Just found this article:
http://www.stack.com/a/best-di...olleges-for-athletes
Interesting ranking that put equal weight on academics and athletics, so MIT ranked #1 
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Impressive list.
I'd say at least 17 of first 25 are at Headfirst (Long Island) every year. All outstanding academic schools.
Thanks. Some really good schools on that list.
my 2014 son goes to Hopkins. played football first two years, now has hung up cleats- concussion issues. wanted to comment on what a great experience it has been. Although it is a high academic school, they have a great athletics program- really do care about sports and are very successful in most of them. It's a great experience for a D3 athlete.
Interesting list and good to see
Having grown up part of the time in Baltimore I can certainly vouch for Johns Hopkins. Beautiful campus, excellent academics and a strong athletic program
Good to see UW-Whitewater on there. They have consistently contended for the D3 National Championship year after year lately. The academics there are not nearly as strong, however. I know a few kids playing for St Thomas who absolutely love it there.
This is an odd list. Some very odd omissions and very odd inclusions. Also, I don't know all of the schools so I could be wrong, but it looks like a D3 list only, not D2 and D3 as the article says.
What is the ranking criteria? Bowdoin Collefe at #2 sticks out like a sore thumb to me. I'm familiar with the school. I would have been a 7th generation legacy had I chose to attend.
There's no doubt it's a top of the heap academic college (NESCAC). Their baseball and hockey teams are competitive. The other sports programs have a history of stinking. They have terrible athletic facilities. My son commented their baseball field would be among the worst in his high school conference. There are a lot of long bus rides in this conference for NESCACs in Maine (Bowdoin, Bates, Colby).
The student better be wrapped up in their sport and academics. The college (<2000 enrollment) is the town. Portland (60,000 population, lots of nightlife) is 30 minutes away. Boston is two and a half hours away.
JCG posted:This is an odd list. Some very odd omissions and very odd inclusions. Also, I don't know all of the schools so I could be wrong, but it looks like a D3 list only, not D2 and D3 as the article says.
Bentley is the only D2 I recognize. Hopkins is D1 in lacrosse.
RJM posted:What is the ranking criteria? Bowdoin Collefe at #2 sticks out like a sore thumb to me. I'm familiar with the school. I would have been a 7th generation legacy had I chose to attend.
I remember they said somewhere in the article that criteria is "Academics 50% + Sports 50%".
For academics, I think they just took the US News ranking, and didn't differentiate Universities vs. LACs. So you see a lot of highly ranked LACs in the list, such as Bowdoin, Williams, Amherst, Pomona, etc. The highly ranked Universities, on the other hand, are mostly D1, so they got excluded. All Ivies, gone; all flagship state schools, gone; Stanford, Duke, Notre Dame, USC, gone. MIT, WashingtonU, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Tufts, and a few others are the only ones left.
For sports, I think they only consider Football and Basketball and maybe Hockey. I don't think they take Baseball into account; otherwise Carnegie Mellon wouldn't be on the list -- they don't have a baseball team!
You have to take any rankings with a grain of salt. Even the US News now print a "warning" alongside the college ranking: "these rankings should only function as a starting point of your college search". The most fun part is the conversation that the list generates, such as in this thread. The insights into Bowdoin, Hopkins, etc. are priceless.
I think if you read all the threads on D3 baseball on this site over the past year or so you could write a better list. I don't want to want to drill down too far on this or knock any schools, but just for example, Swarthmore is tied for #4 on the US News list of Liberal Arts Colleges and has about a 10% admit rate. It's not a powerhouse but has won it share of Centennial league championships. It's not on the list, yet St. Thomas, with an 87% admit rate is. C'mon. I could go on. This is not a seriously researched list.
RJM posted:What is the ranking criteria? Bowdoin Collefe at #2 sticks out like a sore thumb to me. I'm familiar with the school. I would have been a 7th generation legacy had I chose to attend.
Would have been "7th generation legacy" if you'd gone there??? That's gotta go back before the days of Joshua Chamberlain even! And the Peary Exhibition stuffed polar bear????
Seems like some great academic schools listed. There are some that are outstanding in athletics, too.
Problem is when combining both athletics and academics the list seems to be flawed. While there are some schools listed that are strong both ways.....
