DIII - What to expect?

My son plays in the same conference as Linfield, all schools in the Northwest Conference are private institutions.  Although you don't list an SAT score, your son's GPA/course load should garner a pretty sizeable amount of merit money at Linfield.  At the D3 level, there is no financial aid of any sort that can be directed to an athlete, besides the academic merit scholarships and needs-based financial aid that would be available to any accepted student.  I would think that the financial aid office might be able to give you a decent idea of what your son may receive, prior to applying/acceptance?

In terms of the baseball, the conference is very competitive.  Linfield is of course the reigning National Champion, and Whitworth played in the D3 world series in 2012.  Our son says Linfield is extremely well-coached, very fundamentally sound, grinders at the plate.  The middle of their order really can mash, and their ace - last season's D3 pitcher-of-the-year, and their #2 starter will be only Juniors this coming season. He says Linfield is the toughest lineup he's thrown against in his college career.  Good luck!!!

MD,

I do think that D3s vary alot, so it is a bit hard to generalize. As you always hear (and are trying to do), do your  homework. You can post in the Ask About Schools forum and someone might send you a private message about your particular school of interest.

My son is in his first year at a D3. His experience from the 1st call from the coach to now has been good, although the year is young. He did receive what we consider to be a large amount of merit money, and, as far as I can tell, he deserved it based on his academic credentials.

The biggest surprise for me was the amount of contact he had from the coach after he submitted his ED application. The coach stayed in touch all the way through the year until my son showed up on campus. My son received notes, emails, and an occasional call. The coach came to see him play in the spring after the college season was over. So I would say the recruiting continued until he showed up on campus.

This is an exciting time for the D3 recruits. It was this time last year when it all started to come together for my son.

Good luck.

It seems like there is more of a personal touch with the D3 side.  It makes you feel good about turning your kid over to them for the next 4 years! 

One more thing, Linfield you may or may not know has a JV team, and a fair amount of upper-classmen who are solid contributors, even starters now at Linfield, played on the JV team their Frosh season.

My son is at a D3 and I agree about the personal touch. My son decided not to play ball his freshman year because he wanted to focus on academics. ( he was an engineering major). The coaches told him if he changed his mind they would welcome him back...sure enough he decided to play this year and they were happy to have him.

I don’t know how Linfield handles the academic scholarships, so someone else can comment on the type of packages they put together. As others have posted, they are only academic and needs based.  They will likely have an admissions councilor available during your visit who will likely answer your questions regarding the packages they would have available. My son is playing at a DIII and he got more academic money than he was offered athletic at the D1 level, but much of this depends on the school, grades and test scores.

Baseball wise there is a wide range of schools at the DIII level, but Linfield is not a run of the mill program. Coach Brosius runs a very tight and successful program and as mentioned they are the reigning national champions.  They are consistently one of the top programs in the country. I saw them play several times last year, and the talent level on the team is very high and quite frankly many of their starters would compete at the D1. They were extremely well coached and played the game right. As far as having a couch mentoring your son for four years you probably could not find a better coach regardless of the level.  I was at Linfield for the West Regional last year and the facilities are top notch.

Playing baseball in the Pacific Northwest is not easy but Linfield seems to do it and at a very high level year in and year out.

Best of luck!

Thanks for the replies everyone!  We really hope this works out.  The main concern is of course, money.  Hopefully his academics along with bumping up his SAT and ACT a little more will help fill the gap, but if it all comes together he should have an excellent experience in both the academic and baseball side of Linfield!

Mallot's Dad, very exciting times. Congratulations.

My son was a HS 2013 graduate, He is presently in his first week of fall practice at a D3 program in Virginia,

My experience, he was recruited by a few D3 programs but the coaches seemed to have little input or communication with the financial aid office. My son had good grades, SATs and extracurricular activities and was offered  good merit aid packages. I reached out to the financial aid director to discuss additional aid. When, I shared a more generous offer my son had received at another good school (but no baseball interest),  the financial aid director explained that athletes in D3 programs were under greater scrutiny than non athletes as the NCAA looked to ensure that D3 school were not providing athletic scholarships cloaked as academic money. I suppose all schools are different. Needless to say, I was able to negotiated very little extra.  

