I have heard different opinions on this- some people say your schedule is pretty much just as tough at a D3 as a D1 for rowing- and that actually you may get more academic support at some D1’s–any thoughts?
I would say that the time commitment is pretty similar from D1 to D3 for most sports. Academic support is typically more sport specific and the availability and resources for support are probably in inverse relation to the selectivity of the school.
Travel may be a big difference in time for teams at a d1 or a D3. I really haven’t heard any complaints about athletes at any schools not getting all the academic help they want or need. In fact, I haven’t heard of ANY student who wants help at any school not getting it. The students have to ask for it, go to office hours, go to tutorials. Many athletes have mandatory study tables where lots of help is available.
Major time commitment difference for D1 revenue sports versus D3 football & basketball.
Most D1 sports programs offer formal tutoring assistance.
But not all. To be clear.
Some of the D3 programs are better than D1. Wesleyan comes to mind. As a D1 athlete on scholarship you are basically an employee of the university, There are many perks to being a D1 athlete, to include (in our experience) extra advising and separate study spaces - free on demand tutoring - though it probably depends on the school or sport
@skieurope is correct at certain D1 Ivys no particular support is offered to student athletes that isn’t offered to gen student pop. You’re on your own…
“Most” means “not all”.
Ivy athletes have to meet academic standards well above NCAA minimums.
My D was recruited to row at Michigan, Washington and Cal, among others. She’s a rising senior at Wesleyan. We’ve lived this life. PM me with questions.
Wes is intense academcially and while sports are kept in perspective at schiols like Wes, they are very competitive and if you want to be in the first varsity and tie at NCAAs and Head of the Charles, you have to go to practice and figure out a way to max on both. D3 especially in the NESCAC is not a place for all comers who want to try things. The kids who play sports at these schools were exceptional at it in HS.
That said, my D always dreamed of rowing for the historic Washington Husky crew, having watched them from her club rowing house and rowing in the same water. She was admitted to the honors college and the W coach gracefully gave her a dose of the reality of being a Husky rower. It wouldn’t have worked, and he candidly told her that wowen in the 1V are never honors college and have to pick their majors carefully.
Also, Avoid D1 or bust syndrome. My kid has beaten the pants off Colgate, UConn, UCSB, Navy, Coast Guard Academy, Boston. College, Bucknell and a lot of other colleges that are D1. She’d be a very fast rower at all those schools. But sure Wes isn’t going to knock off Cal or Virginia any time soon.
For my $ (and it Is my money) the education is what matters. Her club teammate was a “D1 or nothing”, rows for UConn and the kid has not beaten Wes once. To me, D1 makes sense if chasing the best of the best is what drives your kid. If academics is a real part of the picture give D3 a real look ok.
Yes-there are many many athletes at D3/NESCAC schools that are just as good as many D1programs in all sports. That being said there are many very smart student athletes at these schools and there are many that are there ONLY because they were top recruits-that includes Wesleyan, Bowdoin etc. Please remember many students who dont qualify for FA CHOOSE to go to bigger D1 programs because they can get athletic money. Not every student who is in a NESCAC school is super talented academically or athletically (we know quite a few that were recruited for a variety of sports: soccer at Colby, Lacrosse and hockey at Bowdoin, football and hockey at wesleyan) and most of these kids were not even close to D1 level athletes --nor were they top students.) Lastly you can get as great an education at UW as you can at Wesleyan. Much of that rests on the student. Paying for prestige is really the hidden issue here. A varsity sport is a varsity sport: the main difference from division to divisions really come down to professional sports and there tentacles to D1.
@Center while I agree with much of your poast, some of it I do not, and some of it is in my view a little simplistic or the discussion is incomplete.