The list has some not so great academic schools.
The list has some not so great athletic schools.
This list is great if you want to say you or your son went to a school ranked, so and, so on this list, or that list. There is alot that goes into picking a school, to spend 4 years at. Depending on the student, these may or may not be the right school. And you could use it as a starting point, but if you stick to only schools on this list, you may miss out on some really good opportunities .
Although the link below is referenced multiple times in other threads in this forum, the following is more relevant to most of us than the ranking in this thread:
http://www.tier1athletics.org/tier-one-colleges/
The founder's explanation says it all for his identification approach to the schools that made the list:
"You may not find the reigning national football champion on the list of Tier One colleges. That's not to say that there aren't some terrific academic institutions that contend for national championships, but one of the criteria for Tier One inclusion is that the athletes are fully integrated into the student body and expected to meet the same academic demands as non-athletes. You also won't find the schools on the list at the other end of the spectrum that place no importance on sports. Tier One colleges are athletically competitive and strive for excellence in the both the arena and the classroom."
The Tier One list makes a lot of sense to me based on what I observed with my 2017's attendance at Headfirst Sacramento, Stanford Camp and the AZ Senior All Academic game this year. Despite many of these schools being based in the Eastern US, almost every one on this list attended at least one, if not all three, of those events. The fact that they are willing to work these national events and recruit the best baseball players they can find across the country proves they are striving to be athletically competitive while searching for players that also show the academic capacity for success at their demanding schools.
Bogeyorpar posted:RJM posted:What is the ranking criteria? Bowdoin Collefe at #2 sticks out like a sore thumb to me. I'm familiar with the school. I would have been a 7th generation legacy had I chose to attend.
I remember they said somewhere in the article that criteria is "Academics 50% + Sports 50%".
For academics, I think they just took the US News ranking, and didn't differentiate Universities vs. LACs. So you see a lot of highly ranked LACs in the list, such as Bowdoin, Williams, Amherst, Pomona, etc. The highly ranked Universities, on the other hand, are mostly D1, so they got excluded. All Ivies, gone; all flagship state schools, gone; Stanford, Duke, Notre Dame, USC, gone. MIT, WashingtonU, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Tufts, and a few others are the only ones left.
For sports, I think they only consider Football and Basketball and maybe Hockey. I don't think they take Baseball into account; otherwise Carnegie Mellon wouldn't be on the list -- they don't have a baseball team!
You have to take any rankings with a grain of salt. Even the US News now print a "warning" alongside the college ranking: "these rankings should only function as a starting point of your college search". The most fun part is the conversation that the list generates, such as in this thread. The insights into Bowdoin, Hopkins, etc. are priceless.
If football and basketball are heavily weighted I'm even more perplexed. Bowdoin's football team went 0 for 2016. Last year's hoops team finished .500 overall and .400 in conference. The facilities are a gazillion years old.
#1 Assistant Coach posted:RJM posted:What is the ranking criteria? Bowdoin Collefe at #2 sticks out like a sore thumb to me. I'm familiar with the school. I would have been a 7th generation legacy had I chose to attend.
Would have been "7th generation legacy" if you'd gone there??? That's gotta go back before the days of Joshua Chamberlain even! And the Peary Exhibition stuffed polar bear????
The family goes back to the first graduating class. As a kid I had Bowdoin College history beat into me. I did school papers on Chamberlain, Peary and others. Whatever small museum there is at Bowdoin I was in it as a kid. My mother is from Brunswick. It's how my parents met.
I don't know if it's still there. But the rocking chair with the Bowdoin logo in the living room of the alumni house came from my great-grandfathers house. I spent a lot of time at Bowdoin as a kid wearing a Bowdoin 19?? sweatshirt. As a kid I carried my father's class banner in the alumni parade until I got old enough to see it as uncool.
Everyone in my family except my father was crushed I didn't attend. He went to Wisconsin to play football for two years. He got injured and transferred to Bowdoin. When I went D1 for baseball he smiled and said, "Who knows? Maybe baseball won't work out."
JCG posted:I think if you read all the threads on D3 baseball on this site over the past year or so you could write a better list.
