DIII Recruiting

Hi Nancy,

Nice problem to have IMHO. You know for sure that your son is going to play in college somewhere. In my son's case, the D3's were the most agressive and the earliest ones to express interest. However, in my view/experience, if the D3's think you are a player then there are more than likely D1's or D2's out there that would like him as well - assuming they can see your son play. This is why showcasing your son is stressed so much on this site. That is also not to say that playing for a D1 program is necessarily the be-all-to-end-all for every player.

One thing the D3's like to do is play on your insecuritites like telling you that you are too small to play D1. The only way to know for sure is to get him in front of D1/pro talent evaluators and let them tell you how good he is. There is tons of information on this website on how to do this (i.e., showcases, college camps, etc.) Hope this helps.

Many times D3 is the choice because of Academics. Smaller school etc. As far as D3 coaches playing on your insecurities I really do not know about that. My son was part of a very successful D3 program for 4 years. Made the NCAA tournament 3 out of 4 years and were nationally ranked. I saw some very good baseball and the atmosphere was great. He received a good education played ball. It was a great experience.

From what I understand is many DIII's will have monies available for sports programs under guises of "academic scholarships". If your son is an exellent student and academics are very important then DIII might be a better option then DII(many dII's are not as academic as DIII's -not always the case-this seems to vary state to state) But if your son likes a particular DIII school he needs to find out how much money will be available and have several schools (at least 2 very serious contenders) to "bargin" with- apparently there is more money then meets the eye with some of the more "pricey" schools.

Also be very aware that with academic scholarships, comes academic responsibilities. Most academic scholarships that I became aware of during my sons recruitment, require you to maintain a 3.0 GPA or the academic money goes away.

05dad, while NAIA school are not subject to NCAA rules they do have rules which are very similar. Also NAIA schools do have athletic money for baseball and can offer 12 scholarship per year versus the 11.7 per year offer by DI NCAA school and 9 for DII. I believe they difference is where NAIA schools are able to blend athletic and academic money together.

Nancy,

My son had a couple of DI offers, a couple of DII offers and a whole lot of DIII's showed interest. He chose a DIII school for academic reasons.

He will be playing college baseball and doesn't care what level. Odds are very good that he will make his living doing something other then baseball, so he chose a school that will open a lot of doors for him after he graduates.

As for your son having to try out, the bottom line is, he will have to earn a spot on the team no matter where he goes, no matter what promises are made during the recruiting process.


He should go to the school that is the best Academic, baseball, social and Financial fit for him and your family.

Best of luck.

Nancy,

My original post was poorly written. There are many considerations when selecting a school to further ones education and to continue playing baseball. The level of D1, D2, D3, NAIA, or JUCO is meaningless if the wrong school is selected. The main thing is finding the right fit for the student/athlete as all of the subsequent posters have pointed out.

Since there is no NLI at DIII schools, you need to get a handle on how the school recruits.

The 1st approach is what one coach called the shot gun approach, he recruits everyone he can. He does not know if you are coming, so he has to continue to recruit, even if you tell the coach you are coming their in no binding contract other than your word.

Some DIII schools have a reputation of 60 or 70 players trying out in the fall. This may be all incoming Freshman or it could include the returning players.

Other schools recruit their needs. And fill in with JUCO transfers.
The one think to rememeber their is no guarrentee to be on a team, no matter what level.

That is why you will continue ti hear on this website, make sure you have the right fit.

IMO your son should research the schools that are interested in him, then narrow his choices down to 4 or 5, and rate them best case to worst case as far as academics and athletics. My son was recruited by many different level colleges also and he chose a D3 because he would rather have an excellent chance to play every day right from the start than to possibly sit on a D1 team. It just depends on the situation at each school, D1, D2 or D3. That's where the research come in as far as graduating players and freshman coming in at his positions. Just coming from orientation at the D3 school he chose reassured us that he made the right decision, regardless of playing time.

