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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]In my experience with boys’ high level soccer—not sure if it’s the same for girls—there are one to three factors that typically drive the decision to pick a lesser academic D1 school over an academically elite D3. For families that are not economically secure, who are very thrifty, and/or who are not obsessed with the idea that their kid is doomed if they don’t attend a name-brand school, it’s the athletic scholarship, as others have mentioned.

For everyone else (the majority in my wealthy striver community) the boys have their self-esteem very much connected to their soccer prowess as teens, and they correctly think their peers will be much more impressed by a D1 commitment than a D3 one. I know a pretty large number of kids who turned down an Amherst or Williams level school to play at a D1 school that is in the top 75 or so on the USNWR list. Their parents don’t typically allow them to go to a no-name D1 unless they are terrible students or have learning differences or something else that makes a non-elite school a better fit.  I know many families who had a really rough time reaching a compromise on this issue, and also several where the kid gambled on getting a D1 offer and in the end had to settle for a lower-ranked D3 than the one that first offered.

The other potential factor is that some kids hope to go pro, and while that’s very difficult for boys to do if they opt to go the college route, it does happen every year, and is vastly more likely to happen if you play at a strong D1 program.  Many of the schools with great D1 programs are academically excellent, but only a tiny number of kids get recruited to academically elite schools with great soccer programs. Some kids also focus a lot on how much they like the coach and future teammates, though that wasn’t a big factor for most of the kids I know. It’s actually really hard to figure out potential fit unless you know kids on the team well. [/quote]

Find the sweet spot in the middle. It’s called compromise. [/quote]

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