D3 recruitment vs non-recruitment ED question

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These selective D3 schools, did they give merit for being recruited even though DC applied ED?

Very few of the top D3 LACs offer merit -- even for recruited athletes. Best bets are probably Grinnell, Carleton, W&L.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These selective D3 schools, did they give merit for being recruited even though DC applied ED?

Very few of the top D3 LACs offer merit -- even for recruited athletes. Best bets are probably Grinnell, Carleton, W&L.

However, many D3 LACs in the 20-50 range do offer merit broadly, even in ED. Smith, Berea, Bryn Mawr, Mt. Holyoke, Franklin & Marshall, Skidmore, Denison, Kenyon, Trinity, Conn, Union, Dickinson.

[Anonymous]

What’s the merit like for the recruited athletes? 25%, 50%, etc?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These selective D3 schools, did they give merit for being recruited even though DC applied ED?

Very few of the top D3 LACs offer merit -- even for recruited athletes. Best bets are probably Grinnell, Carleton, W&L.

However, many D3 LACs in the 20-50 range do offer merit broadly, even in ED. Smith, Berea, Bryn Mawr, Mt. Holyoke, Franklin & Marshall, Skidmore, Denison, Kenyon, Trinity, Conn, Union, Dickinson.

Smith has been a top 20 college for as long as I can remember. I didn’t realize they offer merit aid though.

[Anonymous]

Parents of a track athlete here and the question is:

Are you full pay without merit? Can you pay the 60-80k minimum / year you will pay at a top D3, vs the 30-50k you will pay at a D1 top public, even oos? Even w merit, its not that discounted at top academic D3s

Girls have more teams than boys. Some schools don’t even have a men’s team.

Top d3s are typically small. Like smaller than my kid’s current public high school. Does your kid want to go to a school of 2-3k students, or are they looking for a more typical university experience of 5k plus students?

We ended up not going the d3 route, and he will either walk on to the D1 team, or play club. But he wanted a different college experience than the d3s I saw out there. And I couldn’t afford a top d3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD is a pretty decent D3-level athlete. However, many of her top choice schools are (mostly) larger D1 schools for where she wouldn't be able to be recruited (in that case hopefully she'd be able to play Club). However, there are a few D3s that are on her list, but her number one dream school is not a school where she would be recruited. I'd say choices #2, 4, and 7 are recruitment potentials.

My question relates to timing. It seems when you are D3 recruited, you're expected to ED to a school (assuming you have the coach's support). But what if you want to ED a school to which you are not being recruited for, but you would still like to pursue recruitment for D3 schools (in EA or RD) if the ED falls through? Is this feasible?

For context, the schools in question are all highly selective or selective. Also, she's had conversations with a few D3 coaches and there is interest.

Looking for guidance and advice from parents who've traveled down the D3 recruitment vs non-recruitment path and how to keep all options on the table. Thanks!

Sometimes you have to make choices.

DC was heavily recruited by D3 schools for their sport. But wanted to study engineering. And the very selective schools they were interested in were all D1. And that wasn't going to happen as an athletic recruit.

Ultimately chose the T20 D1 school, which they got into bc of academics, test scores, and other ECs besides their sport. But they reached out to the coach. And has been training with the team freshman year, mostly with the athletes coming back from injuries and a few other promising freshmen. Will have a spot sophomore year.

Worked out for them.

Gets the top education at the school of their choice. Gets the training for a very competitive D1 program. And will compete sophomore year.

Them or they

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s the merit like for the recruited athletes? 25%, 50%, etc?

My tf/XC kid just committed to one of the LACs mentioned above and got $30k/year merit, which I think pretty much all students get. So the cost will be $55,000ish for us. In our case, the kid definitely wanted to run and wanted D3, so we weren’t weighing a cheaper state school against a SLAC. They probably could’ve gotten into a LAC ranked between 10 and 30 that didn’t offer merit, and if that was where they wanted to go, we would have done it for $85k/year. But I’m feeling pretty happy about saving that $120,000 while they are still headed to a great school in a competitive conference and like the team and the coach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents of a track athlete here and the question is:

Are you full pay without merit? Can you pay the 60-80k minimum / year you will pay at a top D3, vs the 30-50k you will pay at a D1 top public, even oos? Even w merit, its not that discounted at top academic D3s

Girls have more teams than boys. Some schools don’t even have a men’s team.

Top d3s are typically small. Like smaller than my kid’s current public high school. Does your kid want to go to a school of 2-3k students, or are they looking for a more typical university experience of 5k plus students?

