Anonymous
11/22/2025 09:01
Subject: Bates? Dc has been asked to visit as a recruited athlete.
Above poster- I attended another NESCAC and yes, being in a sport helps a lot when it comes to dealing with the long winters and isolation. It provides a social outlet and opportunities to go off campus to other parts of New England for games. Some NESCAC schools also offer some version of a January term which also breaks up long winter.
Anonymous
11/22/2025 08:59
Subject: Bates? Dc has been asked to visit as a recruited athlete.
Bates is a great school. Most people who have personal experience with NESCAC schools either themselves or through their kids know that. I guess the same would go for any other group of schools.
Anonymous
11/22/2025 08:33
Subject: Bates? Dc has been asked to visit as a recruited athlete.
Anonymous wrote:My child had an offer to Bates but ultimately decided to go to another non-Nescac high academic school. But Bates would have been her solid backup. I think some are being a little harsh. Bates is a great school and the town isn't that bad.
Anonymous
11/22/2025 01:18
Subject: Bates? Dc has been asked to visit as a recruited athlete.
My child had an offer to Bates but ultimately decided to go to another non-Nescac high academic school. But Bates would have been her solid backup. I think some are being a little harsh. Bates is a great school and the town isn't that bad.
Anonymous
11/21/2025 12:32
Subject: Re:Bates? Dc has been asked to visit as a recruited athlete.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Bates is liberal; located in a run-down town.
It is easy to love LACs on a visit and during one's first semester after which the location and the smallness are likely to affect one's experience.
If you visit Bates College, then try to visit Colby & Bowdoin as well to be a fully informed, potential consumer of Maine LACs. Bowdoin has the nicest location while Colby has the nicest facilities.
This isn’t how it works for recruited athletes but thanks
Yes, I understand how athletic recruiting works. It is a nothing burger to be recruited by Bates College; it's just another way to try to get one to apply to Bates College.
OP: Again, if visiting Bates, then try to get to Colby & Bowdoin.
Also, don't forget about the severe cold, damp, wet weather that occurs in Maine for a substantial part of the academic year.
On the positive side, Fall is gorgeous & being part of an intercollegiate athletic team can make one's time at a tiny, isolated, cold-weather school more tolerable.
Thank-you for pointing out that you know nothing about athletic recruiting and are especially dim when it comes to NESCAC athletic recruiting.
Anonymous
11/21/2025 12:29
Subject: Bates? Dc has been asked to visit as a recruited athlete.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I’m a PP who liked Bates a lot and it’s on D26’s list. However … if you are not eligible for financial aid, I would truly consider Trinity or Conn College over Bates, because they will likely give your kid a $30K-35K/year merit scholarship. I have an athlete at Conn who loves it, and i think Conn and Bates have a lot of similarities. They are both very warm and supportive places. And they have very similar athletic scenes. Bates obviously is higher-ranked than Conn and the average SAT score is higher, but I’m really not sure it’s worth $120K-$140K more in tuition. Just something to think about. I’m guessing for most sports if Bates is interested in your kid Conn and Trinity would be also.
Can you tell me more about Conn College? Dc has an athlete hook there also but has been dismissive for some reason. Personally I like it bc it’s closer to home than Bates.
Overall, dc has strong interest from a number of NESCAC and SLAC and we are just looking for the most $ with the best fit culturally (dc is not preppy exactly but definitely not political or liberal, whatever that means, but also not MAGA). We won’t get financial aid, but we’d like as much merit as possible.
Conn College and Trinity are the only NESCACs which offer merit aid.
Anonymous
11/21/2025 10:34
Subject: Bates? Dc has been asked to visit as a recruited athlete.
Anonymous wrote:All the bates grad I know were private schools kids who played a sport and didn’t need financial aid. Umc preppy, sporty white kids who went on to successful careers. All were smart and loved their time at bates.
This.
Anonymous
11/17/2025 10:29
Subject: Bates? Dc has been asked to visit as a recruited athlete.
Anonymous wrote:Bates does not have the appeal of Colby.
Moronic response- obviously subjective
Anonymous
11/17/2025 10:04
Subject: Bates? Dc has been asked to visit as a recruited athlete.
Anonymous wrote:Of the Maine LACs Bates, Bowdoin and Colby, the atmosphere at Bates may be the most liberal.
Bowdoin is easily the most liberal, as well as most competitive of 3 the "Little Ivies". Look no further than new socialist NYC mayor (Bowdoin alum). All 3 are excellent schools.
Anonymous
11/16/2025 14:36
Subject: Bates? Dc has been asked to visit as a recruited athlete.
