D and I just talked to our agent for advice about this D3 school we are visiting next week. Apparently the agent thought D should look into schools that offer merit scholarship because she worked so hard on getting good grades. The agent thought she should be rewarded with some sort of money and told us to look at more D2 and NAIA schools(haven’t found a high academic one yet) or other D3’s that give MS (don’t know if any top LACs do that either)
But the truth is most of the great academic private schools are need-based and rarely provide any merit scholarship. If D wants excellent education and be in the right crowd plus able to play her sports, should we just forget about looking for scholarship elsewhere? We could afford her to a private school for 4 years but she wants to go to a vet school after, means more $$$$. I wouldn’t say no to getting some money for 10 more years of costly education.
The agent made me feel like we are heading to a wrong direction and I don’t know if any parents have the same situation and would like to share their thoughts?
P.S. this D3 school is one of the top 10 LAC, D will be blessed to study and play sports there.
You have to decide if the LAC is the way you want to go and, since you know you won’t get need based aid, if you want to pay for it. My daughter looked at LACs (was recruited by many) and they just weren’t for her. She does not feel her D-2 school is lesser, because it is right for her.
Your choices are: 1) top LAC without merit/need aid 2) lower ranked LAC (D3) with merit money only 3) a D2 with probable merit and athletic money. I think you are looking for a high ranking D3 with merit money, and while there are a few scholarships at those schools, they are had to come by.
If you are paying an agent, he should have a list of D2 schools and you can eliminate them all quickly if you don’t like the names. He should also have a list of D3 schools with merit. Does her sport have a webpage with rankings and news stories? My daughter’s does (and in fact it was how I found the school she attends now, as it was a news story that this school was adding a team), so it is easy to see which schools are D1, D2, or D3, and you could see if there is a school listed that you didn’t know about. It will also tell you the rank of the team, which might be important to your daughter.
If Vet school is a sure goal, why not look at the list of admits to those schools and see where they attended undergrad. Since most Vet schools are at public flagships, I’ll bet many admits are from large public schools also. It will matter to your daughter that her undergrad school was ranked 10th or 3rd, but it probably won’t matter to the vet school.
Hi twoinandone, thanks for your great advice. I totally agree with your last paragraph. Vet schools don’t care where you are from as long as you have the GPA. It also sounds like a right path for a pre-vet student.
The only thing is I am struggling about whether I should send D to a large public school or not because of the kind of environment in her hs she is having right now. She is attending a pretty good size public school with an IB program built in. The school has 2000+ students and only around 100+ are in IB. She always has trouble finding friends who have the same interests, work habits and mindset, especially on her hs vball team. Girls are from all walks of life and have different visions and goals(or no goals…). D doesn’t feel fit it most of the time and is frustrated from time to time. I once promised her that this will be over once you find the right college and be with the right group of people and I always believe she deserves like-minded friends. And that’s the beauty of small LAC’s.
I think I need to do more research on different schools that provide reasonable scholarship and a right learning environment for D. Sometimes I feel I create a lot of dilemma for myself because I want to get her the best but I don’t really know what considered the best yet…
Most colleges have students who want to be there. On my daughter’s team at a smaller D-2 school (about 3500 on campus), a few of the others aren’t top students but they don’t have any choice but to go to classes and keep their grades up. NCAA requires it. Coach requires it. My daughter’s academic friends are not her teammates. No one on her team has her same major, and there are only 2 other engineers.
I think you’ll have a better feel for schools once you visit them. We looked at all different sizes and types, Div 1, 2, and 3, and it was very obvious when she found the right school. It was hard to give up the prestige of a few of the LACs, but it really was the right decision for her academically. One of the big pluses to the chosen school is that it is a new program, so even though they lose, DD has a lot of playing time. Many of her friends who went to big D-1 programs are typical freshmen, and get little playing time as they are on teams of 35+ (with 12 on the field).
I think you should look at a few of the D2 schools just to see what they offer. D-1 for volleyball is entirely different as they are full scholarships, full time commitment, volleyball all the time. You’ll know what they offer and if that’s what you want, academically and athletically.
I am not sure if volleyball recruiting works the same, but take this for what it is worth. In my son’s sport (football), it seemed as if there were two distinct tracks for recruiting. One for “normal” schools, at whatever division and another for the “high academic” schools. Obviously the benefit of the normal schools is the opportunity to play the sport at a higher level and there are no direct education costs. The downside is that the school literally owns your butt for 4/5 years, setting your academic schedule, keeping you on campus 10 or 11 months out of the year, etc. As you move down the divisions, these pros and cons kind of meet in the middle, meaning D2 schools exercise less control over your academic schedule and require less of a time commitment but also offer less money, etc. The benefit of the high academic schools is the admissions boost and the ability to play your sport at a relatively high level while still maintaining control of your academic pursuits and your life. The downside of course is that school is not free. Unlike normal schools, the pros and cons here generally get wider as you move down the divisions. The Ivys are D1 FCS with great facilities and are pretty competitive, have very limited practice times and give tons of aid, schools like Johns Hopkins, CWRU are D3, play a longer schedule and have less aid to give, etc. The NESCACS only play each other and are generally believed to be noncompetitive in the wider D3 world. The point here is that the benefit of being a student athlete is not all about the scholarship aid. There are “fits” all along the spectrum of college athletics for each athlete who has the ability and the will to continue long after most have hung 'em up. The task for your daughter is to find out where her fit lies on these tracks.
