Please help potential sports recruit

Parents Forum
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<p>My friend who is a single mom asked if I could help at all with her daughter's college quest. Having gone through this five times, she thought I might know something. I do, but not about kids who are recruited for sports, so I hope that someone here can help us, please</p>

<p>Her daughter is a sophomore in high school. She has been on the varsity girls hockey team since 7th grade. Her coach feels she can play in division one. Her mom knows nothing about sports recruiting for college or how to find colleges for her or anything else about this. </p>

<p>The girl has about a B plus average. Her mom gave me her Plan test report and it projects that she will score between 18 and 22 on her ACT test. She will not be taking SATs. It looks like her lowest area is in pre-algebra/algebra, while her highest score was in geometry. I will suggest some math tutoring, but money may be an issue here. </p>

<p>Anyway I hope someone can give us some guidance and some schools. One last factor, the family is Jewish and would like her to be at a school with a substantial number of Jewish students. Her career choice at this time is education. I would appreciate any help and thank everyone in advance.</p>

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<p>Hi Momof5 ... a couple suggestions ... </p>

<p>First, search on this forum for "sports", "recruiting", or "Division I" in a title and that will lead to a ton of threads on this topic.</p>

<p>Second, since the student is a female hockey player this gets much-much easier since there are so few Division I female hockey teams ... it is practical to research each school for fit (academic level, location, size of school, etc) and then contact the coach at all the schools on the list. Check this link out ...
<a href="http://www.uscho.com/standings/?type=w%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.uscho.com/standings/?type=w&lt;/a>
there are about 30 DI programs and another 40 DIII (no scholarships) programs ... after picking locations and academics there probably will not be that many schools in which your friend will be interested</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

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<p>Some schools with Womens Hockey, the with right academic level and a non-anti-Semitic environment:</p>

<p>St Lawrence
Union
Connecticut
Boston College (?Catholic, but in Boston after all)
Northeastern
Clarkson
Providence
Wisconsin
New Hampshire
Ohio State
Quinnipiac
New Eng College
Mass-Boston
Lake Forest</p>

<p>Maybe think about great academic D3 schools or Ivies/Colgate? Could be too high an academic reach but you never know who is trying to build their program-- think about NESCAC schools like Trinity, Conn College, Colby.</p>

<p>Good Luck. I recommend you get your friend the book "Playing the Game" for insights into D1 recruiting.</p>

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<p>Can't help out on the sports angle, but as for seeking a school "with a substantial number of Jewish students": M and/or D should go to <a href="http://www.Hillel.org%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.Hillel.org&lt;/a>. M/D can type in the names of schools they're considering; the Hillel site provides (for many, though not all, schools) information such as the total number of undergrad and grad students, the number of Jewish undergrad and grad students (obviously an approximation based on self-reporting), whether and how many Jewish studies classes the school offers, links to the school's Hillel, if there is one, etc., etc.</p>

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<p>The most likely locales for her are New England and the upper midwest. My hockey-playing nephew chose a New England school after seeing the tough travel schedule for some midwest teams- everywhere from the Rockies to the Alleghenies. He didn't think he could handle the constant overnight bus travel. </p>

<p>Your friend's daughter should talk to her coach, and other coaches in the area about her options in playing Division I versus Division III athletics. Truthfully, there aren't that many schools with women's teams, but she'll have choices from large to small, urban or rural schools. She can start narrowing down her choices by visiting websites and looking at the team information: schedules, records, opponents, attendance, etc. She'll need to schedule visits to her prospective schools during the 05-06 season. When it comes time to choose, she should consider where she stands in the hierarchy of a particular team - for example, would she rather be number one forward on a lesser team, or number three or four on a title-winning team? I hope your friend does as much networking as she can with other hockey parents who have daughters with scholarship potential.</p>

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<p>Thanks so much for all the responses. I am going to print them out and give them to her. I am quite uninformed about this. Do only Division I teams give scholarships for sports? That could really make a difference. </p>

<p>3togo: I am also going to reference all the threads you suggested. I am hoping that her coach knows something about protocal for this also.</p>

<p>Thanks again so very much to everyone.</p>

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<p>Both division 1 and 2 can give scholarships for sports.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I am hoping that her coach knows something about protocal for this also.

[/quote]
one last suggestion ... go to <a href="http://www.ncaa.org%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.ncaa.org&lt;/a> and it outlines the rules for recruiting for each sport at each level (DI, DII, and DIII) ... there are different rules about scholarships, time frames when coaches can contact players (players can always initiate contact though), when schools can host official visits, etc</p>

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<p>I have gone to the NCAA website. Interestingly, there are only two division II schools that have women's ice hockey teams. It is still unclear to me whether any of the Division III schools will give her a scholarship.</p>

<p>I have looked at all the Division I school websites and crosschecked with the Hillel site as recommended. There are a few schools that may work for her, and if she can bring up her ACT score, there could be a few more.</p>

<p>Thanks so much to everyone for all this advice. I feel like I am learning alot. Hopefully this can be a fun experience for her and her family.</p>

