recruited for soccer at a mediocre to poor D3. But she already has said she doesn’t want the commitment of playing varsity sports in college.

14

It is not too late for lacrosse if he’s willing to go to a school where the lacrosse isn’t very strong. There are 400 colleges that sponsor men’s lacrosse, and some of them still have openings. Honestly, his EC’s for a school like Loyola are not going to stand out because most of their students have the same lacrosse background, even those not on the team. I agree that if he were interested in playing at college, his 3D coaches would have hooked him up.

However, if he does want to play lacrosse, there is D2 also. Rollins, Tampa, Lynn, and Barry in Florida are all nice LACs that would love to have his talent on the field. Rollins is the cutest college town but near Orlando. Tampa is nice with the campus right near the downtown.

15

My daughter has always been a quiet, shy student. Her elementary/middle school teachers remember her as “such a quiet girl.” So I would have thought a small school would have been her choice in colleges when we started looking a few years ago. Surprisingly, she didn’t like the schools with such remote campuses and student populations. She actually chose a very large OOS university that has many colleges within it and loves it.

That might just be her experience, but I assumed she’d want a small campus on a quiet rural location, I couldn’t have been further off. She’s in Philly along with an undergrad pop of around 30K and likes that she can quietly blend in with the many students, sights and sounds around her.

Just something to consider when searching for a good fit. Maybe take him to a few larger schools and see what his reaction is. It might surprise you!

16

Brown, Yale, Penn, Harvard, Princeton, Cornell and Dartmouth have men’s lacrosse. Ivies typically recruit later so it may not be too late. Your nephew’s stats may be too low for HPY but should be fine for a school like Brown for an athlete (I’m speaking from experience with Brown). I would have him send in videos and contact the coaches if he’s interested, as well as fill out the recruiting form (but don’t just fill out the form- an email is a better way to actually reach the coach).

17

Because the ivies don’t give athletic scholarships, they tend not to recruit the best of the best in their sports (of course, there are exceptions). My daughter was a good, not great, gymnast and was recruited at Brown. She was not recruited from any Div 1 teams that offer scholarships, but Penn and Brown were both interested in her. She did not get into serious discussions with the coach until Oct of her senior year when she received her ACT scores. She and two other girls applied ED and were accepted. Then they added two more RD so the team wasn’t finalized until spring of the girls’ senior year.

18

@Emsmom1, while that may be true with certain sports, both Ivy League lax and xc/track are full of top ranked athletes.

OP, a rising senior should already be in discussions with both D1 and top conference D3 schools - many such as NESAC complete pre-reads in early July.

19

Since he will be in Virginia visiting UR, please encourage him to arrange an official visit to Christopher Newport University in Newport News. He should def visit during the school year and attend a Lacrosse game. CNU is D3, however they are extremely competitive. Your nephew may have a chance to play there. CNU is a hidden gem. Trust me on that.

20

Based on what you write, I could see him at any of these: BC, Holy Cross, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Duke, Georgetown, Williams, Hamilton, Colby, Weslyan

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