My son decided at the end of his sophomore year that he wanted door #2, so our efforts were directed at primarily high academic schools. This choice informed the camps he attended (Ivy camps instead of Big 10 or MAC camps), the way he used his spring break junior year (attending junior days/unofficial visits at Ivy schools rather than hitting Rivals Elite or UA big man camps) and generally how he approached the process (very limited online presence as opposed to chasing stars from 247/Rivals/ESPN). It is just a wholly different experience. I have never heard of a recruiting agent before, but I think the best use of your efforts would be for your daughter to make a sober decision as to what is most important to her and then tailor your efforts one direction or the other.
A couple thoughts about where you could find both merit and the academics she wants. These are all small LACs that may not be as well known but offer both excellent educations and merit money.
Kenyon
Macalester
College of Wooster
Muhlenberg
Dickinson
And, because she is a girl, the women’s colleges- Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Bryn Mawr, Scripps.
There are plenty more but these are the ones I am most familiar with.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with going for the high academic school and being full pay if you can swing it. But I would suggest broadening your search to include some of these if you need or want to pay less than full price.
Ohidodad51, you answered my question, thank you. You verified all the info that I have observed and been searching for the past few weeks. It’s like buy an orange or apple and it is quite obvious D should be the one make the call once she visited the school.
She is tired of always being in the wrong crowd and honestly we, as parents are frustrated at most. For example, D didn’t start this sport until at the age of 15 and we basically lost all the opportunities to play on a highly competitive club team because all the girls have had started since age 7 or 8 and their skills are well-established. Spots on those teams were pretty secured and leaving no choice but playing in a less competitive club. Less competitive clubs need to fill their roster and are willing to take almost whoever walks in and creating a environment for a mix of players in terms of skills, maturity(they let the younger girls play up) and mentality. The recent national tournament gave us a final wake up call…
It was during a school weekend and girls were taking off to Vegas missing a Friday at school. Our club has a rule that nobody is allowed to go out unless going as a team. Enough said, D wanted to stay in the room study and catch up with the missing classes only for one night. No. All the girls were mad at D because they wanted to go out whenever it’s given a chance. They were all mean and yelling at D for doing this. Ended up, coach didn’t want to deal with it, chaperone pointed finger at D for not cooperating. D went out in tears and with tons of stress of not able to finish assignments due on the first day return to school. Also her performance at the tournament wasn’t half of what she used to have because of the beating up by the team verbally and mentally. Conclusion - wrong crowd.
That’s why I am so paranoid about the mentality of majority of students who go to which college.
Thanks lefttopisa! I will definitely look into it!
Two thoughts -
First, as you have begun to find, it is very hard to find high end academic schools with merit money. Most are need only.
Second, your story about D wanting to stay in and study points VERY strongly towards staying away from athletic scholarships, especially at d1 schools. As a d1 athlete, your D will be expected to schedule classes around practices, attend workouts at all hours (eg 6AM), miss classes for games and travel, etc.
It is possible to be a dedicated student and a d1 athlete but it certainly isn’t easy and if she can’t handle some reduction in GPA for it, I’d say she needs to look in other directions.
Dreadprint, D never wants to do D1, let along her skills are not up to par, its too demanding for her also but I disagree with you on the not able to handle study and play. D went to a sport conference and a Stanford’s athlete speaker mentioned athletes in Stanford are kept together in a study hall to study and not allow to go anywhere else during some games. When you have a majority of high achievers on the team and the ones don’t want to study will become minority and they have less say. Problem solved if you are in the right crowd, not like D’s club 1 vs 10. Also D just wanted to stay in for ONE night not all. And the time they spent was not for practicing or anything productive, it’s merely for exploring Vegas three days in a roll. They even let the girls stay up until 3am… again wrong crowd.
How sad kchendds!!! When my son traveled with his team and missed school, the coach always required ALL of the team to stay in at least one night to do school work. Other nights there were always chaperones willing to stay at the hotel if kids wanted to stay in- and there were usually a few who did. It was a fairly academic group of kids, but I also think a coach really sets the bar with what he expects from his team. It sounds like academics were not a priority with your D’s coach. I can’t imagine a coach or chaperone putting a kid in that position.