Actually that gives me an idea: we should start an annual HSBaseballWeb ranking of "best high academic baseball colleges". We include all D1 D2 D3 schools, weigh school's academic ranking and baseball strength, add in other factors such as locations, facilities and scholarships, etc. Heck, it may be a bigger hit than US News!
Backstop22 posted:Although the link below is referenced multiple times in other threads in this forum, the following is more relevant to most of us than the ranking in this thread:
http://www.tier1athletics.org/tier-one-colleges/
Sorry to repeat myself, but the Tier One writer is very uninformed about schools in the west. Cal Davis but not UCLA? C'mon.
JCG posted:Backstop22 posted:Although the link below is referenced multiple times in other threads in this forum, the following is more relevant to most of us than the ranking in this thread:
http://www.tier1athletics.org/tier-one-colleges/
Sorry to repeat myself, but the Tier One writer is very uninformed about schools in the west. Cal Davis but not UCLA? C'mon.
I would think the uninformed would have heard of UCLA and not UC Davis. It's just a poorly worked out list.
Or it's a conspiracy and the writer went to USC. �� << wouldn't post my black helicopter
JCG posted:Backstop22 posted:Although the link below is referenced multiple times in other threads in this forum, the following is more relevant to most of us than the ranking in this thread:
http://www.tier1athletics.org/tier-one-colleges/
Sorry to repeat myself, but the Tier One writer is very uninformed about schools in the west. Cal Davis but not UCLA? C'mon.
Anyone have any idea why Emory is on there but is crossed out? Is it now "Tier 2"?
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater on the Tier One site. There's a lot of good stuff there, especially if you're trying to figure out whether your kid has Ivy League academic chops. His academic index info for Ivy admissions was really helpful to us. And I agree that UCLA belongs on that list, among other schools, for its academic strength. I'm wondering if his point is that a kid at Davis might have a better chance pursuing his academic dreams than he would at UCLA, if it was a tougher academic subject. Just thinking out loud. Haven't researched it yet, but will.
RJM posted:What is the ranking criteria? Bowdoin Collefe at #2 sticks out like a sore thumb to me. I'm familiar with the school. I would have been a 7th generation legacy had I chose to attend.
There's no doubt it's a top of the heap academic college (NESCAC). Their baseball and hockey teams are competitive. The other sports programs have a history of stinking. They have terrible athletic facilities. My son commented their baseball field would be among the worst in his high school conference. There are a lot of long bus rides in this conference for NESCACs in Maine (Bowdoin, Bates, Colby).
The student better be wrapped up in their sport and academics. The college (<2000 enrollment) is the town. Portland (60,000 population, lots of nightlife) is 30 minutes away. Boston is two and a half hours away.
RJM,
While I appreciate the fact that your family has a long history with Bowdoin College, I think you might want to acquaint yourself with the current status of athletics at Bowdoin. The other sports programs do not, in fact, “have a history of stinking”, at least not in recent history. Their men’s tennis team this past year won the Division III national title. Their women’s field hockey team has won the Division III national title four times and is a perennial favorite. Their men’s and women’s soccer teams both are extremely successful, making it to the NCAA national tournament on repeated occasions. And these are just some of the school’s athletic successes.
More importantly, though, than championships and winning seasons, is the wonderfully vibrant atmosphere for student athletes at Bowdoin. With a small student population, extremely competitive academics and a large number of athletic teams, the school has an extremely intelligent, motivated, athletic student population. The student athletes demonstrate wonderful camaraderie with each other - whether it’s through cheering on each other’s teams, hosting parties for other teams, engaging in charitable activities, or something as small as the annual soccer game played between the men’s baseball team and the women’s soccer team. The student athlete experience at Bowdoin is exceptional and that is what this ranking is all about. Not only does Bowdoin’s ranking here not “stick out like a sore thumb,” it makes perfect sense to me.
I'm not sure I get why UC-Davis is in there either. Strong academics in certain majors but I am not sure the academic standards for admitting athletes is that high even if the coaches are fully supportive of the studies.
I don't say anything negative about UCLA since the wife is a grad. It may be that they have been too good (except for 2016) in the bigger sports like football, baseball and basketball to be perceived as being academically focused.