Enjoy the journey.  

Indeed, these are exciting and sometimes confusing times! Since you are talking about DIII, the academic awards are really the question, and your son should be treated like any other student in that capacity.

2013 has just begun his first year at a DIII, although it it not a private institution. He had opportunities with several private DIIIs, however, and he had applied and received his academic award letters for all of them before he made his final decision.

We have several older neices and nephews and in their college searches we were told that the rule of thumb is that for strong students private schools and out-of-state public schools by and large do a remarkable job of getting your final dollar number down to almost match the in-state tuition/fees you would pay. We found that to absolutely be the case.

We also found that the coaches had nothing to do with admissions, and generally tried hard not to blur those lines. In our experience, and in that of people we know, unless the student is from an under-represented group, a strong academic student can expect the final numbers to be very similar to what they would pay after any awards at an in-state school. For example, one private DIII offered our son a package of $60,000 over four years. Another, $48,000 over four years. And yes, the bottom line out-of-pocket would have been almost identical, and the same as what we would have paid for an in-state school.

Best of luck to you and your son! 

I am not sure your experience is representative of the whole. Yes, Admissions in D3 (and Ivies) has the final say. But to claim that coaches have nothing to do with admissions, I think goes a bit too far.

There are different procedures at different schools, but generally, athletes' applications are flagged by the coach. Admissions, I think, usually accords the baseball part of these applications at least the same value as a significant extra-curricular activity.

The basic academic credentials have to meet the school's minimum, at least. In the case of a tie between two otherwise equally-qualified candidates, I believe a coach's flag can tip the balance.

Baseball costs schools a lot of money, even at the D3 level.  Many D3 coaches have specific recruiting budgets and travel to Stanford and Headfirst camps. If the coach had no say in Admissions, he could end up with zero (or a couple) of recruits....or all pitchers or all outfielders, and that whole investment would soon be wasted.

Yes, athletic recruits need to meet minimum academic standards at D3s. Can a coach's flag help one qualified student get in over another? My experience tells me, "yes".

This is a difficult topic to really "wrap your head around" unless you have been through it, know many people that have been through it, or you are a former D3 coach or Admissions person.  My sense of it is that it is extremely difficult to generalize based on a total of 363 D3 programs across the country. 

In our recruiting journey, we went through everything from D1 mid-majors, D1 Ivys, D1 Patriot, D3 high academic, and D3 school recruiting.  In our experience, the D3s were by far the greatest variance from one school to another (even in the same conference) in terms of coaching influence with Admissions.   You never knew exactly what level of influence the coach had, and he was typically vague at communicating that influence even if your kids was a slam dunk academically and athletically. 

What I did observe is that the older more experienced D3 coaches seemed to have a lot more influence with Admissions than younger less experienced coaches.  The older more experienced coaches would share more information and give you a clearer status where you sat with them and Admissions.  Experience has taught me that when  Admissions (D3, Ivy, Patriot) is making the final decision on student/athletes, coaches know in advance they won't get everybody they want.  They hope they get the players they need.

This is a good topic. Here is of my information as I agree it is hard to get your hands around this.

I have one son playing DII baseball in Florida and I have another who is a 2014 graduate. He has exceptional grades top 25 out of 300 students, Solid SAT and ACT scores. Still taking those to boost the scores even more. Has been contact by a DIII coach and Ivy Coach. Taking an invited visist next week to the DIII and then off to the Ivy for a prospect camp. DIII coach has been great, in emails, texts, phone calls and so forth.

After much discussion and looking at the school it's tough to understand how it can be afforded with out some sort of academic help. I know these guys only have grants, and other sources of academic monies. With my son's grades at what point do you ask the question and who do you ask the question what type of monies are available? Do you ask at the visit? I hear that some players pay close to nothing at both the institutions that he will be going to. Your talking $50K to $60K for these educations annually. Do not get me wrong I understand the value of the schools and the educational process but what has anyone else done and when to ask questions? I have always vowed not to let my boys be in debt when they get out of schools with loans as I did it and it really sucked.

