2026 and September 1st..

Anonymous
Numbers come from inside lacrosse. Review each year for IAC/WCAC/MAC schools.

Definition of top level D1 used. Open to interpretation.

Big10
ACC
IVY
Top big east
Top patriot league
Anonymous
Not the poster with the previous numbers, but high level for boys usually means Ivy, Big Ten, ACC, most or all of the Patriot league, most of the Big East, and a couple of other schools in random conferences like Air Force or Utah.

There are 76 D1 men’s lacrosse programs I think but around half are colleges that don’t have super competitive admissions or national profiles.
Anonymous
Yeah 25 to competitive admissions/top national teams and another 5-10 to NESCAC is a good first guess every year. So if your kid is one of the top 30 or so players across NL, DCE, Madlax, and VLC, then they are in a pretty good position. Further down it gets more unpredictable.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Numbers come from inside lacrosse. Review each year for IAC/WCAC/MAC schools.

Definition of top level D1 used. Open to interpretation.

Big10
ACC
IVY
Top big east
Top patriot league


Thanks, if this is your process you likely missed by about half.

1. Lots of public school kids: Georgetown/PSU/UVA ect...Those would not have shown up if you just looked at IAC/WCAC and please the MAC? You must be new. Top 6A pubic would crush MAC schools.
2. You left out Army/Navy and the fringe top 20 teams like St Joe's/Richmond/Highpoint/Utah/Jacksonville have all been in the top 20 in recent years.
3. Many players consider top D3 schools as top choices and the whole point is that many kids in the 2026 class would consider these schools a successful recruiting experience.

I would guess that for some (not me) maybe committing to Iona/Hampton/VMI may not be considered a "high level" player but even factoring out the lower schools, the number is the classes 2022-2024 was much higher than an average of 23 DMV players in some it was more than double that number.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:There's already a 2026 player committed to Navy, which is allowed to contact players July 1, so the class is off is a good start.

And by the way, I would not consider lower D1 or D3 unsuccessful. If my son can use lacrosse to get accepted to an elite academic school, and have a ready made friend group the day he hits campus, I would consider that a huge success.


Success can be judged only by the kid and the family, based on what their desired outcome is. Not everyone is looking for the top possible program from a lacrosse perspective. Lacrosse isn't a career and focus should be on how to best place for beyond college and for quality of life during college. I'd be thrilled if my kid is recruited into a high academic D3 or a lower ranked D1 that would allow her to pursue her academic goals.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Numbers come from inside lacrosse. Review each year for IAC/WCAC/MAC schools.

Definition of top level D1 used. Open to interpretation.

Big10
ACC
IVY
Top big east
Top patriot league


Thanks, if this is your process you likely missed by about half.

1. Lots of public school kids: Georgetown/PSU/UVA ect...Those would not have shown up if you just looked at IAC/WCAC and please the MAC? You must be new. Top 6A pubic would crush MAC schools.
2. You left out Army/Navy and the fringe top 20 teams like St Joe's/Richmond/Highpoint/Utah/Jacksonville have all been in the top 20 in recent years.
3. Many players consider top D3 schools as top choices and the whole point is that many kids in the 2026 class would consider these schools a successful recruiting experience.

I would guess that for some (not me) maybe committing to Iona/Hampton/VMI may not be considered a "high level" player but even factoring out the lower schools, the number is the classes 2022-2024 was much higher than an average of 23 DMV players in some it was more than double that number.


Army and Navy are both in the Patriot League.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Numbers come from inside lacrosse. Review each year for IAC/WCAC/MAC schools.

Definition of top level D1 used. Open to interpretation.

Big10
ACC
IVY
Top big east
Top patriot league


Thanks, if this is your process you likely missed by about half.

1. Lots of public school kids: Georgetown/PSU/UVA ect...Those would not have shown up if you just looked at IAC/WCAC and please the MAC? You must be new. Top 6A pubic would crush MAC schools.
2. You left out Army/Navy and the fringe top 20 teams like St Joe's/Richmond/Highpoint/Utah/Jacksonville have all been in the top 20 in recent years.
3. Many players consider top D3 schools as top choices and the whole point is that many kids in the 2026 class would consider these schools a successful recruiting experience.

I would guess that for some (not me) maybe committing to Iona/Hampton/VMI may not be considered a "high level" player but even factoring out the lower schools, the number is the classes 2022-2024 was much higher than an average of 23 DMV players in some it was more than double that number.



Thanks for the reply. The point of the exercise was to see if some of the original posters were correct in that the 2026 parents had their expectations set as “too high” and that 2025 was a down year.

- which public’s should I look at? Will they be statistically impactful?
- I did include army and navy. They are top patriot league. I can add Richmond but I didn’t see many if any for that school in the past five years. I did include Utah. I don’t see st joes/high point/ Jacksonville as schools kids aspire to as they are easy to get into without lacrosse but I will go back and add.
- high academic D3 is great but I’ll just keep it to D1. I would imagine that many of the nescac kids would have chosen ivy anyway given the opportunity.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Since we are less than a week away from the beginning of the contact period, you should already have received feedback about where your DS or DD fits with respect to their playing level in college. If that is not the case then your advisors are not doing their jobs/obligations.
Well, ok then. Now that that's established, don't know how much that matters. They'll have a pretty good idea a week or way less in.
This matters a ton. Several of the clubs on the boys side do not manage expectations well at all, especially ML and DCE. NL does a good job of it. My question is how many of the boys that manage to land interest from a top 20 program are true 26s or are they reclassed at some point in their past?
OK, a ton. To clarify, does that mean they put down a waaayyy too early non-refundable deposit at a school or that they was weally, weally sad for a week?