We can find flaws in any list, but I would argue the Tier 1 is closer to what people with experience with the baseball programs would mostly agree on.
smokeminside posted:Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater on the Tier One site. There's a lot of good stuff there, especially if you're trying to figure out whether your kid has Ivy League academic chops. His academic index info for Ivy admissions was really helpful to us. And I agree that UCLA belongs on that list, among other schools, for its academic strength. I'm wondering if his point is that a kid at Davis might have a better chance pursuing his academic dreams than he would at UCLA, if it was a tougher academic subject. Just thinking out loud. Haven't researched it yet, but will.
Yes, I understand and agree that it's a valuable site for folks researching what it takes to get into an Ivy. I'm guessing the list is a side project the guy did in a day or two without a lot of research, so you may be overthinking the UCD - UCLA question. He also leaves off UCSB and UC Irvine, which are regarded as roughly equal to UCD, but unquestionably are much more successful baseball programs. You could make the same point about Cal Poly and the University of Washington, and yes, RJM is right - USC for sure. I just think he's east-centric.
A lot of people have problems with the US News lists, and they are certainly very far from perfect, but they are at least the result of a lot of people doing a lot of work over a long period of time to create a useful and highly detailed, constantly updated product that is bought and used by many people, plus, those of us who question their findings can see a lot of the data and methodology that goes into them and make our own conclusions. Lists like Tier One and the one in the OP are none of those things.
Backstop22 posted:I'm not sure I get why UC-Davis is in there either. Strong academics in certain majors but I am not sure the academic standards for admitting athletes is that high even if the coaches are fully supportive of the studies.
I don't say anything negative about UCLA since the wife is a grad. It may be that they have been too good (except for 2016) in the bigger sports like football, baseball and basketball to be perceived as being academically focused.
We can find flaws in any list, but I would argue the Tier 1 is closer to what people with experience with the baseball programs would mostly agree on.
Unless something changed in the last 2-3 years, at least for baseball, the academic standards for admission to UC Davis reflect the admission standards for student body. There are a number of reasons why Davis has challenges in competing at the highest levels of the Big West in baseball. Admissions is one factor.
Infield, Davis has become very, very difficult to get into, but that's equally true for UCSB, UCI, and even more so for UCSD. Cal and UCLA are ridiculously difficult to get into. And you are correct, baseball players must meet the minimum academic standards at all of those schools.
Just for a real world example, my non-athlete older son had a 4.5 weighted GPA and 34 ACT. Waitlisted at both Davis and UCLA for engineering. Got into UCSB.
I think Fenway has made that point before, and it is a good one. Noting the differential between the admissions standards for a non-athlete vs those for an athlete at various schools. At many schools there is not much daylight between student-athlete applicants and "regular" student applicants.
For many schools, there is a HUGE disparity. This differential is the maker and breaker of many teams.
NCAA just released its athletes graduation rate report. You can look up your favorite school's baseball team's grad rate. For example in PAC12, only Stanford and WSU have above 90% grad rate. UCLA, on the other hand, has very low grad rate. Maybe that impacted their ranking on the student-athlete scale?
http://web1.ncaa.org/GSRSearch/exec/homePage
MassMom posted:RJM posted:What is the ranking criteria? Bowdoin Collefe at #2 sticks out like a sore thumb to me. I'm familiar with the school. I would have been a 7th generation legacy had I chose to attend.
There's no doubt it's a top of the heap academic college (NESCAC). Their baseball and hockey teams are competitive. The other sports programs have a history of stinking. They have terrible athletic facilities. My son commented their baseball field would be among the worst in his high school conference. There are a lot of long bus rides in this conference for NESCACs in Maine (Bowdoin, Bates, Colby).
The student better be wrapped up in their sport and academics. The college (<2000 enrollment) is the town. Portland (60,000 population, lots of nightlife) is 30 minutes away. Boston is two and a half hours away.
RJM,
While I appreciate the fact that your family has a long history with Bowdoin College, I think you might want to acquaint yourself with the current status of athletics at Bowdoin. The other sports programs do not, in fact, “have a history of stinking”, at least not in recent history. Their men’s tennis team this past year won the Division III national title. Their women’s field hockey team has won the Division III national title four times and is a perennial favorite. Their men’s and women’s soccer teams both are extremely successful, making it to the NCAA national tournament on repeated occasions. And these are just some of the school’s athletic successes.
