Can a big school feel "smaller" to a baseball player?

You need to ask yourself if he would do well academically in that environment.  If you think he would not then its probably not the right choice for him.  In many ways if the school is a very large school with good academics then the school may actually feel larger as he will have some level of recognition and more distractions.

 

I ran track at a mid sized school.  About 10,000 students but many of them were commuters.  Yes a lot of my friends were on the team but not all of them.  Yes my roommates and very close friends were on the team but our larger group of friends included many non athletes.  I would not expect that your son's clique will include the entire team.  His roommate and smaller group will probably be teammates but he will have many friends outside that clique as well,  

 

My son goes to a large (40k) school with a very good athletic program.  Big 10 University.  A few of his friends play on some of the sports teams.  While they have friends on the team their group of friends are a mix of athletes and non athletes.  

Many folks think that just because your on a sports team that becomes your group of friends.  Thats probably true in about 70% of the cases but in the others its not.  I would approach this more like a job.  You will probably have a  group of friends that you work with but you also have a large group of friends outside that group.

 

In my convoluted way I guess what I am saying is that in my opinion don't expect a school to feel smaller just because you play a sport.

While I do think that collegiate teams--out of necessity and because of affinity--tend to form tight-knit communities unto themselves, I think there are equally important factors that help define whether a school "feels" big or small, namely: What is the student:faculty ratio? How big are the classes? Are there opportunities to take smaller classes? How about interaction with faculty (though this is often what a student makes of it)? How big (physically) is the campus? Is it in proximity of a big town or city?

 

An additional consideration is that, in many ways, playing on a team precludes being able to take advantage of all that a school and its surrounding environs have to offer. Your kid is practicing and working out 35+ hours a week, traveling constantly, trying to fit in studying and classes, social life, finding time to sleep, and--let's not forget--actually playing games.

Thank you both for the information.  I guess I was hoping that the bigger school feel would be off set by playing baseball.  But the reality is, the boys still need to get there school work done and be successful within the school environment.  We are still narrowing schools down, so fortunately, he still have time to weigh his options.    

True Story - when I was one of the 5,000 member Freshman Class and the Dean makes his annual speech.

 

"Look to your left, look to your right". In four years or less, they will NOT be in school.

I looked left and right and said to each student, "sorry I will miss you" I am staying.

 

Four years later - College World Series.

 

True Story, enjoy the ride, it will be a roller coaster.

 

Bob

 

 

 

Regardless of the size of the college a student is going to find his social circle whether he's an athlete or not. You don't have to be friends with all 40,000. The social circle will come from similar interests and housing location.

 

The big question is how will he do in the academic environment. Can he handle being a face in a 300 student lecture hall where the professor might never know who he is? Can he handle having mostly TA's rather than professors? ** Or will he be better off in classes with small student:teacher ratios?

 

** A good question to ask whether an athlete or not, is the ratio of TA's to professors teaching classes in his major.

I'm not sure this applies in this situation, but it's great advice.  A friend once told me:  One can make a big school small (through clubs, social groups, honors colleges), but a small school can never be made big.  

The above is true. Also, it depends on his major. My daughter goes to a large school (30k) but her major is small. In three years she has had one 200+ lecture and a couple of classes with 25-30. Other than that, her classes are 15-20 students. 

Son turned down an offer from a school with 40K+ and chose to attend a "smaller" program of 16+ (at that time).

Smaller classes and not lecture halls of 300+ seemed a better fit.

During recruitment it is important to ask about the specific teams culture.  Everyone does things differently but son liked that fact that his team was considered moore of a family than a team.

Everyone wants to play for a powerhouse program, but I am pretty sure that 99% do not really understand exactly what it is like to be in one of those programs.

Do your homework.

Your sons journey will be dictated by his talent level.

Good luck.

 Totally agree with JAM3 on this.  It depends on the baseball program and the student's major.  My son had no time whatsoever for anything that was not related to his major or baseball.  He knew that going into college and he was fine with it  He attended a mid-size school with 14K undergrads but his major was only 150 graduates....he had very small classes his junior and senior years..

If you haven't done so already, my advice is for you and your son to attend some college games to see some non-powerhouse teams play.  There's some really good baseball being played. Start developing a sense of where he might fit.

 

Since your son is a sophomore you should have a pretty good idea by the end of this season if he is a future powerhouse college player. For the most part, those players will distinguish themselves early. In a big way. There are always exceptions, of course, but generally speaking the big programs aren't about developing future great players, they are about putting great players on the field now.

 

 

Dadofa17, if academics and class size are your primary concerns, some of the powerhouse schools do offer significant academic support for their student athletes. That can come in the form of tutors, weekly progress meetings, monitored study halls, class attendance checks, etc. I wouldn't rule out a big school until you've done some research on specific schools of interest and possibly talked to people who've been through it. Best of luck to your son.

I went to a small junior college of probably 5,000 with probably 1,000 or so people living on campus, and then a university of 30-35k. There are pros and cons to both, but I honestly had a better time at the smaller school. At the smaller school, we all had friends from and hung out with the basketball and football teams and the female athletes. I made friends in classes who weren't athletes. It's more intimate and slower paced and small schools tend to have more social functions (and a higher percentage attend). The big drawback is, everyone knows everyone, and it can feel like high school except you are all living together. We did a good job avoiding it, but there can be a great deal of drama. Also, should you make mistakes common for 18 years olds, everyone is going to know.

Big schools feel big, but your social circle is still going to be your teammates. You tend to rotate your side circle (basically whoever you or your buddies are dating/hooking up with at the time and their lady friends who you are partying with or going after). We were cool w the other athletes but never really hung out. We only associated w the softball team and a few of the cute girls on other teams.

I made a lot less friends at the bigger school and i only have a few of them I still talk to. The smaller school I have more closer friends and still talk or keep in touch with 50-60 on social media.

I wouldn't let a number influence the decision. Your social circle is like gonna be small in a big school, the outside people you hang out with will come and go. 90 pct of a big school will never be anything but a passing stranger to your son unless he is a star quarterback or skill position player or a stud on the basketball team at a basketball powerhouse. Thats just the reality. Class sizes will be bigger but easily managed with the resources extended to athletes. You will also have advisors to make it easy and have more options and schedule flexibility. If you are at a small school and theres only 1 guy who teaches a class u need, and he hates athletes, good luck (have had this before).