Anonymous wrote:DC turned down a recruiting offer from Bates because it's way too liberal. Very Greta Thunberg and that's not DC's scene.
Where did DC end up?
Anonymous
11/16/2025 13:29
Subject: Bates? Dc has been asked to visit as a recruited athlete.
Bowdoin's students are much stronger academically than Bates or Conn's.
Anonymous
11/16/2025 13:26
Subject: Re:Bates? Dc has been asked to visit as a recruited athlete.
Yes it is, but it’s not dangerous compared to the dumps in DC
Anonymous
11/16/2025 10:48
Subject: Bates? Dc has been asked to visit as a recruited athlete.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I’m a PP who liked Bates a lot and it’s on D26’s list. However … if you are not eligible for financial aid, I would truly consider Trinity or Conn College over Bates, because they will likely give your kid a $30K-35K/year merit scholarship. I have an athlete at Conn who loves it, and i think Conn and Bates have a lot of similarities. They are both very warm and supportive places. And they have very similar athletic scenes. Bates obviously is higher-ranked than Conn and the average SAT score is higher, but I’m really not sure it’s worth $120K-$140K more in tuition. Just something to think about. I’m guessing for most sports if Bates is interested in your kid Conn and Trinity would be also.
Can you tell me more about Conn College? Dc has an athlete hook there also but has been dismissive for some reason. Personally I like it bc it’s closer to home than Bates.
Overall, dc has strong interest from a number of NESCAC and SLAC and we are just looking for the most $ with the best fit culturally (dc is not preppy exactly but definitely not political or liberal, whatever that means, but also not MAGA). We won’t get financial aid, but we’d like as much merit as possible.
What would you like to know?
I would say Conn is pretty apolitical. But there is a mix of Ds and Rs on my kid’s team.
New London is a struggling city, but it’s in a beautiful location. Conn is a bit separated from the downtown in a really nice setting right on the river. It has a beautiful arboretum and nice trails. My kid is a runner, and Conn’s XC course may be the most beautiful in the country, right on a sandy beach on the LI Sound. They host a wonderful D3 meet in the fall (to which Bates comes) and the kids usually go in the ocean afterward.
I think any NESCAC will have a good job network for athletes. Conn has a good career services dept. And my kid has gotten to know several of his professors.
The negatives: The food and dorms are not as nice as at some NESCACs (though probably similar to Bates, which has an endowment similar to Conn’s). The athletic facilities overall are not as nice as at most NESCACs, though they recently redid the turf field and track, if you care about that.
Let me know what else you’d like to know.
Anonymous
11/16/2025 10:18
Subject: Bates? Dc has been asked to visit as a recruited athlete.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Pretty woke campus, combined with a relatively mediocre academic student body. Of the entire freshman class only 73 submitted an SAT and fewer than 18 scored above 1490.
So Bates gets no NMSF, no high scorers.
A bunch of students who didn't spend high school getting tutors and studying for an idiotic national exam? sounds awesome! I don't know when Americans lost the plot that we should have interesting, thoughtful people in college, not bots.
I don't know how to break this to you, but, some of our kids spent all of about 10 hours taking 2-3 practice SATs over the course of their entire HS career ... and they still crushed it in one sitting. Because they're legit smart.
Maybe Bates has these kids of this caliber, maybe it doesn't. We don't know, because they generally don't take the test at all.
My n=1 friend's kid at Bates now is one of those who "doesn't take tests well" so she didn't even try and only applied to TO schools. She is sweet and does okay and loves the outdoorsy vibe at Bates. But she would be crushed at a place like U. Chicago or Swarthmore. Metrics matter.
Anonymous
11/16/2025 10:05
Subject: Re:Bates? Dc has been asked to visit as a recruited athlete.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Bates is liberal; located in a run-down town.
It is easy to love LACs on a visit and during one's first semester after which the location and the smallness are likely to affect one's experience.
If you visit Bates College, then try to visit Colby & Bowdoin as well to be a fully informed, potential consumer of Maine LACs. Bowdoin has the nicest location while Colby has the nicest facilities.
This isn’t how it works for recruited athletes but thanks
Yes, I understand how athletic recruiting works. It is a nothing burger to be recruited by Bates College; it's just nother way to try to get one to apply to Bates College.
OP: Again, if visiting Bates, then try to get to Colby & Bowdoin.
Also, don't forget about the severe cold, damp, wet weather that occurs in Maine for a substantial part of the academic year.
On the positive side, Fall is gorgeous & being part of an intercollegiate athletic team can make one's time at a tiny, isolated, cold-weather school more tolerable.