More importantly, though, than championships and winning seasons, is the wonderfully vibrant atmosphere for student athletes at Bowdoin. With a small student population, extremely competitive academics and a large number of athletic teams, the school has an extremely intelligent, motivated, athletic student population. The student athletes demonstrate wonderful camaraderie with each other - whether it’s through cheering on each other’s teams, hosting parties for other teams, engaging in charitable activities, or something as small as the annual soccer game played between the men’s baseball team and the women’s soccer team. The student athlete experience at Bowdoin is exceptional and that is what this ranking is all about. Not only does Bowdoin’s ranking here not “stick out like a sore thumb,” it makes perfect sense to me.
massmom, sounds like you have a kid in Bowdoin? Can you comment on the baseball experience?
I know several athletes that went to a particular school on tier1's list. While they liked the school and graduated in four years, They did not enjoy the athletic experience. One was a 4 year starter in his sport. It may have changed over the last couple of years, but both players said there was little or no support from the student body. In fact many of the student body turned up their noses at the athletes and did not understand why the school even competed in athletic endeavors.
So while the school is very good academically, the small sample size I have indicates that it may not be as balanced or supported as tier1 suggests. I have some of the same concerns with some of the schools on the original list.
Bogeyorpar posted:MassMom posted:RJM posted:What is the ranking criteria? Bowdoin Collefe at #2 sticks out like a sore thumb to me. I'm familiar with the school. I would have been a 7th generation legacy had I chose to attend.
There's no doubt it's a top of the heap academic college (NESCAC). Their baseball and hockey teams are competitive. The other sports programs have a history of stinking. They have terrible athletic facilities. My son commented their baseball field would be among the worst in his high school conference. There are a lot of long bus rides in this conference for NESCACs in Maine (Bowdoin, Bates, Colby).
The student better be wrapped up in their sport and academics. The college (<2000 enrollment) is the town. Portland (60,000 population, lots of nightlife) is 30 minutes away. Boston is two and a half hours away.
RJM,
While I appreciate the fact that your family has a long history with Bowdoin College, I think you might want to acquaint yourself with the current status of athletics at Bowdoin. The other sports programs do not, in fact, “have a history of stinking”, at least not in recent history. Their men’s tennis team this past year won the Division III national title. Their women’s field hockey team has won the Division III national title four times and is a perennial favorite. Their men’s and women’s soccer teams both are extremely successful, making it to the NCAA national tournament on repeated occasions. And these are just some of the school’s athletic successes.
More importantly, though, than championships and winning seasons, is the wonderfully vibrant atmosphere for student athletes at Bowdoin. With a small student population, extremely competitive academics and a large number of athletic teams, the school has an extremely intelligent, motivated, athletic student population. The student athletes demonstrate wonderful camaraderie with each other - whether it’s through cheering on each other’s teams, hosting parties for other teams, engaging in charitable activities, or something as small as the annual soccer game played between the men’s baseball team and the women’s soccer team. The student athlete experience at Bowdoin is exceptional and that is what this ranking is all about. Not only does Bowdoin’s ranking here not “stick out like a sore thumb,” it makes perfect sense to me.
massmom, sounds like you have a kid in Bowdoin? Can you comment on the baseball experience?
Bogeyorpar,
I do have a son at Bowdoin. He is only a freshman, so he has not gone through the spring season yet (although he did go through fall ball and enjoyed it). So far his baseball experience has been absolutely wonderful. The kids on the team are very nice and friendly, and the group is very close-knit. They do a lot of activities together. The coach is also wonderful. He seems to really care about the kids. While I can't speak to his coaching abilities yet (since coaches are not involved in fall ball in the NESCAC conference), I have heard he is a great baseball coach from several sources. The team takes a 2 week trip to Florida in March for spring training and apparently, they have a great time. The parents also seem very nice. They organized a tailgate at the football game during Parents Weekend, so we got to meet a number of parents and players.
MassMom posted:Bogeyorpar posted:MassMom posted:RJM posted:What is the ranking criteria? Bowdoin Collefe at #2 sticks out like a sore thumb to me. I'm familiar with the school. I would have been a 7th generation legacy had I chose to attend.
