You have to be into this thing, but I know a lot of LAC folks who have reported thinking it is really cool they get to go root for friends or just the school in nationally-important contests in a very intimate setting. Obviously doing that with 100,000+ other fans has its own excitement too. But I think some people really enjoy the spectator options at these LACs, which obviously involves no fixed time commitment.
3 Likes
We heard this about Williams. I think stats say over a 1/3 play varsity or club, but the anecdotes were it was a big part of the social scene.
1 Like
Thanks for this. My son is committed to play his sport at Dension, and itās great to hear that your son enjoyed his time there!
3 Likes
Thatās interesting, and I have heard it before. My son is there, a non-athlete, and has no complaints about the social scene, nor has he ever mentioned it being a factor on campus other than the athletes arenāt around as much during their particular seasons. He has a busy social life, always with friends, parties on the weekends (maybe during the week, too?), so in my mind itās less of a factor than some people think, at least at Williams.
Or, possibly, itās just not a big deal to him as he has found a crowd. I definitely think itās easy to find your people there.
1 Like
Move on from discussing Williams since that wasnāt on the OPās list of schools, or feel free to start a new thread. Thank you!
The OP used the words āsuch asā and etc. so it seems their list is not all inclusive and other SLACs may be relevant.
4 Likes
If the OP wants to add schools of interest to the list he/she can do so.
In the LAC discussion, it seems to come up quite a bit. A lot of people (around here) seem to assume that itās somewhat inherent in the LAC model itself given the relatively high % of student athletes compared to larger schools. I donāt. I think itās school culture and it varies, making the OPās question a good one. Even among the NESCACs, all of which are committed to sports and have robust programs, how the student body divides itself and how it plays out socially varies.
Through a combination of my kids and those of others with which weāre particularly close, Iād proffer the following list of schools that have sports but donāt create the divide OP describes:
Bowdoin
Bates
Claremont Consortium colleges
Wellesley
Wes
Whitman
Through hearsay and strong reputation in sports circles
Bryn Mawr
Mout Holyoke
Smith
Vassar (with some direct observational experience here)
Schools that seem to have a reputation for this include:
Skidmore
W&L
Trinity
Middlebury
Haverford
St. Lawrence
Iām probably forgetting some, but thatās the context of my general perspective. There are schools Iād guess do not have much of a pronounced divide, like the Minnesota LACs (C, S & M), and Swat, but nothing on which to base that view. I have no idea at all about Kenyon or Oberlin. Iāll also add that Williams and Amherst get tagged with the athlete/NARP divide label on CC here and there, but I havenāt heard of it being a particular issue at either school in my travels outside of the forum, and we competed against both quite a bit.
Lastly, given the level of competition at which they play, and some sense of school culture, Iād expect a pretty healthy line between athletes and non at Colgate and Bucknell.
3 Likes
Thatās how I read it:
āShe is looking at smaller colleges such as Denison, Kenyon, Muhlenberg, Dickinson, etc, but I am beginning to hear that it is hard to find your place socially in schools like those if you do not belong to a sports team. Does anyone have first hand experience with those or similar schools? Is there really such a divide between the athletes and those who arenāt on teams?ā
I think itās pretty unambiguous that the OP wanted to hear about other schools.
4 Likes
Deleted
2 Likes
I think you can find your group at any SLAC. S22 goes to Haverford which apparently has a high percentage of athletes. However they also have Nerd House. D25 is looking at SLACs as well. She isnāt paying attention to athletics but itās looking for an active outdoor club.
2 Likes
I think Bates is a good one for both athletes and non-athletes. I have a sophomore there. Her friends are on club and intramural sports and/or other activities but they also hang out with athletes at parties, etc, and there really doesnāt seem to be a huge divide. Everyone is pretty friendly. Good luck with the decision!
3 Likes
I think it is less about SLAC and more about fit in the particular SLAC. We visited Denison and Muhlenberg. Eliminated Denison (did not had foreign language DD wanted.) Muhlenberg was at the top of the list initially but slid down over time. Some social aspects worried daughter there.
She applied to a lot of LACS. Dickinson was near the top. We loved Gettysburg. At the end (based on Merit and FA, and BS/DO program she was interested) we had several runner-ups. She avoided Juniata because she could not ignite kids on Instagram there (she even started forum there and was an admin for a while.) Juniata has 30+% of kids in sport, and a lot of environmental kids. DD said: āMom I am not going to be on the team, I am not into art, I like sunsets and sunrises, but what am I going to do there in the rural PA if I canāt connect with these kids?ā She ultimately enrolled in Rhodes. Very happy there. Found a great roommate and a few friends on Instagram before coming to campus. Now has a āteamā of friends who are going everywhere together. She is very outgoing kid who had a close group of amazing friends in HS (like 5 very close and 5 almost as close), and she was a glue for them. So for her social aspect was critical.
Now my other daughter is much less social and in a big public. It took her several years to find close friendsā¦I mean close, closeā¦ Like friends foreverā¦
I myself think itās a lot less about the % of the athletes at a given LAC and almost all about school culture. If the school has anything close to the full complement of varsity teams, then that school is going to have a high jock % compared to any school with 15, 20 or 30 thousand kids, even including places like the University of Alabama. Itās basic math. So if a high % of athletes is offensive on its face, you have to drop LACs ā¦ almost all of them.
In reality, I think the issue really varies by school; theyāre not all the same. I had two athletes, and two different experiences. One was at a LAC with zero sense of any divide between athletes and non. Itās just not that kind of place. I had another one at a LAC where we first really learned the term āNARPā, and it is a known cultural thing at that school. We knew it going in (my D didnāt care), and boy did it turn out to be true.
