This back-and-forth happens a lot, and is quite tiresome -- a St. Albans person gets defensive about athletics and wants to change the subject to academics, and in doing so offends someone else from a different school who then gets defensive in turn. This is a lacrosse forum. Let's stick to lacrosse, and leave the who-has-better-academics debate to the private school forum.

The multiple early commits in the St. Albans 2023 class are great for the individual players, of course, and there will likely be more commits from that 2023 class.

These commits are also great for the program. Even in recent years, St. Albans has had some standout individual players who've done well at the next level, e.g. Yale goalie, Brown faceoff guy. But St. Albans needs greater depth in order to play for all four quarters. The St. Albans 2022 class has a couple of D3 lacrosse commits, and there will be at least a couple of D3 football commits in that class who are also lacrosse players. We will see come spring if St. Albans is headed in the right direction as a full lacrosse team. The results will either be there or they won't.

Anonymous wrote:The school values athletics but it's hard to recruit the way other schools do bc STA won't lower their admission standards (or at least by much), and it's a very academically rigorous school. This is not to say you can't get a great education at Prep, Landon, Bullis, St. John's, or Gonzaga -- absolutely you can. So the boys who are choosing to go there (or who are being admitted) are a smaller subset of the overall athlete pool. They are the boys who are able to be admitted and also willing to take on the rigor of the academics in addition to their athletic commitments. This is not an easy balancing act, but for those who can check all of those boxes, the reward can be a pretty desirable college placement.

Lacrosse has also become less white and some of these schools are more appealing on the diversity front.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The school values athletics but it's hard to recruit the way other schools do bc STA won't lower their admission standards (or at least by much), and it's a very academically rigorous school. This is not to say you can't get a great education at Prep, Landon, Bullis, St. John's, or Gonzaga -- absolutely you can. So the boys who are choosing to go there (or who are being admitted) are a smaller subset of the overall athlete pool. They are the boys who are able to be admitted and also willing to take on the rigor of the academics in addition to their athletic commitments. This is not an easy balancing act, but for those who can check all of those boxes, the reward can be a pretty desirable college placement.

St Albans academics are heads and tails over the others. There is no comparrison. Gonzaga LOL

It's funny to me that many people believe the HS with which you come from is the end game when actually what HS you come from means almost zero once you become an adult (news flash..every coach out there groups "DC privates" as the same). Where you go to University does matter more as an adult (although not nearly as much for most schools as people think). The best paths to achieve this are different for many kids. If athletics can help with that, then that is a viable path. I think very little of so-called "academic rigor" of a HS when I don't feel it really has anything to do with one's success as an adult nor will it matter to those that are using athletics as a path to the best university available to them.

Anonymous wrote:The school values athletics but it's hard to recruit the way other schools do bc STA won't lower their admission standards (or at least by much), and it's a very academically rigorous school. This is not to say you can't get a great education at Prep, Landon, Bullis, St. John's, or Gonzaga -- absolutely you can. So the boys who are choosing to go there (or who are being admitted) are a smaller subset of the overall athlete pool. They are the boys who are able to be admitted and also willing to take on the rigor of the academics in addition to their athletic commitments. This is not an easy balancing act, but for those who can check all of those boxes, the reward can be a pretty desirable college placement.

St Albans academics are heads and tails over the others. There is no comparrison. Gonzaga LOL

Anonymous wrote:The school values athletics but it's hard to recruit the way other schools do bc STA won't lower their admission standards (or at least by much), and it's a very academically rigorous school. This is not to say you can't get a great education at Prep, Landon, Bullis, St. John's, or Gonzaga -- absolutely you can. So the boys who are choosing to go there (or who are being admitted) are a smaller subset of the overall athlete pool. They are the boys who are able to be admitted and also willing to take on the rigor of the academics in addition to their athletic commitments. This is not an easy balancing act, but for those who can check all of those boxes, the reward can be a pretty desirable college placement.

I know top student athletes who turned down STA or chose not to apply because they preferred the environment and community at other schools. Also know top students/athletes who did not go to STA because their athletic programs are not strong, especially in football, lacrosse, and basketball (among others). Not many future recruits choose to be on a loosing team or in a loosing program. There are tons of very smart, high achieving, and highly motivated athletes at other schools and it’s rather offensive that you suggest only a small number can handle STA’s rigor. This is blatantly false and just puts a spotlight on STA’s narcissism and over inflated sense of self. Another reason some families and kids are turned off and choose not to attend.

You are correct about all playing defense and two are LSM so the impact is even less

Their 2023 class may be the best they have seen in a decade, but it is still small in comparison to the local lacrosse powerhouses. STA will see between 3 to 5 commits total for the 2023 class. This is HUGE (actually unheard of) for STA, but is not the start of a new trend and does not compare to the depth seen on other local teams like SJC, Prep, and Landon. Also, unfortunately, their strongest players are on the defensive side. This can help your level of play, but doesn’t create a lot of goals. My guess is they may move from the bottom of the IAC to the middle, but they will continue to be out played and out maned by the top schools.

The school values athletics but it's hard to recruit the way other schools do bc STA won't lower their admission standards (or at least by much), and it's a very academically rigorous school. This is not to say you can't get a great education at Prep, Landon, Bullis, St. John's, or Gonzaga -- absolutely you can. So the boys who are choosing to go there (or who are being admitted) are a smaller subset of the overall athlete pool. They are the boys who are able to be admitted and also willing to take on the rigor of the academics in addition to their athletic commitments. This is not an easy balancing act, but for those who can check all of those boxes, the reward can be a pretty desirable college placement.

Anonymous wrote:Penn and Michigan commits so far, and actively working on a pipeline for the younger grades. Definitely a program on the rise.

STA has finished in last place in the IAC for the better part of the last decade. I'm pretty sure even the past 3 seasons, they have finished dead in last.

STA has always had 2 - 3 college commits a year (some years even more) but they haven't really been competitive for a very long time which is sad. (STA used to be very competitive in lacrosse in the 90's and even early / mid part of the 2000's)

Hopefully, the new headmaster has put a new emphasis on athletics.

Penn and Michigan commits so far, and actively working on a pipeline for the younger grades. Definitely a program on the rise.

Their 23s are strong but they still don’t appear to have the depth that the more established lax schools have. Maybe that is changing but they still struggled in IAC play last year.

Yeah. STA is clearly improving, especially on the defensive side. They just need to figure out how to score.

Good for STA athletics … now they can finally stop complaining about how the rest of the IAC teams recruit and they follow the rule back.

It appears that way.

Has STA put a new emphasis on lacrosse?

Longtime observer and by all means I’m not affiliated with their program but noticed they have two kids in their current 2023 already pledge to very good D1 programs.

I know STA has really struggled in the IAC for a good portion of the last decade, but has the program finally turned the program?