Nancy, college coaches who recruit for a living are very good at this process and we as parents are not. I think your question is an excellent one with my own bias already stated. In our experience, you need to find a school that is the best fit academically and for all the other non baseball reasons. On the baseball side, you need to be very pointed in talking with the coaches and in the questions asked. In our experience, if the coach really wants you and believes your son can contribute to his program, he will tell you that, along with the no guarantee language and with the contingencies that he works hard, continues to improve, etc. If the coach is not willing to be that specific, then you have to question how your son is viewed. Having "slots" for athletes at the DIII level is not what the NCAA has in mind for DIII but I am sure it happens. While everyone truly has to earn their job at a DIII, a coach who really wants your son, and who you will want your son to play for, will say say so and will have a pretty solid description of how he projects. But you need to ask those questions if the coach does not volunteer and make sure you listen carefully to the response. Again, coaches do this for a living and some, not all, are great at answering every question but the ones you ask. If you don't get those answers, I would be careful. Good luck and keep asking questions here and with the coaches recruiting your son.

Nancy - We are in the same situation as you. A number of DIII schools have shown interest in my son as well as a couple of high academic D1's.
My son is also fortunate to be an excellent student. We are following the advice of the posters here and visiting as many of these schools as possible to assess academic and baseball "fit". The DIII coaches are telling us a variety of things from "can't help with admissions" to "I can get you in if I want you"
to "I have 2 slots with admissions" to "you will be high on my list that I submit to admissions but I don't have any slots". Some are also
suggesting early decision. We are feeling pretty confused too. Several DIII's are arranging overnights for my son with the team which should help him with the "baseball fit" I
hope. The whole process especially at the DIII level seems pretty vague.

Calmom and Nancy, one very important thing to point out is the fact that your sons are being recruited and it is only August. It is not unusual for DIII's to really begin recruiting aggressively in October because that is close to the time the DI's are ending. DIII coaches know they can waste a lot of time and energy recruiting players at this point who end up with DI's.
Another clue for you is how often and how consistenly the coach calls. If the same coach calls once per week, every 2-3 weeks, that also is a good indication you are high on their radar.
Most importantly, do not be afraid to ask where your son fits with them and press for details. This is the only opportunity you get. Do not let it overwhelm or confuse you and your son, although it can seem that way now. Also, have confidence that as the year progresses, the visits will allow your son to become comfortable with some schools/coaches and rule out others.
Bottom line, you have every reason to be optimistic based on the number of schools already showing interest and the fact your sons are very good students. My son ended up just fine at a top DIII where he had a nice career and got to play in the NCAA regionals on two occasions. His first contacts did not come nearly this early.

Can anyone tell me the total amount of official visits a baseball recruit is allowed? DI.DII,DII. We are getting conflicting information. Are there official visits for DIII?

There are no such things as official visits for D3 schools. A student athlete has 5 official visits to colleges(visits to D3 schools are not included). Also there is no National Letter of Intent for D3 schools. You can commit verbally but it's not binding legally. Although my personal opinion is that a person's word is his/her bond.

Nancy, my son was recruited by several D1 and D3 schools and he chose a D3 in MA because of the academics and because he wanted to play right away. While D3's do not have athletic scholarship money, they do have academic money which is really better than athletic money. Academic money is guaranteed over 4 years and athletic is year to year. Some academic money requires a min. GPA. Others only require that you pass a certain number of courses for the year(11 out of 12). If a school regardless of division wants your son they will get him a good financial package. Generally speaking, in D3 programs anything 50% or higher of total school costs means they consider your son an impact player. When they are giving you that kind of money there is no question he has a great chance of making the team and also getting serious playing time as a freshman.

Where they are giving him the greatest amount of money(not loans) is where they want him the most. You obviously need to compare % not amounts of money. For each school that's recruiting him take the total school costs and see what percentage of that total he's being awarded.

That's the baseball side. The academic side is the more important aspect. Where is he going to get the best education? Where will he be the happiest going to school even if he's not playing baseball? These are the first questions that he needs to answer. Then look at the baseball situation.

My son is very happy with his decision. We accepted the coach's word and he came through with what he told us he could do and we kept our word that if he came through we would be there in Aug.

By the way I agree totally with infielddad and BigWI. I hope this helps. You can also PM me if you want more details.

Baseball 25 - If you don't qualify for financial aid, are you still eligible for academic money?
How do you go about asking for it? How high
do your scores and grades have to be to qualify?

Calmom, one has nothing to do with the other. My son did not qualify for finacial aid. His academic award was based on GPA, SAT, and community service. All freshman automatically are considered for academic scholarships upon applying. However it helps alot if the coach is pushing through the school AD for his players to get a better look from the commitee awarding the scholarships. My son was the coach's top recruit and so he went to bat for my son with the AD and the committee. My son also had the grades which made things very easy for the coach.

