D3 and NAIA Recruiting

[LMUfan]

The grad schools know who is who and their academic strength no matter how small or large, well known name or obscure unknown. All you have to know is, how many of their pre meds, pre laws or whatever you plan to be, get in their first choice med or law school etc. What the average incoming SAT or ACT score is useful information as well. You can find a school of any D rating or size to fit your academic needs.

My daughter tells me that in her in-person interview for grad school the interviewer was very impressed with the fact that she was a D1 athlete. He didn't know that LMU was D1 and he asked her what division they played he perked up immediately when she said it was D1. He spent some time during the interview asking her about playing ball, including how much time spent on softball. Playing 65 games during the season and keeping up good grades made an impression.

So, with some grad schools, you get some extra brownie points for playing a D1 sport. The interview can have more to do with whether you get accepted than your GPA.

 

[sluggers]

I disagree. The reason anyone gets into med school is grades and MCAT scores.

Collegiate sports are an interesting conversation filler, but not much more. It is yesterday's news.

 

[calgofo]

I disagree. The reason anyone gets into med school is grades and MCAT scores.

Collegiate sports are an interesting conversation filler, but not much more. It is yesterday's news.

Agree. It's MCATS and grades. Don't understand the D1 bit either. If your in the top 25 D1 sb schools, then they are truly in a class by themselves. There are many D1 schools that are awful. Top 10 D2 schools beat many of the lower rung D1 schools.

 

[LHPDad]

Wow, thanks so much for all of the detailed responses. Many informative comments to consider.

First let me say that she has not ruled out any locations in the US. She has grown up in a rural part of California and is anxious to experience the big city. But the big city doesn't necessarily mean New York, Los Angeles or Chicago. I would prefer her to stay in California, but its ultimately her decision, she's very independent and quite capable of handling her own business. Were not wealthy so any scholarship money will be a big factor, in addition to college settting and the softball program. Our hope is that while she might become a marginal D1 player, she could become a very desirable D3 player worthy of academic scholarship help. Frankly, I am not sure I want to chase the D1 dream, since that doesn't seem important to her. She took honors college prep courses as a freshman and got a 3.0 GPA which is far lower than her junior high GPA. Her HS social life was a bit distracting at times, hopefully that will settle down some in her sophmore year.

It was mentioned that some schools have a better record of getting students into certain medical schools. I have seem one graduate school list the colleges that incoming freshman attended. It makes perfect sense to make this information a bigger part of the search criteria.

Since starting HS last year she has really increased her efforts. She began taking weekly individual pitching lessons in November 08 which has really helped. During the spring her fastball was radared at 58mph and her change up at 26mph and was eventually brought up to help out with the varsity team. She practices 4-6 days a week which keeps her getting better. Its very hard to figure out just how far she will progress in the next year or two.

 

[Mark H]

Good for you for getting on this early and considering all options.

 

[sluggers]

I send three kids to college, so I understand the issue about paying for an education.

It sounds a little odd, but look at the cost/benefit ratio when it comes to schools, and use your DD's athletic ability to improve that ratio.

E.g., the the California Institute of Technology is a D3 school and one of the top 10 schools in the entire country. How much is a degree worth from that school? $1,000,000? $2,000,000? Whatever the tuition is, it doesn't matter. You can't buy your way into CIT.

Your DD, with due respect, has little chance to get in UNLESS she uses her softball acumen to get her application moved up. Coaches at the great D3 schools cannot guarantee a spot for a student. However, they can get a student's application moved to the "take a second look at extra-curricular activities" stack.

So, you go there and you tell the coach, "My DD loves your school. She can do X. Her GPA is Y. Her SATs are Z. Do you think she has a shot at getting in?"

Turn the whole recruiting process upside down. You and her decide where she wants to go to school. And then you and her go and talk to the coach and see what they might be able to do.

You and her should control this process. Don't let some idiot travel coach or HS coach push do it for you.

 

[LHPDad]

Slugger, when you say "your daughter has zero chance of getting in" do you mean at CIT or are you referring to the shear numbers side or does her GPA look to low. Please elaborate.