If anyone has further advice it would be great.

Go to the school's website and fill out the financial aid estimate calculator.  The bottom line for the high academics is that if your household makes $200,000 per year (and that is middle class in the urban northeast) and that is your first kid in school, you get nothing.  However, since I don't know your income and you already have another child in school, it is definitely worth trying the calculator first and then stopping by the financial aid office on the visits.

Seventh inning as Fenway posted it is different from school to school; however, on our visit to a D3 it was pretty scripted. The coach met us and told us where he saw our son fitting in baseball wise and then handed us over to admissions. There was a one on one with my son where they reviewed his grades and test scores. Admissions then called in my wife and I and answered any questions we may have. We had two main questions: 1) " given his test scores and grades he appears to fit the academic profile, is there a good chance he will earn merit money and if so is there a range? " They responded with a range, obviously until he gets the acceptance letter we won't know, but I would be surprised if it was not in that range. Second question was what grade point was required to keep the academic money and they answered that as well. They are used to this , and if the program is supported they should be able to allay some of the financial fears. Good luck!

D3 recruiting is a long process. Most coaches want you to apply ED or EA. For My son it was EA. That was in the September - November time frame. After he gets accepted at the schools he visited and stayed over night at a number of schools.

Most of the coaches said they did not expect a commitment from the player till the following April. Why? Because that is when the financial packages come out from the schools.

In most schools the coach had little or no pull in improving the financial package beside telling the school they really wanted him. We were able to improve on every package though by telling the school that it was not good enough and we were looking at other schools. Don't fall for the let us know your best offer and we will match it. Just because they can match it does not mean it was as much as they were willing to offer. I will say one coach seemed to have a lot of pull, I wont say who or what school, but they asked what it would take, I told them and an hour later we got a call from Financial Aide that met our request. It was our sons fourth or fifth school, and the academics were not quite what he wanted, so he turned it down.

If you fit into a certain profile you can get more money as well. Here in Ohio it is easy to get east coast kids and kids from the surrounding states. It is not so easy to get kids from out west and down south. Sometimes kids from those areas, at D3, not taking sports into consideration, will get a better package. 

In my opinion if you are going D3, apply early to your top choices, and do not take the first offer, and do not accept one until they have told you no twice. Will it end up being the same cost as a state school? Probably not. Will it be close? Depends on your sons or daughters grades. But you may be pleasantly surprised. Keep you options open and be pleasant but aggressive in getting the best deal.

This was my experience. This was with selective Liberal Arts schools in the Midwest: Ohio, Indiana and western Pa. for the most part.

Your experience may vary.

Did the Ivy coach give reason to believe that he would be recruiting for spots on the 2014 roster at the upcoming camp?

It really varies between the D3 schools, as already stated. Here was our experience. My son visited 3 different D3 schools and they all offered him scholarships based on his SAT scores and his GPA. The 3 offers were pretty compatible. My son picked the coach, facilities and location he liked best. Then one team really romanced him, calling him, taking him to lunch, showing him the locker room with his hs # jersey hanging and told him that as the starting pitcher of the day, he got to chose the jersey to wear for that day. They found some other money (from family type donations.) But he liked another school better, so we told that coach about the extra money. They also came up with a little extra money and that satisfied my son. He was there 4 years and was extremely happy~~made lifelong friends. Was even drafted and is playing in the minors now.

Now comes son #2. A very smart boy, who doesn't work as hard. One D3 really romancing him all year (Sept.-May calls, visits, watched him pitch, etc.) His grades are good and this new D3 has very high academic standards. Their offer comes with basically no financial help. Son #2 is now playing at a  juco. Very cheap, but better baseball. I've been impressed with coaches and team so far. He fits in well.

Every child is different~so is every school. Good luck!!

Interesting information. Sounds like Penn, maybe. Thanks.