Boys DIII recruiting advice for 2026?
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Anonymous
This statement is untrue. Top prospects are identified beginning in the fall/winter of junior year. Pre-reads start in mid-June. Offers for the NESCAC are back to beginning on July 1 (last year offer date was pushed back to August 1 due to the at-the-time pending affirmative action SCOTUS ruling and the admissions offices wanting time to figure out how to deal with it). To be sure, some prospects are recruited into July and August, but coaches' boards are well-established long before July 1. |
Anonymous
What does that ^ even mean? |
Anonymous
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There is a huge range of lacrosse at D3 level. The top 20 are very competitive, and the top 21-40 are still pretty good. Lower end is very weak.
High academic schools start their serious recruiting in June after junior year, but they start to reach out much earlier. Only the good lax, weak academic schools. recruit much before summer of junior year. NESCAC, W&L, and other high academic good lax schools will do an academic pre-read after your junior year. Offers typically start in late June. While there is a lot of debate, the top ten D3 Schools would be very competitive with bottom half of D1 schools. Often an Amherst or W&L will have more 3 star recruits that half of D1 schools. Lacrosse Masters is decent event, but the best showcases are invite only and not pay to attend. LM format is to have 3-4 coaches run practices and games in round robin format so that each players is able to play for each coach at some point. They do have mostly head coaches and not low level assistants of these programs. Last year, more of the actual coaching was done by D3 coaches than the D1 coaches, but the high level D1 head coaches were there. The format and event was pretty good, but not a very high coach to player ratio. My son at least got to introduce himself and play to some degree in front of several coaches of programs in which he was interested. Additionally, he met several coaches that had reached out to him. It's not Maverick Showtime, but it was a quality event. If you want to play high level D3 at good academic school, I would do it once. |
Anonymous
DS was on varsity starting as a freshman and a starter by sophomore year. He’s also a starter on the top level of his travel team. We’ve been told NESCACs are out of reach- these are for kids who could play D1. Looking at the boys and who have gone on to play college lax from our school and club- they were all standout players. |
Anonymous
Agree with this. Also - club lax is a great way to continue to play in a less competitive atmosphere. |
Anonymous
| Forget the recruiting…just pick the school with the best academics that has a team your kid is actually good enough to start for by his junior year. Maybe a Sewannee or Kenyon or Babson. If he’s good enough to ever start he will make the team as a walk-on. |
Anonymous
| Many D3 players, especially at NESCACs, are ones that through D1 recruiting didn’t find a match since they weren’t willing to compromise on academics, college fit, etc. simply to say they played D1 lacrosse. Others never wanted D1 because of what they were looking for academically, size, commitment level, or location wise. Playing an NCAA sport, especially at the D1 level, is a job so student athletes should be going into it knowing it’s a good school fit outside of lacrosse and that they’ll graduate with a degree they’ll feel will help set themselves up for success in their careers. Bottom line is lacrosse won’t be a career for most of these student athletes and some won’t play all 4 years of college. So find the right fit academically. Also, with the NESCACS the player needs to be able to be admitted academically almost independently of their sport, and in some cases be able to pay full fare. And a 3.7 unweighted GPA from the right high academic day or boarding school will be fine based on rigor—remember many of these schools top high schools don’t offer APs or weighted GPAs since their classes are all college prep level. But admissions staff at NESCACs know this versus a candidate coming from a public school or less rigorous independent school. All of that said—plenty of great schools and lacrosse programs at the D1, D2, and D3 levels and club lacrosse. Good luck to your son! |
Anonymous
| This was a tough question to ask my older D1 athlete…. What if you got in an accident and could not play your sport, would you still want to be at that college? |
Anonymous
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This is a very interesting forum and wish there was more about D3 recruiting and playing in the mainstream lacrosse media. I would agree with most of what has been posted, and a lot if excellent advice.
My son is in the same boat as rising senior. He has had a lot of interest and several offers from mid to lower D1 lacrosse schools, but none are a fit for him academically and otherwise. He is a high academic and social kid who just wants to play lacrosse in college. He has also gotten a lot attention from D2 and D3 schools, but we are not considering D2 and only a small handful of high lacrosse and high academic D3 programs. He as gotten interest from about half of NESCAC, Swarthmore, Dickinson, W&L, and that range of school. These are all good schools, but not sure if they are all generally good fits for what he wants. While he is still getting some D1 interest, the high level D3 could be the likely path. To give a reference point of skill level, he has been three year varsity starter, plays on two travel teams (one very high level - top ten ranking), has been named to multiple All-Star teams at showcases, and been invited to One Percent, Maverick, NLF Futures, etc. It is my feel that to get an offer from top academic and top 20 D3 program, you need to be starter on high level high school and travel teams and be a difference maker on the field. All of these top A&L D3 schools have told him that they will watch him in June and want this transcripts as soon as he has them to do an academic pre-read. It appears that most offers start end of June, first of July. If you want to stay in Southeast versus mid-Atlantic and NE, the choices are very few. W&L is only top lacrosse and academic school in SE. Sewanee and Rhodes are good schools but not at the same level over either. The ODAC is a very good lacrosse conference, but the academics, other than W&L, are not that high. Denison, Dickinson, and Kenyon are also good options. I have enjoyed this dialogue and would appreciate others' takes on this. |
Anonymous
Good thing Pat Spencer didn't listen to this advice. Good grief. I have no idea what the OP's son's talent level is nor whether is academics would qualify. There are certainly some probabilities but coaches and admission offices look at all kinds of things - especially at the DIII level. He could also blossom in his junior year. It certainly is worth having conversations. The OP also never stated what her son wants to do in college. Telling her to look at F&M or Dickinson when the kid wants to go into engineering is a waste of time. They don't have that. Regardless, it is also almost assuredly worth posting on an anonymous chat board to see what to do if you've never gone through the process. The amount of snobbery/hate on what is a pretty basic question seems overboard. |
Anonymous
| Please also remember that "play" is a loaded term. The NESCACs and other high-level D3 lacrosse programs carry approximately 50-55 guys on the roster...no matter the academic profile. A minority of the team gets in >10 games. In some cases, not all of the guys travel to overnight away games. If the team makes it to the NCAA tourney, only 32 guys get patches on their uniform indicating they are eligible to play, 10 more can be dressed on the sideline, and everyone else has to be in team "street gear" (polos and shorts). Be sure to ask your son to think about how he wants to fit in on the team. Is it enough to be a part of the scout team and possibly not travel? |
Anonymous
| I actually agree with the majority of the posters. Not to be mean, but the profile you list isn’t close to what draws offers from NESCAC teams. It’s just really hard. The only kids on a second team I’ve ever heard of getting decent offers were really strong and big athletes that were just new to lacrosse where a coach wanted to take a chance on the athleticism. |
Anonymous
Last month we went to the Georgetown vs PSU game (the game in the championship bracket) and I noticed a bunch of young men on the sidelines dressed in street clothes, and I couldn't understand who they were and what their job was. Were they these guys - who were, so to speak, surplus players? |
Anonymous
I generally agree with your thoughts here. DS is getting lots of interest from schools that are academically beneath what I think he can aspire to (even calling them safety schools might be exaggerating it) and happily he knows he shouldn't choose his school "just for lacrosse". |
Anonymous
Yes. They were likely injured players or players that didn't make the cut to be in uniform. I believe D1 gets more patched players and non-patched than D3, but definitely not everyone gets to be in uniform. The numbers I cited were for D3. FWIW, this year was better for D3 because it used to be that the non-dressed players had to be in the stands. So tough for those guys. |