CMS-Harvey Mudd College

Are you limiting to Southern Calif? Cal Pomona has a good program, UCSD is a good place both D2. Cal Tech has a team, not very competitive.

As far as admission, you pretty much need to otherwise been in the "mix" i.e. close enough grades,SAT etc. and the coach may have some pull.

The program is an xlnt D-3 IMO and the coach is a former MLB player I believe. Granted the facilities are not the same as a big time D-1 but I think they are adequate.

The conference they play in is xlnt, very good baseball, many players are drafted out of this conference and scouts are at most games.

Actually the team is mostly Claremont Mckenna students, few Mudd students are ever on the team, often tough to combine certain majors, such as engineering with playing sports.

My son attended one of the Claremont colleges and played there. It is a great baseball experience.

My son took a look at CMS 3-years ago. The coach is really decent guy. The school is "tough as nails" and the kids that they get are clearly "top drawer" academically. Take a look at their record the last few years, it is reflective of performance on the field.

We have known 2 kids that went to CMS and played ball. Both are terrific kids, but neither of them would have made my son's HS team.

If you are going to CMS for school, you are a smart kids with a great academic future. If you play baseball at the same time, you will get a college experience which includes baseball; however, it will not be the primary emphsis of the school.

I gotta disagree with the post above to some extent. My son attended Pomona (pomona-pitzer the rival program to CMS). He faced every demand of playing college baseball as friends of his at major d-1 programs. As I noted above, the play in the conference is xlnt. Every year he was there, at least one player on his team was drafted. I think it is very much what you want to make of it, the opportunity to play xlnt baseball is there.

Yeah, but isn't Pomona-Pitzer a highly-rated baseball program, while CMS is not? It's like Redlands is in the same conf I believe as CalTech and there's no comparison there, either. It's apples and oranges.

well, we no disrespect to Caltech they are clearly the weakest team in the conference and for a few years recently games with them were not part of the conference standings. Occidental has also been in a "rebuilding" mode for some time now, but typically competitive.

The remainder of the schools have their good years and bad but typically all run solid programs and put very competitive teams out on the field. CMS has been down a bit the past few years but typically fields a pretty strong team. Cal Lutheran has always been very strong, but down a bit the last couple years.

I think CalTech is really the only "apple" among all the other oranges in conference. plus all the schools play pretty tough non-conference schedules and once in a while play a D-1 or D-2 with great success.

Kjktj,
We are looking in the west generally, mostly CA. CalTech didn't look like a good baseball experience in terms of winning.

Dreamschools are Stanford, UCSD, UC Berkeley, UCLA, but he will have to improve his baseball and keep up his academics to make that happen. He is also looking at UCSB, Santa Clara, Arizona (Wildcats), and Cal Poly-SLO. I just am looking for lower level options in case those don't pan out.

Heybatter-
I only saw one or two players on last year's roster that looked like Harvey Mudd students. He has a tough decision to make regarding baseball and his major. He wants to go to a school that he will be happy with if baseball doesn't work out and he definitely wants to take a science or engineering major. I think it will be tough, but things can change in the next year, baseball wise and academically.

Stanford offers a program based on our family earnings that will pay his tuition if he gets accepted. I was trying to determine if Harvey Mudd offers anything like that. If they don't, I can write them off, as I won't be paying $45,000/year.

Blprkfrnks:

Keep us informed on your progress. My son is a 2011 and is interested in Stanford, Rice, and maybe one of the Ivy's. We also have Cal-Poly SLO on our list. I have been looking at the Harvey Mudd site trying to figure out what kind of program they had and I was looking at MIT's site yesterday. As you know Harvey Mudd is one of the finest technology colleges anywhere and I am curious about what kind of packages they put together, academic, athletic, needs based, etc.

We have checked out UCSB also as a secondary option. We went to USD's campus last week-end and watched their intersquad's, good school but engineering wise maybe a step behind the others on your list. Cal-Poly's facilities are top notch and are an upcoming program, and I would rate them above UCSB personally.

