Student rated as among top 600 tennis players, what are admission chances at a top 30 school?
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Anonymous
| Very low chance of admission. |
Anonymous
| Switch to professional pickleball. Not kidding one bit. There’s your unique admissions story to go with the high stats. |
Anonymous
|
Top 600 USTA for their age bracket.
Wants to play tennis at college. Club level would be great as well. Does that boost the admissions to T20 in any way? Trying to see if tennis can be leveraged in any way to become competitive for T20. Trying to see if should he even bother to apply for T20. Tried volunteering at hospital just to explore medicine as a career; figured out it is not for him. |
Anonymous
No boost at all in T20 admission for merely intending to play a club sport. And no guarantee that kid will make the club team at some schools. As an unrecruited HS athlete the sport is an EC in the same way that HS music or HS drama or HS robotics club is an EC. |
Anonymous
I would think his chances are great. If he's already getting 1500 on his SAT as a sophomore, he'll probably do even better as a junior. If he wants to play tennis in college, I would suggest he perhaps look at Div. 3 schools. My daughter was a nationally ranked tennis player and was also in the top 600. She wasn't Div. 1 level. She probably could have played Div. 2, but most of the Div. 2 schools are not particularly academic (although Emory-Riddle Aeronautical University is an exception). Most liberal arts colleges are Div. 3, and being recruited for the tennis team would very likely ensure your DC entry with his academic stats. My daughter wanted the liberal arts experience and went to a top 15 LAC, where she was extremely happy. The following universities are Div. 3: MIT, U of Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, and WashU . If he's looking at schools of that caliber and is interested in liberal arts colleges, he might also want to look at, for example, Williams, Amherst, Pomona, Swarthmore, Grinnell, Carleton, Bowdoin, etc. Perhaps he could reach out to the tennis coaches at those schools? If he wants to get onto their radar, I would suggest you get premium access to https://www.tennisrecruiting.net/ (I can't remember what it costs, but it's not exorbitant) and list schools that he is interested in. You can enter more personal information like ACT, SAT, GPA, your phone number, and email address in a way that is only visible to tennis coaches. Every time he makes a change to his Tennis Recruiting profile, the coaches at the schools he's listed will be alerted. Prepare to get TONS of phone calls and letters. We did this with our daughter, and she immediately started getting contacted by coaches. It made the college application process so easy and stress-free. She narrowed down to three T15 LACs, and we visited just those three. She was assured entry to all of them even before submitting an application, and she applied to her first-choice ED1, which was really a formality at that point. She also got quite a lot of financial assistance. I don't know if your son would want to play Div. 1. From what I've heard, it is very demanding in terms of time (almost like working a full-time job), which can get in the way of academics. Div. 3 usually only requires 2-3 hours a day, plus traveling to tournaments over the weekends during season. Of course, you can always drop tennis after you've been accepted. My daughter played all four years in college and loved it. She arrived on campus and almost immediately had a good friend group in the team. We parents found our own friend group in the parents of the team members. Even if your son doesn't play tennis in school, being a nationally ranked player should give his application a major boost. With his academics, he should be well-poised to get into a really good school. My family really enjoyed the journey of playing tennis and looking at colleges. I miss those days. Good luck! |
Anonymous
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It’s been mentioned a bunch of times, but heres the hard number - in 2018 63 percent of Div I tennis players were not from the US.