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<p>BTW--did you mean ice hockey or field hockey? Don't limit yourself to D1 schools for scholarship reasons. A good dIII school that wants to build up its team may want your friend's daughter as much or more as a D1 college. If the coach really wants her, and there is demonstrated financial need, a package will be put together. My friend's daughter was a FIGURE skater who started playing ice hockey in senior year of HS, was AMAZINGLY good at it, applied to a bunch of colleges, and ended up playing hockey for an Ivy with a substantial financial aid package. The only real trick is to register with the NCAA so that coaches can even talk to the child. And the many books and websites you've seen listed here will tell your friend how to do that.</p>

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<p>Also, get the book College Admissions for the High School Athlete (paperback, available on Amazon) by Jack Disalvo. It has a lot of helpful information about all aspects of the college recruiting process.</p>

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<p>D1 & 2 will give a sports scholarship to a millionaire. </p>

<p>The key with D3 or Ivies, who don't do this, is financial need. You can go to the school's website, plug in numbers in a financial aid calculator, and get a ballpark estimate of the aid award for that school, based on need. If it is key and critical, run all the numbers by Fin Aid in advance of applying.</p>

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<p>Thank you all so much for the continued help. I am really excited about getting the Disalvo book, since that sounds like it may give us some concrete guidelines. </p>

<p>So SBmom, what you are saying is if there is financial need, she can still get a scholarship for a D3 school. Hopefully, though, her coach is correct and she can play for a DI school, since they seem to meet her other criteria better. Most of the D3 schools seeem to be more selective and the ones that aren't do not meet her need for a significant Jewish population. As I said before there are only two D2 schools for Women's Ice Hockey.</p>

<p>Thanks again so much for everyone's help. I am printing off all the responses for her mom to study. Since she is only a sophomore, this is a great starting point.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
So SBmom, what you are saying is if there is financial need, she can still get a scholarship for a D3 school.

[/quote]
just semantics ... DIII schools (and others such as the IVYs) do not give athletic scholarships ... that said these schools do give financial aid if there is a financial need (for athletes and any other prospective students) ... some of these schools also give merit aid for academic accomplishments.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
D1 & 2 will give a sports scholarship to a millionaire

[/quote]
</p>

<p>LOL...makes me think of my friend whose son is a freshman and received almost a full athletic ride to a major D1. He showed up at the field recently in a spanking new silver Boxster....good alternative use for that tuition money!!</p>

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<p>momof5,</p>

<p>The delicate balance to consider: if she is as hot a player as her coach thinks, she might theoretically get the choice between an athletic scholarship to a big state school like New Hampshire, or (potentially) a need-based scholarship to a a D-3 liberal arts college like Trinity. </p>

<p>Don't rule out the D-3s, because <strong>if the finances worked either place</strong> she might be better off (match wise) at a D-3. D-3 schools have a different approach to sports-- you are not required to do the sport to keep your scholarship, for one, so if balancing academics & the sport is impossible, you <em>can</em> step off the team. (Because of ACTs I could imagine that this might be a bit hard for this student.)</p>

<p>Furthermore, the amount of time the coaches can train you is legally limited to the season; there are no requirements in off-season. You can have more of a non-sport life and do other fun things.</p>

<p>This kid does not sound like an academic stand-out, but she might be able to use the hockey to boost up a level or two and be admitted into a more academic school than her stats would otherwise get her into-- that could really serve her well in her future career. </p>

<p>St Lawrence is confusing me-- because it appears to be at D-1 level for hockey, but was D-3 for women's tennis (my D's sport.) I could be wrong, maybe it is D-3 for hockey too. </p>

<p>Check into this school-- because it might be the perfect blend of elite hockey & small, nurturing academic environment. BTW it is NOT religious (founded by Universalists, but secular now.) I believe her stats plus hockey might be a match here.</p>

<p>If she can get her ACTs up to the standard for athletic recruits at Ivy or NESCAC schools (? not sure, but probably closer to 26-27 ish-- whatever correlates with about 1250/1300 on SATs) you may wish to investigate these schools. If the ACTs stay the same they may be out of reach academically.</p>

<p>Of course this kid may want a big rah-rah school like Wisconsin, in which case this sort of school could be perfect.</p>

<p>Encourage your friend and her D to visit a representative sample of schools (big, med, small; D-1/D-3) to get a feel for what the school environments, athletic committments, and the levels of play are really like. Talk to current players and ask LOTS of questions. </p>

<p>Once she has a "profile" of the sort of school she wants the list can be narrowed accordingly.</p>

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<p>St Lawrence is D1 hockey, D3 everything else.</p>

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<p>thanks sweet babboo, does that mean they can give athletic scholarships in hockey?</p>

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<p>They do. I just don't know how many.</p>

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<p>Keep in mind schools give scholarship money for a sport, they are not giving a full ride in most cases. For example the coach may have 5 scholarships to divide among all the players. So in reality the scholarship player is only getting $1,000 or so.
People always think scholarship athletes get a full ride like basketball or football, but if you look at all the d1 players out there receiving money from the athletic department you might be really suprised.</p>

<p>I dont know about womens hockey, but you should look at schools that are academically in your range (or even a safety) in this case you may be eligible for academic moneies, and also play your sport. YOU may get more money for academics then you would get for hockey.</p>