 

[sluggers]

I shouldn't say "ZERO", but CIT admits about 18% of applicants. CIT is in the same league as UC. Those schools routinely reject kids with perfect 4.0 GPAs. It is a minor miracle for anyone's child to get in. Seriously.

BUT: I know a young lady who went to UC who isn't, IMHO, a genius. She was smart, had very good grades, and got a good SAT score. She wasn't smarter than any of the 1000 or so really good students who applied at UC that didn't get in, but she threw a really great riseball.

I know a couple of kids that got into Harvard. One kid had a 3.8 GPA and a perfect score on the math portion of the SAT. The other kid had a 3.8 GPA, a really good score on her SAT and can hit a rise.

You don't get into these schools unless you have good academics. But, skill in softball might be enough to get her over the hump.

Leverage your DD's athletic ability to get her the best education you can find. The list of possible schools she get into is larger than you might think.

Go to http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/college and start looking at schools in your area. Go to the school web sites, look at schools, and go visit them. Also, check out the "endowments" for each school. A higher endowment reflects how "networked" the school is with successful alumni.

 

[jofus13]

I need to have my DD read this post.

This weekend, I took her to practice with a team that is about 1 3/4 hours away, just so she could check them out and they could check her out. Their head coach is the dad of (IMHO) one of the best 5, if not one of the best 3, college pitchers of this decade and the div 1 player of the year a couple years ago (that probably tells you who she, and he, is). They are looking for a few more girls to fulfill their team goal of building a gold team (will be second year 14U next year) in this fairly rural area, and giving the girls the opportunity to play div 1 ball.

They didn't work with pitchers at all yesterday, and I would like for him to work with her a little and give me his educated opinion on her potential as a pitcher, but she had a decent work-out at SS, hit the ball decently, and they asked us to come back next weekend.

But....on the way home, my DD tells me that she doesn't know if she (and her mother and I, the drive to practices twice a week after work/school would be extremely tough) should make this commitment, because she doesn't think playing ball in college is going to be an option, because she wants to go into pre-med, and wants to go to a big college, and she doesn't think you can play ball with that kind of major.

She loves playing softball, so I thought this was a pretty grown up decision for her to be making, albeit it a little early IMHO....but, I pointed out to her that she hasn't even started High School yet, so she probably doesn't really know what she wants to major in or where she wants to go to school yet, and that it would be a good idea to pursue this for at least a year to try it out.

Plus, I'm not sure she realizes there are a LOT of good smaller schools out there, and that if she keeps playing softball at higher levels each year, continues to make straight A's (all she has ever made in school), and gets good test scores, she would have many options when the time comes for her to seriously start thinking about the decision, whether softball figures into it or not.

At least she didn't tell me she wanted more free time to spend at the mall with her friends, or to hang out with some weasel boy, so I guess I should be grateful for that at least

Mark, I know you're at a div III school....what are your thoughts on ball players majoring in "more demanding" fields of study? My bro was a football walk-on at a div 1 school majoring in Biochemistry, and he figured out after his first year that he had to change one or the other....he gave football up, but then, he wasn't getting any $$$ for it either.

 

[Mark H]

Depends on the player, the program and the school. As always, there is more academic money out there than there is athletic money so that's focus one. Focus 2 is play for the joy of the game at this age or go work on your education and get a big SAT score. As pointed out, there are two ways to use softball. One is to help pay for school. The other is use it to get into a school you probably wouldn't get in to otherwise. West Point and the Ivy's come to mind. For me, I think playing a sport in college adds so much to the college experience. Consider the academics, the atmosphere, the location and the program and go somewhere she will enjoy for four years and get a great education. After all, at the end of four years, it's about the education. For those four years, be honest with yourself about your abilities. It's more fun to play four years than it is to sub once in awhile. OTOH, if you are a big time athlete craving the best competition, the Pac 10 may be the only place to be happy. Premeds are common at my favorite D3 as are kids playing more than one sport. I don't know that I could have done it but then my study habits weren't the best.