I agree that D1’s might not be a good fit for your D, especially if they include athletic money. This whole thing is such a balancing game as far as getting the academic environment she wants while still getting to play her sport. It sounds like your daughter really knows what she is looking for in a school and I would stick to your guns with the agent. When my son first looked at colleges when he was younger, his first criteria was to play at a D1 school for his sport. However, when he became more serious in his search, he realized that the D1 schools where he wanted to play were not academically as competitive. He worked so hard in high school to get good grades and didn’t want to throw it all away. We started over and made a list of schools where he would be happy academically without his sport, and then refined it to include only those that offered his sport. From there he aggressively pursued coaches from those schools. He ended up at a Div. 2 large public school that is highly ranked academically and is having a wonderful experience with many like-minded kids. It is not easy to find a school : 1) that is a good fit academically; 2)where a coach is actively recruiting your student; AND 3)that will offer money, either academic or on merit. It is wonderful that you are able to pay for your D’s school, but like you said, if she wants to pursue Vet school later, any financial help would be nice. Go visit the D3 school next week and be open about your financial needs. Talk to the coach there and let them know she is interested (if she is) but that you are looking for merit money. Also, your agent needs to come up with a list of schools where your D would be a good fit academically AND athletically that also offer opportunities for merit aid. We’ve never worked with an agent before but I’m guessing that’s what you are paying for. Good luck!!!
Hi takeitallin, thanks for showing empathy for my situation. I needed that. 
Your S was in good hands, lucky him! I had use the search engine provided by my agent online but only one school in D2 showed up based on my required criteria … but this school don’t want D… So I probably need to suck it up with the $ if D likes the school we are visiting in a week or so… DH might need to come up with ideas to make more $ to pay for 10 more years of school (she wants to be a specialist) 
What area of the country is she interested in/your state of residence???
@kchendds - I never said she couldn’t handle study and play - many kids can and do manage. My point was that, based on your anecdote, it sounds like your D is the type of student who would be happier in an environment where the sport takes a back seat to academics - you will not find that at any schools that offer athletic scholarships.
Also, you are also being naive if you believe that scholarship athletes, even at the most academically rigorous schools like Stanford, don’t expect their athletes to make significant concessions to athletics. Sure, they may have more study halls on the road, but, for example, the Stanford Volleyball team is leaving campus Thursday afternoon at least 6 or 7 weekends during the season.
@kchendds I understand where you are coming from regarding the differing agendas for players on your daughter’s team. It can be difficult to be both a serious student and a serious athlete, more so for kids who prioritize academics over competitive athletics. My son describes it as he is a smart kid who likes to play football, rather than a football player who happens to be smart. For him, the Ivies were the proper balance, and so far he feels like the team is populated with kids like himself, which has been a pleasant discovery for him. It sounds to me like your daughter would be happier on the more academic end of the spectrum as well.
I just read on another thread that you are in Calif. so I understand when you say VB is tough to get recruited for here. Has she looked at any of the Claremont Colleges? Sounds like it might be a good fit academically but maybe VB would not be a realistic expectation there. UCSD might be another option although it is quite a bit larger than where you are looking.
Dreadpirit, my apologies if I came out too strong. I think I am still dealing with the frustration from the team. A mom whose daughter was verbally and physically abusive towards D, was trying to accuse D being wrong by saying that she heard athletes in UCLA stick together as a team no matter what. But she definitely omitted the part of studying together. I think the balance of being a scholar athlete on playing and studying isn’t happening in her club. Also D is also the only one always sets up for practice. The girls think D is a team captain and she should take care of that and she should compromise with her well being for their preferences.
That’s why when you brought up D1’s culture on doing sports and school, I got stuck with the comments from that mom. Again, my apology!
You are right about the balance of both and I think doing well in HS academically and to be able to get to the right college is one of the most important things for D now. If D was good enough, I wouldn’t think she would say “no” to a D1 school and trying to balance both. Again thanks for your comments.
Takeitallin, Yeah CMC and Pomona college will be awesome for D but they haven’t replied to D’s emails at all. I think with such good schools, some D1 quality players would love to play down to get in if they care about academics. Then leaving D standing in the middle or end of the line… UCSD already declined D since last year. I think they have a line of good players wanting to get in and that implies the slim chance for D to stay and play vball in a good school in CA.
I also want to add one very important point- in the end, choose a school your D would be happy to attend even if she weren’t playing her sport. Athletic careers can end unexpectedly and you want her to be somewhere she will be happy even if she never touches another ball.
Also, since she is in California, take a look at Scripps. It is a women’s college that is part of the Claremont Consortium. I believe it combines sport teams with Claremont- McKenna.
I will also look into it, LeftofPisa! But again, the chance is slim… D is an excellent player provided she only has two solid years of vball training but again girls in CA start when they just barely have their first molar lol.