Yes, there are kids recruited to play LAX and soccer at some NESCACs who are not down the middle D1s across the board. But which D1s? Stanford? Holy Cross? The Citadel? FIU? Really depends on the school amd the sport at that school. But any kid recruited to play, e.g., soccer, particularly women’s soccer, at a NESCAC … any one of them … could have played D1 somwhere. Maybe not Stanford or Texas, but somewhere. My youngest was an ECNL recruit who had lots of D1 opportunities, including at some of those I listed above and at a couple of the Patriot League schools. I also know the choices her teammates had. I think any kid who is actually recruited - that is, gets on the coaches list - to a NESCAC school or its equivalent in all likelihood had some D1 opportunities. It’s that competitive. So I think I’m going to remain a little skeptical about your assessment of whether a kid recruited at one of those schools was “not even close” to being D1. That’s just not even close to my experience in two sports.
The other thing that I question is your assessment of the academic abilities of these kids. Sure, not every single kid who winds up at one of these schools is going to be a Rhodes scholar. But even the most high level recruit/low stat kid at any of the schools we’re discussing is going to have their academic act together. Sure Recruiting helps; in some cases, yes, you are correct; the kid would not be there without the athletic push. But that doesn’t mean the kid is not academically talented. These are pretty tough schools to get into. There’s no shame in being the kid who might not have made the cut but for the recruiting push. Even that kid will be a good student. It’s a very tough cut even with the coach helping.
Of course you can get a great education at UW. You can get a great education anywhere. But I think these schools offer something more than just prestige. That, however, is a discussion for an entirely different thread. And, of course, it has been discussed on CC ad nauseam.
Sorry for the typos. Doing this on my phone.
One thing to look at is travel, both to the boathouse daily and to meets. The extra 30-60 minutes per day, plus an extra day on every weekend away really adds up.
@worelyclan I dont disagree with you on many points but we all short hand for brevity sake and the issues are very complex --changing from sport to sport. I will say there are two sports with which I am intimately familiar and may of these kids are really mediocre students–and are at high end NESCAC schools and Ivies. I am not naming the sports as I dont want to cause an unnecessary argument. I do find rowing to be a sport with a different culture and different kind of kid. Lastly our one area of disagreement is D1 verses D3: most D3 athletes just arent D1 caliber. Now quite often it may be due to height/size --areas where no skill can overcome–or may simply be a result of their path: meaning travel club lax may be assumed to be better than XYZ public high school when in fact there is minimal difference. Lots of important facts to be aware of --and there is no exact formula. The nuances of recruiting and college sports can change from year to year-sport to sport, school to school.
I do think any athlete can find schools in any division. Not every athlete can swim for Cal or run for Oregon, but there will be a D1 school that will work for that student athletically. There might be a better D3 school, with both academic fit and athletic.
My daughter was recruited by schools in all divisions. She could have had a full scholarship (half merit, half athletic) at a small D1 that never ranked very high athletically; her academic stats would have been at the top for that school. She could have moved up the ranks athletically in D1, but some schools don’t give as much merit even if the student’s stats are high. Also, the higher ranked the team was athletically, the less money she’d have received from the coach. If she really wanted to play D1 she could have, but it wouldn’t have been at Stony Brook or Maryland or BC.
For D3, her athletics would have been a hook for a lot of good schools, but she didn’t like the schools academically. For the really good teams, she was also concerned about playing time.
It’s all a balance of academics, athletics, and finances.
No problem @Center
We may just be talking past each other with semantics. You may have higher standards than do I. But I’d say as to “most” D3 vs D1, you’d be flatly wrong in the case of women’s soccer and crew. Those are the two I know pretty well. I’m guessing the story is different in men’s football and basketball and apparently LaX. Guessing again it’s a lot closer in men’s baseball. Typical NESCAC and other competitive D3 soccer Teams are loaded with women who could play mid-range D1 ball, and a few who could have done it pretty much anywhere. Williams is a good example of a program that routinely has a lot of D1 level kids who are there for the school. Finally, I think I’d be in a large crowd of people to express skepticism at the notion that there are ANY “mediocre” students at Bowdoin or Amherst. They just don’t care about sports enough to make that compromise. Sure this or that helmet sport coach might have one “flyer” slot for one high priority recruit here and there, but it’s far the exception to the rule.