<p>LOL. I see your point, and I had much the same thought when I first moved to Minnesota. But the “Cretin” in the school’s name is actually after Joseph Cretin (with an accent aigu over the “e,” which in the original French would have made it more like “cray-tan”). Cretin was the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Saint Paul. But most people now pronounce it the same as the English word “cretin.”</p>
<p>CDH is nonetheless a highly respected academic school as well as an athletic powerhouse, and as a consequence nobody in these parts gives a second thought to the name.</p>
<p>My kids attend(ed) a mid-sized public (graduating class of about 350). Over the last three years there has been one kid per year who is a recruited athlete at a d1 school.</p>
<p>Athletics runs a wide gamut. A boy who was my DD’s friend from Kindergarten onwards grew to +6 feet and about 200lbs in 7th grade. Super nice kid. In 8th grade, three area HS football powerhouses (all private schools) made him full tuition offers (one, a day school, was about $35K/year). For an EIGHTH GRADER! Whew! He’s a junior now (playing for one of those schools) and I’ll be curious what his prospects are come next year.</p>
<p>I have another friend who was the Captain of his HS JROTC rifle team. A nearby college (back in the late 80s) needed to field a co-ed team to bring some balance to their Title IX compliance. They scouted my friend, offered him a 4 year full tuition scholarship if he would stand up the college’s rifle team.</p>
<p>He had free college b/c he could shoot a .22 rifle. Now he’s an executive with an insurance company in our state.</p>
<p>Call it what you want but the “well rounded kid” or the “scholar athlete” or “sound mind sound body” is always attractive to colleges and universities.</p>
<p>I think that if you look at the numbers it makes sense that smaller schools with good athletic programs will have a higher percentage of recruited athletes than larger schools even if the larger school has good athletic programs.</p>
<p>My kids go to a small private school with strong athletic programs. The school graduates around 250 students a year (max). We have 15 sports. The local public school graduates around 650 students a year and has 14 sports. Since the number of sports are similar it makes sense that the smaller school will have a larger percentage of recruited athletes just because it will have a larger percentage of athletes at the school.</p>
<p>My son is a D3 football player. While it is possible to walk on to a D3 football team most players are recruited. They don’t have athletic scholarships but the coaches do try to lure them to their school to play.</p>
<p>On our HS with a graduating class over 400 and competitive sports teams on both the boys and girls side, a few kids (boys and girls) each year go on to D1 sports - swimming, lacrosse, soccer, track in recent years. A few more go on to D3 schools. Nowhere close to 20% however.</p>
<p>The Catholic Prep high schools in the area probably send far more kids to D1 sports. One is particularly strong in lacrosse, another the top HS team nationally for soccer. Not sure if they actively recruit or if the best athletes know these are the schools to go to for their sport. True, perhaps to a lesser extent, at non-Catholic prep schools and certainly at the elite boarding schools. </p>
<p>Many families are in for a rude awakening as the best players in town, or even on a HS team, have no shot at playing in college or at least playing at a college they would otherwise like to attend.</p>
<p>Scholarships, in some cases, could mean $1,000. Parents in our area are quick to brag about recruitment and scholarships. If it’s a way-in to a higher ranked/better fit school, great! Too often the athlete/parents are so flattered by recruitment and a hint of a scholarship, that the student ends up somewhere that’s not a good fit.</p>
<p>^^^ True words, mom2and Two of our high school’s best athletes are bench warming in college. They did make the team but are not playing. Each step up means more competition.</p>
S2 is currently looking at a small faith-based LAC for wrestling and lacrosse. According to the NPC, he’s eligible for some gift and state aid, and is applying for faith-based grants and outside scholarships. I’d be happy for $1000 or so on top of that - every little bit helps.