What most school are concerned about is an investigation where they can't justify the award. In other words why Johnny with a 3.2 GPA and 1150 SAT got academic money and Sally with a 3.5 and a 1300 didn't. Johnny is an athlete and Sally is not.

Most D3 schools have high admission standards to begin with. At my son's school the average SAT score for the 2008 class was 1300 and most kids were in the top 10% of their class. However, I know that several baseball players were admitted with 1190 SAT and 3.3 GPA's. I don't know if they got academic money. My son had a 1340 SAT and 3.6 GPA in Honors and AP courses. Usually anything over 1200 SAT qualifies for academic money. This is the min. score that the NCAA allows the school to award academic money to athletes.

I would strongly recommend applying early action which is non binding, not early decision which is binding. This tells the coach and the school that you are serious about attending. Also there is more money early in the admissions process than later. Going early action allowed my son to know by Dec. 24th that he was admitted and by Jan. 10th we had our academic scholarship award letter. This took alot of pressure off him and he was able to enjoy his senior season. It showed in his stats(.328 BA, 2 HR, 8 DBLs, 20 RBI's 22 RS .989 FP, 2 ER all year).

Also D3 schools are very interested in minority students. The % of minority students at D3 schools is usually very low, around 10%. This is African-Americans and Hispanics roughly. So if your son is a minority and he's got good grades he's got a very good chance of getting academic money not just because of his grades but also because he's a minority. But he needs to apply as a minority.

If you need more info you can PM me. I hope this helps.

Baseball 25 - You have a PM

i just sent you a PM with my e-mail info.

Thanks for all your responses. I appreciate the help and it sounds like we are doing the right thing so far.

When does the discussion about how much academic money is available take place? After you are accepted? Before you apply?

What is the penalty if you change your mind after being accepted early decision?

Being new to this message board, how do I PM?
Thanks

Nancy, Click on the name of the person you want to PM. Then click on invite to private topic and type away. Remember to put something in the subject line or it will not send.

Then to retrieve, you must be logged in and then you can click on the NewPM tab on the top and it will take you to your messages.

Nacy

Drop me an email at TRhit@msn.com or call me

I am in your region and possibly I can help you

Tom Rizzi
http://www.collegeselect.org
800-782-3672

Nancy

In our case the coach told us, prior to my son applying, that based on his GPA and SAT score he would recommend that the AD request a full tuition academic scholarship. However, he also told us that athletes did not get a full tuition ride at that school but because my son was his top recruit and the first from south florida thats what he would recommend. He told to us to expect a 65% tuition scholarship and after he got accepted, that's what my son got which worked out to a little over 50% of total school costs.
As far as "early action", there is no penalty for deciding not to go to that school. You can check this with admissions. What you do not want to do is go "early decision", which is binding.
As far as PM's, double click on the person you want to PM hit profile and click private text then send your message. I hope this helps.

Nancy, still unpacking from our move....and just discovered this thread. You've gotten good advice. We went through this process this past year.....

Visiting the schools is very important....Financial assistance? All D3 schools interested in son had pre-determined amounts based on SAT and GPA.....this info was published in their handbooks. That said....there is room for additional monies at some schools.....it just depends on the relationship the athletic department has with the financial aid office...it varies from school to school.....you will know the timing to bring up this subject.....we found as more and more schools became interested in son....we felt more in controll.....and more comfortable talking money with the coaches.....it was still stressful at the end.....you go from worrying that he will play college ball....to stressed out about choices.....a poster sent us the following PM....I copied it.....and hung it on son's door....he had to look at it coming and going.....and he said it helped him greatly with his final decision:

"The Priority of seeking colleges
a) Meets son's academic requirements
b) Meets son's athletic requirements
c) Meets son's playing time expectations
d) Meets son's social necessities
e) Does the Coaching staff care?"

Good luck.....

quote:

When does the discussion about how much academic money is available take place? After you are accepted? Before you apply?

One other thing, the amount of aid and the form it comes in (loans, grants, workstudy) is negotiable!

I strongly recommend you pick up the book "How to Pay for College Without Going Broke" It will give you a very good background in the finances part of college.