My advice to OP is to forget about percentages and glean as much as you can about individual schools. Ask around. I think itās ok to even ask people at the school. Folks can be surprisingly honest and frank about these things. Remember, too, that not everybody thinks this is an issue even where it is present. The athletes sure donāt tend to be concerned about it.
Last thing from me: even if youāre at a school where there is a strong expression of this sort of thing, I remain 100% convinced that it doesnāt have to be a problem. No matter where your kid goes, there are going to be people for her, and no matter where she goes, there are going to be people who are not her people. If a majority of the latter are athletes, Iām not sure it matters.
6 Likes
Realistically, athletes on a team will be bound to a certain schedule because of practice and they may often be traveling ā including on weekends-- for competitions. Many teams have spring break training. Not only do these things create bonding experiences for the athletes, it makes them unavailable to their friends who arenāt teammates during this time.
Does this prevent friendships? Absolute not. But does it have logistical implications for friendships? Yes. For some people, this has a bigger impact on how their circle of friends develops than others. Iād also suspect that students who get involved in other activities that create a similar "shared experience ", like a theater production or a choral group, may also feel this less. There are people who are very good at assembling their social lives a la carte who will thrive.
I agree that students can definitely find their tribe at SLAC. While I suspect a bit of it is the school and its culture, I suspect even more of it is the student. Some people are more sensitive to certain dynamics than others.
7 Likes
Those stats are just what I would have guessed. I assume that one of the main differentiators among LACs in terms of number of athletes would be whether a school fields a football team. Football requires large numbers and equipment and attendant expense and is thus not offered by every LAC. You take that out of the mix, and you have fewer athletes and, dare I say, a lower impact on the jock culture. When football is present, you feel it.
But your point is worth emphasizing. Even at the low end of the LAC range, youāre still higher than most universities as a percentage. So as you said, the math is the math. But having walked this path with my kids, the contribution to school culture by sports really varies.
Yes, absolutely true. Itās not altogether unrelated to the other benefits of attending a LAC for those who value those benefits. Iāve heard some describe it as ācollege on a human scaleā, and if that generally appeals to you and you like sports, or just a reason to gather socially, then you might well also enjoy watching or being around athletic contests involving people you probably know and with whom you can relate as a peer student. Big-time D1 athletics is a different experience. Itās all fun (again if you like sports), but depending on the sport, the athletes are often campus celebrities and seem to live a different life than everyone else. IDK, maybe Duke basketball is different because the school is smaller and there are fewer players in that sport. But having attended a school with big-time D1 football, which I thoroughly enjoyed, there is a very real perception of those athletes being āotherā or apart from the student body, even if that isnāt technically true. Watching my kidās lab partner catch a touchdown pass on Andrus Field against Middlebury, on the other hand, was more relatable, for lack of a better word.
1 Like
If there is a concern about social pods at a SLAC, I would also look at the prevalence of Greek life. Often the combination of a jock culture with a strong Greek presence fosters the divide that OP is concerned about.
3 Likes
Yes, everything you are saying echoes everything I have heard from specific parents.
I will say as a parent of an S24 who is currently a three-sport athlete, but recruited in none, LACs usually being pretty sporty is a baseline plus for him. He has made a lot of friends in sports, he goes to games with friends as a spectator, he wants to look at continuing to do his favorites somewhere in the club/IM/recreational range, and so on.
But on the other hand, he is probably not so interested in a college where the big football game and associated parties, not least at Greek houses, is a hugely important part of social life.
I donāt think that means he needs to go somewhere without a football team. But I think his ideal situation would be one where the football team, if it existed, was more just one of the teams. Which, not coincidentally, is how his HS works. Football is not one of his sports, but he will go to games and such, and he feels comfortable with that.
Iām mentioning all this because it feels like the OP might have a pretty similar kid! And I just wanted to note my kid has so far been comfortable with many of the sorts of colleges and smaller universities where those percentages of varsity athletes is on the higher end, with club undoubtedly even higher.
Of course we have only looked at a small sample, and there could be a some if we investigated would rub him the wrong way. But on the whole, I would again suggest LACs have seemed like a positive, not a negative, for someone who has been a varsity athlete in HS, but wants to take that down a notch in college.
1 Like
In fact as a brief follow up to my other post, my S24 has kinda figured out that maybe a big role for Greek life is not a great vibe/culture indicator for him. Of course everyone will always say you can find your people, which is undoubtedly true. But for him, it has sort of become an issue of, āIf there are like 40 colleges that could all be great otherwise, why not pick 10-12 where this isnāt even an issue?ā
And for him, that doesnāt necessarily mean no Greek life (although that is fine too). But you can pretty quickly figure out where Greek life is just sort of a minor thing that a smallish percentage of people do, and where it is much more central to social life for many people.
2 Likes
Low/no Greek life was a big barometer for my D23 when she was looking at LACs too. One thing that helped get a sense of where she would fit was looking at the extracurriculars and the social media for different clubs to get a sense of how active different groups are. She ended up at Juniata because her top priority was a strong environmental science program - its one of the biggest majors there but also there are a bunch of different clubs related to that. And music was a priority - sheās in wind symphony and pep band. She wanted a college with a pep band since she had a lot of fun with marching band in HS. So she still benefits from the sports aspect without being an athlete herself.
When she was filling out applications, there were a few of the LACs that included a list of activities and let you pick up to a certain number you were interested in. For some of the schools she found a couple things on their list but at Juniata she had a hard time cutting it down to the max number allowed to select. I felt pretty early on that she would end up there.
5 Likes