Anything I find out, I'll post here.

So much depends on his grades and his baseball development. I want him to set his sights high so if things don't go as planned, he has room to step down to some good options.

Cal Poly SLO is an excellent school and my alma mater. It is the one school that he could commute to from our home, but he wants to fly the coup. Cal Poly has a drawback of making it very difficult to change majors. The UC's and Stanford give much more wiggle room in this area.

I would like to add a little to the CMS issue.

From an acamdemic standpoint, there aren't too many schools that have a better reputation. I would be comfortable putting CMS on a national level. I also believe that you do receive a balanced social experience there.

Their program seems to have its' good years and its' not so good years.

I think the key to the whole situation is evaluating what is important. If you child gets an education and social experience that will help him for the rest of his life-he wins. If he gets to participate in a competitive baseball environment-which the SCIAC(Cal Tech not counting)- he wins. AND, if he gets to participate in playing-not sitting or carrying equipment for others-and continue his development and pursue the dream of playing beyond-he wins.

I don't have any ties to CMS so don't take this as a commercial. I just know what a great school it is and I know the quality of those that have particpated there.

One last thing. Keep in mind that these private universities in the SCIAC as well as elsewhere, have very strong endowments(maybe not as strong as a couple of months ago). While they can't award athletic scholarships, they do make an effort to work with student athletes in obtaining Presidential and/or alumni awards. I know one student who found it was less expensive to go to one of the SCIAC schools versus a Cal State school because of the various forms of awards. It's just me, but that's a no brainer.

Quick update.

We spent one day at their winter camp to check out the place, coach, and facilities. The camp was geared toward younger kids so it was not really applicable to older kids.

As noted by Blprkfrnks, they do not have the same facilities as a major D1 but the field was nice and had a unique lay-out surrounded by vegetation and goes up in left field like minute maid park’s centerfield. That said, they are supposed to break ground on a new $50M sports training complex so maybe in a few years the training conditions will be better.

We met coach Town, a former player, and some of his coaching staff. Coach Town seemed like a good guy, ex MLB pitcher, and I also spent some time talking to their trainer and a former player. Their league is strong and they compete in it year to year, usually not the strongest, but competitive. This place would be perfect for someone who is clearly not D1 material and wanted to play ball and get a great education. For my son it has the potential for him to be able to pitch and also play in the field if he so desires. He would also not be riding the pine as a freshman like he potentially would at a major D1. The stress of baseball combined with a difficult major would certainly be better than a D1 also.

As noted by some posters the school is a combination of 8 schools and I believe that all totaled they have around 6,000 students, with all schools being very academic. My son is interested in Harvey Mudd engineering school which has only 750 students and has a very unique group of dorms right next to the school. Education wise I believe it would be almost second to none. (He will of course have to keep his grades up to have a chance to get in) We will keep them on our list as a “A+” academic “C“ baseball and see how things develop.

BOF-

Thanks for the update. We have looked into this school in a little more detail as well. I am confident that his baseball abilities would play fine at this school.

I am concerned about competing with 175 freshmen that are probably not doing sports and are likely top 1% type students. I have read student reviews from current students that are saying the first 2 years are insanely hard and they struggle to maintain a "B" average without playing sports. These are past straight "A" students. If my son were to get in due to baseball's support of his application, he would be starting off at an academic disadvantage without even considering the time needed to play baseball. I would also expect that most academic money would tend to be awarded to students with incredible HS academic stats.

His reality is that there are a handful of schools that may set him up for failure or at least significant hardship. Harvey-Mudd, Cal-Tech, and MIT are probably out of his reach if he wants to have a enjoyable college experience and play ball. His SAT scores will likely be in the 1250-1350 (or 1850-2100) range. While I consider them good, most of the students at those schools are 1500-1600 (or 2200-2400). That's just too big a difference to overcome.

blprkfrnks, you have a pm

BOF - you have a pm