There's no doubt it's a top of the heap academic college (NESCAC). Their baseball and hockey teams are competitive. The other sports programs have a history of stinking. They have terrible athletic facilities. My son commented their baseball field would be among the worst in his high school conference. There are a lot of long bus rides in this conference for NESCACs in Maine (Bowdoin, Bates, Colby).
The student better be wrapped up in their sport and academics. The college (<2000 enrollment) is the town. Portland (60,000 population, lots of nightlife) is 30 minutes away. Boston is two and a half hours away.
RJM,
While I appreciate the fact that your family has a long history with Bowdoin College, I think you might want to acquaint yourself with the current status of athletics at Bowdoin. The other sports programs do not, in fact, “have a history of stinking”, at least not in recent history. Their men’s tennis team this past year won the Division III national title. Their women’s field hockey team has won the Division III national title four times and is a perennial favorite. Their men’s and women’s soccer teams both are extremely successful, making it to the NCAA national tournament on repeated occasions. And these are just some of the school’s athletic successes.
More importantly, though, than championships and winning seasons, is the wonderfully vibrant atmosphere for student athletes at Bowdoin. With a small student population, extremely competitive academics and a large number of athletic teams, the school has an extremely intelligent, motivated, athletic student population. The student athletes demonstrate wonderful camaraderie with each other - whether it’s through cheering on each other’s teams, hosting parties for other teams, engaging in charitable activities, or something as small as the annual soccer game played between the men’s baseball team and the women’s soccer team. The student athlete experience at Bowdoin is exceptional and that is what this ranking is all about. Not only does Bowdoin’s ranking here not “stick out like a sore thumb,” it makes perfect sense to me.
massmom, sounds like you have a kid in Bowdoin? Can you comment on the baseball experience?
Bogeyorpar,
I do have a son at Bowdoin. He is only a freshman, so he has not gone through the spring season yet (although he did go through fall ball and enjoyed it). So far his baseball experience has been absolutely wonderful. The kids on the team are very nice and friendly, and the group is very close-knit. They do a lot of activities together. The coach is also wonderful. He seems to really care about the kids. While I can't speak to his coaching abilities yet (since coaches are not involved in fall ball in the NESCAC conference), I have heard he is a great baseball coach from several sources. The team takes a 2 week trip to Florida in March for spring training and apparently, they have a great time. The parents also seem very nice. They organized a tailgate at the football game during Parents Weekend, so we got to meet a number of parents and players.
Mike Connolly is an excellent and well respected baseball coach. I had the opportunity to meet him and have a chat nine years ago. He's sharp. It's a shame they don't provide him with better baseball facilities. It's an open field with a snow fence.
As for the other stuff, as someone mentioned athletics are typically judged by the major sports. It's what I commented on in regards to Bowdoin. If every sport carried equal weight in people's eyes whenever someone here mentions SEC football I would mention UCLA has NCAA championships than all the SEC schools combined. How 'bout all those tennis, volleyball and water polo championships! Fortunately they're historically competitive in the major sports.
When my kids were in 8th grade we visited several NESCAC's. Both being physical late bloomers I had no idea where their ability would take them. Of course they visited Bowdoin. They preferred Tufts and Trinity due to the locations. But that's personal preference. I was shocked my son choose a college in a corn field. I reminded him 45k of the 75k population is the college. He traveled to Indianapolis one Saturday night to find out it's as exciting as Hooterville.
i know kids and parents of kids who played for Mike Connolly at Bowdoin. They had a great experience. The baseball program is typically competitive. He's a good coach. There's nothing to debate about Bowdoin academics if a student is looking for a liberal arts degree.
A college experience is a personal preference. Unless a kid is a pro prospect the best academic situation should be 90% of the decision. I wouldn't expect a good athlete to select a bad athletic situation. Even going D1 I told my kids their decision will be 70% academic.
Lists make for a great reference point and internet articles, but they don't mean jack-squat until people provide context to them.
I would like to give love to one of the best small schools D2 Shepherd University, not sure if they are on any of the other list, but they weren't on the first one. But great athletics and school.