On holdbacks, it's tough to know for sure but you can give yourself an idea. As litters this thread, Inside Lacrosse has a robust database of college commits. You can inspect top recruits, an individual school's recruits, etc. A number of them have birthdays by month. Many don't list them (I wouldn't). But those that do, it seems to run 50+/50- holdback at the top schools, maybe just over half on average.

UVA's 24's have most listed, and the other is a reclass. 5 held back including several summer birthdays, 4 not.

Public school kids are probably mostly on age save for a smaller percentage of just summer holdbacks. Private the opposite. I'd guess totals are probably in the 40-60% range depending on the college.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Numbers come from inside lacrosse. Review each year for IAC/WCAC/MAC schools.

Definition of top level D1 used. Open to interpretation.

Big10
ACC
IVY
Top big east
Top patriot league


Thanks, if this is your process you likely missed by about half.

1. Lots of public school kids: Georgetown/PSU/UVA ect...Those would not have shown up if you just looked at IAC/WCAC and please the MAC? You must be new. Top 6A pubic would crush MAC schools.
2. You left out Army/Navy and the fringe top 20 teams like St Joe's/Richmond/Highpoint/Utah/Jacksonville have all been in the top 20 in recent years.
3. Many players consider top D3 schools as top choices and the whole point is that many kids in the 2026 class would consider these schools a successful recruiting experience.

I would guess that for some (not me) maybe committing to Iona/Hampton/VMI may not be considered a "high level" player but even factoring out the lower schools, the number is the classes 2022-2024 was much higher than an average of 23 DMV players in some it was more than double that number.


If we are talking just college admissions and helping to get into a strong academic school, the list would be even lower than 25. Really only the Ivy 7, Duke, Hopkins, Georgetown, UVA, Michigan, Notre Dame, and Army/Navy/Air Force meet that definition plus several NESCAC. It’s around 15 a year by that definition even with public school kids added in.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Yes and 2025 was down and 2027-2029 look even worse for the DMV


BLC 2027 was perhaps the best BLC in their club history and Pride Red 2027 was right there near top-10.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Numbers come from inside lacrosse. Review each year for IAC/WCAC/MAC schools.

Definition of top level D1 used. Open to interpretation.

Big10
ACC
IVY
Top big east
Top patriot league


Thanks, if this is your process you likely missed by about half.

1. Lots of public school kids: Georgetown/PSU/UVA ect...Those would not have shown up if you just looked at IAC/WCAC and please the MAC? You must be new. Top 6A pubic would crush MAC schools.
2. You left out Army/Navy and the fringe top 20 teams like St Joe's/Richmond/Highpoint/Utah/Jacksonville have all been in the top 20 in recent years.
3. Many players consider top D3 schools as top choices and the whole point is that many kids in the 2026 class would consider these schools a successful recruiting experience.

I would guess that for some (not me) maybe committing to Iona/Hampton/VMI may not be considered a "high level" player but even factoring out the lower schools, the number is the classes 2022-2024 was much higher than an average of 23 DMV players in some it was more than double that number.


If we are talking just college admissions and helping to get into a strong academic school, the list would be even lower than 25. Really only the Ivy 7, Duke, Hopkins, Georgetown, UVA, Michigan, Notre Dame, and Army/Navy/Air Force meet that definition plus several NESCAC. It’s around 15 a year by that definition even with public school kids added in.


I certainly will not attempt to speak for all of the parents in the class of 2026, I think that getting recruited at D1 school like Villanova, Drexel, Highpoint, Mercer, Robert Morris, Bryant, Vermont, Albany, and others is still a great accomplishment. There are very few D1 programs and less than 3% of all players are recruited to D1. It sets the player up for chance to have a great college experience. Some schools like Mississippi State and Michigan State have high acceptance rates but are extremely difficult to get recruited in to play football. With the changes to scholarships who knows what is in the future. I would not be disappointed with any of the above.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Yes and 2025 was down and 2027-2029 look even worse for the DMV


BLC 2027 was perhaps the best BLC in their club history and Pride Red 2027 was right there near top-10.


This was referring to boys lacrosse not girls.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Yes and 2025 was down and 2027-2029 look even worse for the DMV


BLC 2027 was perhaps the best BLC in their club history and Pride Red 2027 was right there near top-10.


This was referring to boys lacrosse not girls.


In retrospect it would have been a good idea to include that critical piece of information in the thread's subject line.
Anonymous
How do top school coaches approach recruiting? First - IL 5 stars and other 4 stars / top showcase players to rack up that top 50-100, second - do they really look for specialized positions like fogo and goalies (IS 4 and 3 stars)? then third - rest of the 4 stars / 3 stars and showcase studs?
Anonymous
The IL recruiting podcasts with current D1 coaches is the best source of how different programs treat recruiting, when the start, what they are looking for in prospects, how the find the prospects and more. Worth the time if your DS is in a position to be recruited.

Sep 1 is the start of the contact period. It can go for 2+ years if your DS goes the PG route.
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