Just wondering if someone can give some advice. The Chicago White Sox has invited my son to their 2005 Northeast workout. What should he expect?

In our case, my son was alittle short on his GPA for D-I, could've gone the D-II route but decided on a D-III. Several expressed interest and he wound up at 1 that wasn't even on our list. He thought it was too close, about 40 min. away. Then he did the overnights. I think that was a big part of making his decision. At one, the coach did nothing but bad mouth the 1 coach and the at another, well, not to offend anyone, but it was too religious based for him plus their team did not have a great record. The coach thought he could come in and turn the team around. Even after hearing from some ex-players that the coach where he decided to go, is very tough, old school type, he really liked the chemistry of the team and the coach was honest in saying that he was one of his top recruits but you still will have to prove yourself to earn a starting spot. That's where he wound up and I thank God that it seems to have been a good choice for him.
Not much money tho, since his GPA was ok but not great (he has ADD), but the professors seem to really help the kids out when they need it. During baseball season, he'd meet w/the ones that he'd be missing classes with and he wound up having a B avg. Also, the team seems to work together to make sure everyone is making the grade by studying together and helping each other out.
And their team made 2nd place in Regionals after losing to Rowan but they moved up the polls to 9th place from somewhere in the 40's, I think. He did start alot of games but if he screwed up, he did wind up sitting the bench.
Oh, and if you're worried about your son making it to the next level after college, our catcher was drafted so there were scouts at our games. Kid's playing for the Oakland A's team in Vancouver.
Biggest advice I had for him was would you still want to go there even without playing baseball?

Nice post PabbMom. Our experience was similar. My son left Friday for college(a D3 in the Northeast). We visited 7-8 colleges that were recruiting him. Some were D1's and some were D3's. We focused first on what was a good fit academically. He wants to study engineering so we were somewhat limited in our choices. Some schools that were recruiting him had a 3-2 engineering program, others had a 4 year BE program, others had a 5 year BE program because they had 1 year of co-op built in, others had 4 year program with an optional 1 additional year for a masters. He chose the one with the optional masters program. Why go to school for 5 years and get a BE when you can go for same time and get a Masters?

Then came the baseball program. Of all the coaches he talked to, he felt the most comfortable with this particular coach. He had a masters in Math, helped tuitor his players and seemed to really care about his kids succeeding not just on the baseball field. He was also very approachable. He told my son that as his top recruit he felt my son could help the team right away, but that he would have to earn a starting spot.

The size of the school was also a factor. My son had attended a small high school(about 600 kids) so he wanted a small college. Somewhere where it was more family than him being just another number. This school has 2700 kids. So it seemed like a perfect fit. The bonus was that the school is ranked 53rd overall nationally and their engineering deparment is ranked 49th in the nation by US news. So he made his choice.

He called last night exhausted from all the day's activities and moving in. He told me that when he arrived the football and baseball players and frat members were waiting for all the freshmen to help them move in to their dorms. They helped him carry all his stuff and helped him set everything up. The coached then stopped by his room to make sure he and his roommate(another baseball freshman) were OK and to ask if they needed anything. I was very impressed. I don't think he would have gotten this much attention at a bigger school.

They start fall ball in about 10 days. We will see how it all works out but right now it seems that things are going very well.

Baseball 25 - Sounds like your son also thought about where he'd be happy at even if he couldn't play ball. That was a piece of advice I got from these boards about the time we started seriously thinking about which schools to put on his list. You don't think they listen to you half the time but when he told me a friend of his had 2 days left to decide between a full-ride or a partial scholarship to play lacrosse, I was stunned when he said he told her "My mom always told me to think about where I'd still be happy if I couldn't play ball anymore." Absolutely stunned me to know he really does hear me about the important things in life! She chose the school in MD with a partial scholarship then because of his advice.
We have some decent engineering schools in our state of PA, did he wind up here?

Close. Even though Lafayette recruited him heavily he chose WPI in Worcester because they put together a better academic scholarship package and because they have a 4+1 masters program which Lafayette doesn't have. Mulhenberg also recruited him heavily but they don't have engineering. The last factor was that at WPI he was their top recruit and has an opportunity to play right away. So he made his choice based on all the above.

I loved his choice because they play about 30% of their season in Ft. Myers, Florida about 2 1/2 hours from my home.