We ended up not going the d3 route, and he will either walk on to the D1 team, or play club. But he wanted a different college experience than the d3s I saw out there. And I couldn’t afford a top d3.

So, in our experience, D3 will throw in the easier acceptance for track. But it's not going to be a full ride.

The real competition is at D1. And those students are very, very good at their events. That's how you get to the Olympics. An 18 year old freshman is competing against 6th year seniors. It's serious stuff.

Full rides are rare, but they do happen.

But absolutely no one should be pursuing a non revenue sport like track for a scholarship. It's not football or basketball.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s the merit like for the recruited athletes? 25%, 50%, etc?

D3s cannot give out athletic scholarships.

[Anonymous]

We went through this with track for D3. The key language from a coach is that the coach will support the application. That's the communication that means the coach is using a slot on your child. In our experience, support was explicitly tied to ED. We found coaches to be up front on prospects. A few coaches said they would support our son's application, but their pull was during ED. And a few coaches said they very much wanted DS to get admitted and be part of the college track team, but while they could offer some advice on admissions, they wouldn't be supporting the application. And interestingly, one coach said DS was unlikely to get in ED1 because of lower grades in one subject area, but if the grade improved for first semester of senior year, the coach would support ED2. DS decided to ED1 at a school where the coach supported the application, he got in, and is super happy now with the college and the team.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We went through this with track for D3. The key language from a coach is that the coach will support the application. That's the communication that means the coach is using a slot on your child. In our experience, support was explicitly tied to ED. We found coaches to be up front on prospects. A few coaches said they would support our son's application, but their pull was during ED. And a few coaches said they very much wanted DS to get admitted and be part of the college track team, but while they could offer some advice on admissions, they wouldn't be supporting the application. And interestingly, one coach said DS was unlikely to get in ED1 because of lower grades in one subject area, but if the grade improved for first semester of senior year, the coach would support ED2. DS decided to ED1 at a school where the coach supported the application, he got in, and is super happy now with the college and the team.

Good luck!

Similar experience for D3 track. Once DC said he wasn’t going to ED at a couple of schools who had done the pre-read and were very excited about him the coaches lost interest. I think in the end it was a disadvantage in RD because DC had already signaled it wasn’t his first choice.

Usually the first question the coaches asked was if DC needed money. He was full pay so that was a plus (in addition to being fast).

Ultimately DC decided he wanted a D1 school and got in without sports.

[Anonymous]

So it sounds like the theme for D3 is you get the same merit as regular students for the most part. The only real advantage is the coach getting you in ahead of the regular admission.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These selective D3 schools, did they give merit for being recruited even though DC applied ED?

Very few of the top D3 LACs offer merit -- even for recruited athletes. Best bets are probably Grinnell, Carleton, W&L.

However, many D3 LACs in the 20-50 range do offer merit broadly, even in ED. Smith, Berea, Bryn Mawr, Mt. Holyoke, Franklin & Marshall, Skidmore, Denison, Kenyon, Trinity, Conn, Union, Dickinson.

My D3 athlete did not ED (covid year 2021) and ended up applying RD/EA at Case Western, Rochester, and Stevens Institute and received merit at all of them also.

[Anonymous]

Just went through this with DD for high academic D3. All coaches expected a commitment to ED. Another kid I knew received a lot of interest but was unwilling to commit to ED and coaches all moved on. That being said, I know kids who did not get offers of support until ED2. I am guessing these were kids lower on the recruiting list that did not get offers initially but something fell through and the coach reached out late in the game. I don’t think coaches have any pull to provide support for RD - at least at the high academic schools. This may not be true at non-high academic schools. I do think coaches are open to walk ons at high academic schools. For example, NESCAC schools generally limit the number of recruits for which a coach can offer support but if your child can get accepted on their own and is a level able to play I think they would likely welcome your kid.

[Anonymous]

Parent of DD that just did D3 recruiting (not track), but agree with other posters that the WASPs and most NESCACs (not all) don’t offer merit regardless of whether you an athlete though they do have generous financial aid.. but there are some high academic SLACs that do offer merit. DD applied to one who offered a likely letter with very generous merit offer but of the top SLACs (USNWR top 15) only Grinnell comes to mind. I have seen posts where some parents though/were told by coaches that full pay was preferable. We were never asked if we were full pay. One WASP coach even offered us a financial aid pre-read after passing academic pre-read (without us asking). My sense was that they wanted to be fair to all athletes and transparent on what the school would cost. I never felt that being full pay/not full pay was going to have an impact.