ETA: @Mom2and - it happens a lot. A couple of basketball players, male and female, at our local Catholic HS were hyped beyond all belief, but since they were in the least competitive division of HS sports in our state, they were overlooked when it came to D1. And straight from the horse’s mouth - I guy I knew when I was just out of college played baseball at a small LAC. He said it was a huge shock going from being the star athlete to being one of the better players.</p>
<p>DD’s private high school graduates about 100 students annually & field teams in 20 sports - the football team is a bit light in players this year due to upperclass graduations the past two seasons. DD plays field hockey in the fall; where many of the varsity players have to also play part of the JV game due to a small roster and player injuries; & softball in the Spring. Most of her field hockey teammates play lacrosse in the spring with the balance playing softball. Academics are rigorous</p>
<p>Currently there are 49 school alumni playing their sport at the collegiate level - several in the Ancient 8; one who is a member of the B1G championship field hockey team & 1 at Stanford. Most athletes; however are competing in D III at places many on CC would know since they can be competitve on the field and in the classroom. There are 3 alumni earning a living playing professionally in their sport (soccer, basketball & baseball) but they are exceptional at what they can do. For the rest, they’ll “go pro in something other than athletics”.</p>
<p>Four of this years graduating field hockey class will go on to play either field hockey or lacrosse in college; two will be at schools well known to CC. In DD’s year (2015), one of her best friends will be swimming in the ACC beginning in Fall 2015 as she is being very heavily recruited and a very bright girl.</p>
<p>This is consistent with my observation locally. Of an average class of 200 kids, maybe 4 a year sign to a DI with scholarship money, plus quite a few more to D3. Our school offers 29 sports and is in a fairly affluent area where many parents can afford year round training, club teams, elite leagues, etc.</p>
<p>But in the case of DI, it seems that often the school is chosen for the athletic opportunity/scholarship only and is not somewhere that student would have chosen had that not been a factor.</p>
<p>I advised D years ago to enjoy sports and work hard to get better at them if she wants to but keep the focus on her grades as far as college scholarships go. There is a LOT more money out there for that than there is for sports and for that reasons options include colleges that are a good fit. </p>
<p>She’d love to play both of her sports on a club or intramural team, I highly doubt she’d want to play on a varsity team or that many schools, unless just starting a program in her sport (which is happening a lot in the midwest), would recruit her for one.</p>
<p>There are about 450,000 NCAA athletes (across all divisions), and about 37,000 high schools in the US (public and private). If they were evenly distributed across high schools and 4 years of college, that comes out to about 3 athletes per high school per year (recruited and unrecruited).</p>
<p>One other thing to keep in mind is there are significant different levels of D1 sports. Sometimes a D1 program can be less competitve than a DIII program.</p>
<p>Threesdad - Interesting that you say your D’s friend will be swimming in fall of 2015 for an ACC school - swimming is one of the sports that doesn’t really do early commitments and at this point the recruiting is just getting started for kids in the class of 2015. Of course swimming is a very cut and dry recruiting situation - swimmers are nationally ranked and it very easy to know if you are “better” than someone else simply by looking at a database of times. There are a few other things that come into play (size and # of years training) but typically “a time is a time”. So if D’s friend is ranked in the top 25 in the country - they typically can have their choice.
Although girls swimming has more scholarships than mens swimming - until they have their full commitments from the class of 2014 they won’t know what they have for next year.</p>
<p>^^That surprises me because I’ve known two kids who went to UofM recruited for swimming/diving and I’m sure they knew early and signed early. Doesn’t make sense because if you are that caliber (Div I) there are many schools that want you (as a swimmer or diver.).</p>
<p>Given that there are 30,000 high schools in the US, the vast majority of which send NO child to any elite school (Ivy or otherwise), no, the scenario of 10-15 kids in a school going to elite schools is obviously not “common.” In the least.</p>
<p>Honestly, sometimes I wonder why people don’t get that their kids’ high schools (my kids included) are pretty much “bubbles” - either public magnets, privates, or affluent public high schools.</p>
<p>I don’t think this sounds any different than other sports. Most NCAA sports have national signing periods in November of the HS senior year. Some have a second signing period in the spring. Football is the outlier in that it has only a spring signing period.</p>
<p>Perhaps there’s some confusion here between signing national letters of intent, which can happen only in the senior year, and making (non-binding) verbal commitments, which can happen anytime (and can be undone anytime) up until the letter of intent is signed. A quick glance around the web suggests that early verbal commitments are just as common in swimming as in other sports.</p>
<p>Yes - swimmers “verbally commit” in the fall of their senior year - usually after they have made official visits - the earliest the “stars” commit is right after July 1st date. My comment was really around football, basketball and lacrosse (the ones I know) that the players verbally commit sometimes in their sophomore or junior year - you never see this in swimming. The first signing was just this week.</p>