My oldest received merit at several of the colleges mentioned here, but Centre College offered by far the best package when COA(cost of attendance) was taken into account. About 40% of students participate in D3 level athletics, including lacrosse.
Washington & Lee offers merit aid and has a great lacrosse team. Is your son recruitable by top teams?
Sewanee gives merit and has a good lacrosse program (won the SAA tournament the past two years and participated in the D3 tournament)
There’s 240 small colleges that have D3 mens lacrosse teams. All but the most selective 10-15 will do merit money in lesser or greater degrees.
So you just have to figure out where your kid will be an average or better player (so the kid can make the team and hopefully play in games at some point) and an above average student stat-wise (since merit money goes to above average applicants). Once you dial in where your kid ranks, you will have many dozens of options.
Outside of the NESCACs, the schools that play high level D3 lacrosse and are also selective academically are Gettysburg, Dickinson, Denison, W&L, F&M (very little merit $$), Hamilton (no merit $), Washington College, Kenyon, Haverford (no merit $$), Colorado College, Swarthmore (no merit $$).
If your kid is a very strong player and a reasonably strong student, Denison (top 10 for lacrosse) has tons of merit money (92% of students get merit awards; average award is $20k). If your kid is more meh as a player but much stronger as a student, Oberlin (top 125 for lacrosse) would make more sense (69% of students get merit awards; average award is $13k).
Beloit can be very generous
I think when you are ranked #125, you can leave the word ‘top’ out of the description.
@northwesty According to the common data set, the percent of students who received a merit scholarship from Oberlin last year was 36%, not 69% so it’s a bit harder to get. I agree that it’s a great option for a student who is very strong but also wants to play sports, but at a less competitive level.
Re #23, Hamilton has been member of NESCAC since the origination of the conference.
Trinity is in the NESCAC and does give merit aid, but I think it tops out at around $20k.
Trinity has a merit scholarship just for IL residents. Last time I checked, it was very generous. Full-tuition, I believe.
University of Rochester. Not a traditional LAC, but appeals to some students who like LACs and is Div3.
@PurpleTitan -Trinity in CT has a merit scholarship for IL residents?
URichmond has very generous merit aid that goes up to full tuition.
@Proudpatriot:
http://illinois-scholars.org
So not Trinity, but an alumni foundation.
But they provide full-ride scholarships to Trinity for IL residents.
Interesting.
^ There are a few of these. Evans Scholars provides full-rides to Northwestern (you have to be a caddy in a certain region). Jefferson Scholars provides full-rides to UVa.
Evidently, even though MIT doesn’t provide merit scholarships, MIT alums may give some scholarships to entice kids they want as well.
Up to 25k/year at Gettysburg.
Kalamazoo College is well regarded liberal arts college offering up to 30K/year merit based aid.