Walking on the team? D1 and D3?

It is unlikely the coach has 8 spots to give admissions boosts to. More likely is if he’s losing 8 players (and maybe some sophomores and juniors too), he might have 3 solid spots, a few tips, and the rest of the players he wants have to get in on their own, especially at Ivies and NESCAC. Many students get in on their own because they’ve got great grades and played at prep school and they are legacies and they were team captain, etc. He also may want to recruit 15 players for those 8 vacancies, and he definitely won’t have 15 spots to give slots/tips/nods or whatever you want to call it. Let the coach worry about that - you need to worry about your application and chances.

Right now you are trying to get it all (major, sports, best school, financial aid) and there may come a time when you have to choose. You said the art major/focus is the most important, and if so you’ll be able to eliminate a lot of schools because of that. Try not to eliminate schools because they are missing one thing that you want (unless it is finances, because if you can’t afford the school, you can’t go). Keep an open mind as to how you can make it work. If there is a particular course you want at a school, maybe you can do an exchange semester at that school, or a summer program.

Athletes make all kinds of majors work. I know a few athletes from Savannah College of Art & Design who were art majors and made it work. Maybe it took summer courses or intensive art in the fall when it was a spring sport, but they did it. My daughter was an engineer and many say engineers can’t be top athletes, but she did it; her roommate is in dental school, another had a 4.0 in accounting, many had jobs, went on to top grad schools. They were all-Americans, made the NCAA tournament, were good students and enjoyed the full college experience.

Look at the rosters on the teams you are looking at. What are their majors? What is the team gpa? What honors, athletic or academic, are they getting?

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The OFFER is different than accepting the offer. Many athletes get multiple offers. Some even get multiple likely letters.

I disagree that few break the commitment. In lacrosse, MANY commit as juniors (used to be even more when they were allowed to commit as freshman and sophomores) and decommit and go somewhere else, especially boys. Some figure out the school isn’t right for them academically, some follow a coach, some find out the money just isn’t there and have to follow the money. Some have really good senior seasons and get more offers.

Unless you ED or sign a NLI, you can go to other schools. Even with the NLI (which the Ivies don’t use), you can go to another school, you just can’t play as a freshman (you can always go to a D3 and play immediately).