https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/research/demographics/2019RES_ISATrendsDivSprt.pdf |
Anonymous
Tennis parents here in the States are spending a fortune getting their kids to Div. 1 level with academies, private coaching, etc. In many cases, the parents spend a lot more than four years at a private university would cost. Intensive coaching is often a really poor investment, both financially and academically. Typically, the kids who get into Div. 1 schools end up in third-rate schools. Playing Div. 1 is very time-consuming. It's difficult for STEM students to play Div. 1 because it's hard to find time for labs, etc. Even very top juniors seldom make it as pros, and many drop out of their college programs due to burn out or injury. Having said that, there are some Div. 1 players (like Danielle Collins, Jen Brady, and Jessica Peluga) who completed their degrees and went on to successful professional careers. If your child really loves tennis, the sacrifices are worth it, but for a bright kid who is going to make their living with their brain rather than their body, in 90% of cases, it is probably best to avoid Div. 1. |
Anonymous
For many reasons, I would prefer a child of mine to go Div. 3. There are some terrific Div. 3 schools. |
Anonymous
Actually, so far the advice seems spot on. Tennis is different from other sports. There is a very clear ranking system for individual players. OP, have you signed up for this website yet? Some info is free. It might help you. https://www.tennisrecruiting.net/list.asp?id=1249 |
Anonymous
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What is his UTR/WTN/star rating at Tennis Recruiting? The TR website has excellent info on recent recruits at all types of colleges (D1-3).
Apart from the Ivies/Stanford/Duke, most of the other D1 schools are not very strong academically. At the same time, there are D3 schools that are top notch academically (e.g.MIT/Caltech/Chicago/Amherst/Williams/Swarthmore). You can check the stats of their 2023 recruits and judge for yourself where your son stands. Obviously, schools like MIT care a lot about the academic part and even the athletes have to meet their admission criteria (including very high scores) Good luck! |
Anonymous
| Sorry, but to be a recruited tennis player at Michigan or the top ivies like Harvard or Princetion, you need to be top 20 in the nation minimum. Duke, top 10. Top D3 programs like UChicago, top 100 in the nation. You can't even walk on to these teams even if you get accepted on your own. 600 you can get recruited to play at D3 programs not ranked in the top 30. For a high stats tennis player ranked in the 600s, best to go to a top academic school and play club tennis as others have suggested. |
Anonymous
It is important to distinguish between top universities (academically) and top universities (tennis wise). For instance, the Caltech recruit on the TR website is in the USTA range (500-600) that OP mentioned; he is a three star recruit and 9.7 UTR. That’s a reference point for Caltech, which we can all agree is a top notch academic school but not a tennis powerhouse. |
Anonymous
I know a 4-star (TR) tennis player who got into MIT with an SAT in the mid 1400s, and a 5-star who got into an Ivy with an SAT below 1400. These were relatively recent admits. Once you're earmarked by a coach, your stats matter a little less. You don't have to be a starter to attract a coach's attention. A team size of about 12 players is often considered ideal, so don't be intimidated if the top six players on the team are rated above you. As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, there are D3s like Caltech that are outstanding academically, but may not have the strongest tennis teams. Haverford, Grinnell, Macalester, and Carleton and maybe Wesleyan and Vassar are strong academically, but it's a little easier to get recruited onto their tennis teams. There are also some weaker D1s like Colgate, Holy Cross, and Davidson that might be worth considering. This young man might not get into a top D1 school on his tennis alone (his academics are another story), but he's going to be spoiled for choice. |
Anonymous
Not to be pedantic, but someone ranked #14 in the nation on TR was accepted at Duke (he graduates high school in 2024). Among D1 schools, it's slightly easier to get recruited into the Ivies than, for example, Stanford or UVA because the Ivies don't offer athletic scholarships (at least, not in theory). However, you would need to be at least a 4-star and ideally a 5-star or blue chip. I'm not familiar with top D3 colleges for men, but for women, they are University of Chicago and the Claremont Colleges (Pomona-Pitzer and "CMS" or Claremont Mckenna, Harvey Mudd, and Scripps). You'd probably want to be top 200 for those schools. You could most likely get into WashU, Bowdoin, Swarthmore, Colby, or Caltech as a 3-star. With one or two stars and good stats, you'd have a good shot at Carleton, Haverford, Macalester, Grinnell, Colorado College, Whitman, or Bates. |
Anonymous
| Thank you all so much for the very valuable information. I need to print this out and read it slowly to follow up on your advice. Thank you! |