I think both Duke admissions and playing there will be incredibly challenging. A close friend’s son applied to Duke ED and was accepted from a competitive private NYC school. He had a 1540, near perfect grades, AND other ECs.
Like you, he traveled each weekend to play for high level developmental team and went to NJ several times a week for practices. He played and went to camps across the country and internationally.
He still managed to have several other ECs. I am not saying this to make you feel badly at all. I have 2 kids and they had 2 different levels of ECs. I completely understand that different people do different things, and i am not judging one approach to life as better than another. But the hard reality is for schools like Cornell and Duke, other applicants will have more.
He had to fight tooth and nail to even get a walk on opportunity at Duke. He was recruited to play at schools like Penn and Connecticut College, but Duke is really high level soccer.
Where do you rank at your school and how will your LOR be? How many from your school get into T20 schools? To most of us, a 3.4 is quite low for the schools you have mentioned, but perhaps your school doesn’t have the kind of grade inflation most high schools do.
Have you looked at Connecticut College? Bucknell? Franklin & Marshall?
I think there are colleges in CT like Fairfield, Sacred Heart, close to NYC like Manhattan and Marist, Wagner in Staten Island , Adelphi and Hofstra. In Eastern PA. La Salle St Joe. Scranton.
And more.
I could see Trinity or Ct College or an F&M. But unlikely.
Thanks for everyone’s feedback. I am well aware of the challenges of getting into D1 and D3 schools through soccer. That is why my original post didn’t even mention these schools. I am only looking for ideas on schools without soccer. And I appreciate honest opinions based on your experience.
Fair enough, but if you play on an mls next team I am pretty sure you could count on playing at a d3 school (even if not every d3 school). I’ll leave the recruiting alone now, since I do realize that’s not what you are asking.
@CCName1 for others reading the thread (not directed at the OP) getting recruited to play soccer at Duke is 100% about soccer ability (and having the grades/scores to clear whatever Duke’s bar is). I know Stanford’s, for a male soccer player, was a 1250 SAT e.g. Doubt Duke’s standards are higher. That’s it – playing ability above all else. If you are good enough, your ECs do not matter. It also doesn’t matter if your GPA is just over the threshold. A kid that’s a weaker player, but with a perfect GPA is not getting in over the better player.
Now, good enough = the ability/potential to go pro. Those kids are extremely rare.
You are right about D1. But getting recruited at D3 is also complicated. And since I don’t have commitments yet I want to keep my options open. I could potentially expand D3 list. I only spoke at top schools like middlebury but wasn’t to serious about them.
I realize that you said your family will not qualify for financial aid. What is your family willing and able to contribute per year for your college education? Budget is a big factor here.
Have you considered a PG year at a prep school? That would give you more opportunity to prove yourself academically while getting a lot more support for the recruiting/application process.
The good news is that your interests are bread-and-butter staples for most colleges…they’re going to offer good programing in them. As you gave very little to go on with respect to what you’re looking for in a college (outside of your areas of study), that leaves a lot of possible colleges out there.
You need to speak with your family and figure out what the budget is. I suspect that you would likely receive merit aid at a number of the schools on this list, even with your 3.4 GPA (the quality of your high school combined with your SAT score will certainly help). I’ve tried to indicate what type of soccer opportunities are available, as that’s the main interest you’ve expressed.
Extremely Likely (80-99+%)
CUNY Baruch: It’s in New York City, you get in-state tuition (i.e. affordable), and should you decide you’re interested in intercollegiate soccer, it has D3 soccer.
SUNY Stony Brook: In-state tuition, and there’s club, intramural, and D1 soccer, depending on how involved you want to be in soccer. Plus this is classified as a residential campus, so much more of a “traditional” college experience.
Ramapo (NJ): Still close to NYC, but if you’re looking for a smaller public uni, this one has about 5k undergrads. Also offers intramural, club, and D3 soccer. A residential campus where all classes 50 or fewer students, per the last CDS I saw.
SUNY Purchase: A smaller public uni with in-state pricing, there are about 3300 undergrads here. And though it’s not in NYC, because of the extremely strong arts programs here, you’re probably not going to miss too much of the arts scene during the week. Offers intramural and D3 soccer.
Seton Hall (NJ): Not far from NYC, but a sports-enthusiast school (at least basketball) that is medium-sized (about 5-6k undergrads) and offers D1 and intramural soccer.
College of New Jersey: Not far from the NJ state capital (should you gain an interest in public policy/politics), this school also offers intramural, club, and D3 soccer.
SUNY New Paltz: A little bit further from NYC, but offers intramural, club, and D3 soccer, and this campus recently got a lovely write-up in the thread about campus visits.
