<p>My son (a junior) is an average student at an average high school school.
He plays USTA tennis and has a national ranking between 300-400 in
the Boys 18. He should be able to get into Rutgers and TCNJ.
I wonder what's his chance of getting accepted into one of the better schools like Swarthmore, Haverford, Bucknell, Johns Hopkins, etc.</p>
<p>I also like to know which of these schools have easier workload once you get it.</p>
<p>TD, I would suggest to check the changes in the rosters of the schools for the last 1-2 years. Most schools do publish such information and add the backround of their recruited class. You may recognize a few of the names and compare their rankings to your son. </p>
<p>As far as the workload at the schools you mentioned, I do not think that you'll find many students who find the workload easy. Swarthmore and JHU have just the opposite reputation. The best place to pose this question is in the individual forum of the schools you are interested in.</p>
<p>You might find this series from the NYTimes helpful:</p>
<p>tennisdad, I'm not sure about the schools you mentioned but I do know that not all schools have easier workloads for athletes. We know a grad of Princeton who was there as a heavily recruited tennis player, and she was expected to have the same type of schedule and workload as any other Princeton student. I'm sure that it's not just Princeton which expects that.</p>
<p>tennisdad, I am a tennis mom. My D was recruited, and is attending a very nice academic D3.</p>
<p>My advice:</p>
<p>You need a school that
-fits your son (culture, tone, & kids he will enjoy)
-is a reach but is not a massive reach (as tennis is very time consuming & you get no 'slack' in D3)
-cares about tennis recruitment** (some very academic schools, such as Haverford, do NOT care)
-will go to mat for a kid who has your kid's tennis credentials & basic academic stats</p>
<p>Your S will probably be pressed to apply ED, so start the research now. </p>
<p>If it is his tennis season, get some game tape on him now too.</p>
<p>Here is what we did:</p>
<p>We scanned the D3 National & Regional rankings for schools that would "fit" my D socially, and where the median SAT was fairly close to hers or a little above hers.</p>
<p>We ruled out the teams that were major national powerhouses (because my D was not as good as your S seems to be) and focused on those schools where she would be an asset.</p>
<p>She contacted the remaining coaches and visited about 10 schools, meeting the teams at each school, and overnighting on campus. She narrowed them down this way and went with the best overall fit & most enthusiastic coach, applied ED and was admitted.</p>
<p>Right off the top of my head I could suggest a school like Skidmore or Conn College as not "intense," but still academic and well regarded; also both are in strong leagues with good tennis competition. </p>
<p>However, not knowing your Son's SATs or GPA it is hard to know what you mean by "average." I may be off. </p>
<p>And it may be possible that some very intense tennis programs have a little more academic leeway than the D3 my D attends. Maybe Emory, Washington & Lee, or other natonal powerhouses are a bit more forgiving on SATs & grades, provided you S belongs on that sort of team. </p>
<p>In NESCAC schools, they want to see about a ~1300 SAT score (old SAT) for recruitment. Specific standards apply to NESCAC.</p>
<p>One way to guess the athletic level of a team is to see where kids in your area have gone, what teams they play on, what ranked position on the team, & what the team's national or regional ranking is. Then compare that team/kid you know with other schools at the same national or regional level. Another possiblity is to attend a spring intercollegiate league-wide tournament to watch how the various kids play and see where your son belongs. In NJ you could watch the Vassar/Skidmore or the New England spring tourneys for a good sampling of lots of schools. D3 teams vary widely. Some of them had kids who would not have made JV at my D's high school, others are nipping at the heels of D1.</p>
<p>If you gave me more info, I could probably help you better.</p>