Ursinus (PA ): A liberal arts college a little outside of Philadelphia that’s part of the Colleges That Change Lives (CTCL) group. Offers intramural, club, and D3 soccer.
Saint Joseph’s (PA ): This school of about 4k undergrads in Philadelphia offers intramural, club, and D1 soccer.
Drexel (PA ): Bigger school in Philadelphia with about 14-15k undergrads and is known for its coop program, should that be of interest. Offers intramural, club, and D1 soccer.
Emmanuel (MA): This smaller school is located in Boston (about 1700 undergrads) and offers D3 soccer as well as an intramural soccer league with other Boston colleges.
Likely (60-79%)
Rutgers (NJ): A hop, skip, and a jump from NYC, but if you want a big state flagship experience, this is your closest one.
Fordham (NY): Offers intramural, club, and D1 soccer and you’re still within the 5 boroughs.
Fairfield (CT): Offers intramural, club, and D1 soccer with about 4300 undergrads and a 12:1 student/faculty ratio.
Marist (NY): About 5k undergrads attend this Poughkepsie school that offers intramural, club, and intercollegiate soccer.
Union (NY): About 2k undergrads attend this school that offers intramural and D3 soccer.
Clark (MA): Another CTCL school, this one has about 2300 undergrads. It offers intramural, club, and D3 soccer.
Providence (RI): This school of about 4300 undergrads offers intramural and D1 soccer about 2 miles from Rhode Island’s capitol, which offers many opportunities should you develop an interest in politics or public policy.
Toss-Up (40-59%)
College of the Holy Cross (MA): This school in Worcester, MA with about 3k undergrads and a 10:1 student/faculty ratio offers intramural, club, and D1 soccer.
Brandeis (MA): This school outside of Boston has about 3500 undergrads and a 10:1 student/faculty ratio. It offers intramural and D3 soccer.
Low Probability (20-39%)
Vassar (NY): Intramural and D3 soccer. More intimate school with about 2500 undergrads and a low 8:1 student/faculty ratio. Just up the road from NYC in Poughkepsie.
Villanova (PA ): Just outside of Philadelphia, this school with about 7k undergrads offers intramural, club, and D1 soccer.
Lower Probability (less than 20%)
Boston College (MA): This school with nearly 10k undergrads offers intramural, club, and D1 soccer.
Oh, absolutely. The friend’s son knew this when applying. When it became clear to him that, despite playing at one of the highest club levels in the US, he was not going to be recruited for a major D1 program, he decided to make an ED choice based on which school he likes best and to let any walk-on chips fall where they may.
My intended point to the OP is that Duke is probably a near-impossibility with his stats, without a hook. To get in as a non-recruited athlete, as my friend’s son did, probably requires ED, higher SATs, and a higher GPA (unless his school has grade deflation).
My knowledge of the prep school landscape is about 40 years out of date, but there are a lot of very knowledgeable people on the prep school admissions forum here. Here’s one thread, for example, about schools that are strong for both academics and soccer NE Boys Prep/Private School Soccer There are threads about PG admission specifically as well. If you create a thread about your specific situation, you’ll probably get good suggestions.
Law school admissions is mostly about college GPA and LSAT score. You appear to be a good standardized test taker, so prepping for the LSAT may not be your biggest hurdle. However, you should expect to need a college GPA significantly higher than 3.4 to have a chance of admission to highly ranked law schools with the best law job prospects (law job hiring tends to value law school rank highly).
Berkshire and South Kent should be on your list. Also, Taft, Northfield Mount Herman, and Williston Northampton. All schools with strong soccer programs oriented to college recruiting. I am not familiar with the ISL schools, there probably are some you would want to consider as well.
It really seems to me that NYU would hit your sweet spot: in NYC, well known, with good soccer (but not at a level that is looking for prospective pros, or anything near that).
There are some schools that don’t consider freshman year grades. Carnegie Mellon is one of them, and they have soccer. I don’t know the others, aside from UCs, but it would be worth researching.
Finding schools when your GPA is lower than your SAT can be a challenge, so If they are more in line without freshman year, applying to some schools where 9th grade isn’t considered would be a good strategy.
Emory is another that doesn’t figure 9th grade into the GPA - a bit out of your desired radius, but particularly strong for Quantitative Social Sciences, which might appeal to you if you like poli sci + CS/data science. There’s men’s soccer on the Oxford campus as well as the main campus (DIII). I would think you’d probably need coach support to get in, unless your upward grade trend has been very steep.
UCs and CSUs recalculate HS GPA from 10th-11th grade course grades. However, UC admissions readers will see all of the courses and grades you reported in the application, including from 9th grade, so they could influence their holistic evaluation. But upward trend is better than any other trend (other than level trend at 4.0). CSUs just plug the recalculated HS GPA into an admissions formula.