My 2018 has been looking at NESCAC schools, has done HF, been to a couple of camps etc. He really enjoys playing with academic-oriented teammates. Question: Is the Baseball experience any good? Where does NESCAC rank in the D3 world for Baseball? Does the level play mirror the Baseball fields at these schools (underwhelming)?
I'd be interested in people's experiences and opinions on NESCAC Baseball.
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Lots of posters will have specifics for you. But this might be interesting to you:
My 2016 is not at a NESCAC school, though was recruited by and visited several. So many excellent schools in that conference. He found the weather and facilities not to his liking.
Thought the Centennial schools were slightly more to his taste. But the weather wasn't superb either.
Ended up in the SAA where the weather and facilities were much nicer throughout most of the conference. Outdoor practices begin in January and games in Feb.
We liked the substantial merit money.
I live in New England and know of many kids playing NESCAC that were former teammates of my sons from travel ball. Generally I think the NESCAC is a well respected baseball conference. Certainly the school academic quality is generally very high. Your comment on underwhelming field quality is interesting. Not sure which ones you've seen or what your level of expectation is? These are northern tier of the country fields at Division 3 schools. You won't mistake the facilities for the SEC, that's for sure. Can you provide more context?
9and7dad posted:I live in New England and know of many kids playing NESCAC that were former teammates of my sons from travel ball. Generally I think the NESCAC is a well respected baseball conference. Certainly the school academic quality is generally very high. Your comment on underwhelming field quality is interesting. Not sure which ones you've seen or what your level of expectation is? These are northern tier of the country fields at Division 3 schools. You won't mistake the facilities for the SEC, that's for sure. Can you provide more context?
9and7,
Only "context" you'll need is to check AD2018's profile. From California.
Chances are most of the northeast's baseball facilities will underwhelm anyone from Cali!
Yes, from CA. What struck me were that some of the other sports facilities at these schools were very nice (football--new turf fields, soccer--nice low cut grass, tennis--new blue/green courts etc.) with nice grandstands. Baseball felt a bit lower on the priority. Could this be because of lot of Baseball in NESCAC is practiced indoors (and consequently having a nice, modern outdoor field is not the best return on investment).
AD2018,
You asked for thoughts....here we go....buckle up. My son was recruited by a few NESCAC schools along with a couple Ivys, Patriot , and traditional D1 schools. None of the NESCAC baseball facilities were at the level of the other D1 schools. This was expected and no big shocker to either of us. None the less, my son continued to be interested in one NESCAC school in particular because of their academic program. He did not give a rat's behind about the facilities, or the coach, and he rated this school above one of the Ivys based on its engineering school. We paid for part of his college and he took out loans for his part...he had a vested interest in his college decision and education. Facilities did not factor in his decision one bit, it was 99% about getting the best education and starting a career. While he did not select the NESCAC school it was a strong #2 based on his criteria. I don't think my son is alone in his thinking. .... pick a NESCAC school for the education, alumni network and career opportunities. Baseball is a "nice to have". JMO and personal experiences.
AD2018 posted:My 2018 has been looking at NESCAC schools, has done HF, been to a couple of camps etc. He really enjoys playing with academic-oriented teammates. Question: Is the Baseball experience any good? Where does NESCAC rank in the D3 world for Baseball? Does the level play mirror the Baseball fields at these schools (underwhelming)?
IMO, NESCAC baseball is pretty typical of all D3 baseball. The conference is middle-of-the-pack compared to other conferences. Like many D3 conferences, there's a wide range of competitiveness from the top teams to the bottom teams. I'm guessing that most of the kids playing NESCAC baseball would tell you it's a great experience. But really, there are probably just a handful of high academic D3s who are consistently at the upper echelon of D3 baseball (Trinity TX, Emory, Hopkins, Wheaton...)
Based on my limited experience, the thoughts shared above are fair and accurate. Son is a freshman at a NESCAC school. His aim was to attend the best academic school possible, using his baseball ability as his hook. His grades and test scores were average by the standards of the school he's at, so baseball helped him seal the deal. He had hoped his baseball ability would create options in the Ivy League, but that didn't pan out. He's "stoked" to be there, in his words, and likes the guys on the team. The facilities are simple but nice, and the field is WAY better than the one back home (whose right field porch is unplayably short, forcing our home games to a local park).
I guess I'd say if the choice of a school is primarily based on the quality of the baseball experience, as opposed to the academic experience, then one can do better than the NESCAC. But, if academics are the major part of the equation, the NESCAC would be tough to beat.
9and7dad posted:I live in New England and know of many kids playing NESCAC that were former teammates of my sons from travel ball. Generally I think the NESCAC is a well respected baseball conference. Certainly the school academic quality is generally very high. Your comment on underwhelming field quality is interesting. Not sure which ones you've seen or what your level of expectation is? These are northern tier of the country fields at Division 3 schools. You won't mistake the facilities for the SEC, that's for sure. Can you provide more context?
Have you seen Bowdoin's field? It's a below average high school field (unless something has changed in the past couple of years). A coach like Connolly deserves better. I've been to Tufts several times. It's an acceptable field.
As far as quality of play Tufts is often in the Top 25. They have a great coach if a kid can handle intensity. Amherst also has a good program. Colby and Bates typically are mediocre to poor (Who wants to play in central/northern Maine?). The rest go up and down. Except for the bottom feeders most teams finish the overall season over .500.
We are from CA and my son had the opportunity to play on some of the nicest college fields in the state with his travel/club team but facilities were not a big part of the decision and he is now at a NESCAC school for the same reason others have posted but the #1 reason being the top notch academics. Also, seriously considered schools in the Centennial and UAA conferences. Exception on facilities is NYU - they play in the Mets minor league affiliate park at Coney Island - would be hard to beat that place for D3!
Hmmm, great questions and comments so far. Will add my 2 cents. Still shocks me a little my 2017 did NOT take one of the multiple NESCAC offers he had as he thought he wanted a small archetypical New England college.
As an aside, the Coney island facility may be nice, but it is NOT on campus, and one factor in even discussing facilities, esp for high academic schools where the academics are rigorous may be the distance to campus and commuting time...
Back to the NESCAC. Great schools and I'm not talking about just Williams and Amherst or Middlebury or Tufts or Bowdoin...the other schools should not be overlooked. Hamilton had a great year and has amazing new facilities. Wesleyan has had some glory years. Colby has heated batting cages! Conn College however has no baseball!
Mine had one of the NESCAC schools as his #1 choice for a long time late last summer and fall. The field and facilities were definitely underwhelming. He didn't care at that point. Combined with the weather however and the lack of fans at the games at that school, it became a tiny factor when his choices increased upon acceptances to other schools (other high academics talked a lot about on this site).
Our HS sends quite a few boys to the NESCAC schools and we looked at most of them, so please feel free to PM me for any specific questions or thoughts.
I agree with Twoboys. That commute to Brooklyn took NYU out of the equation for my son. We are from Texas, and our HS field is much better than most that my son sees during the season. But for him, that matters so little compared to the education he is getting. You said, "He really enjoys playing with academic-oriented teammates." Go with that. My son loves being able to discuss his classes and p-set with his teammates.
Let me preface this by saying I have a high amount of respect for the NESCAC as well as the staffs at all 8 schools.
If baseball experience is a deciding factor in your college decision process, the NESCAC will be underwhelming for what you're looking for. While a few programs have upgraded their facilities to being modern, it doesnt change the fact that the majority of the complexes (not just the playing surfaces) are below average at best at institutions who have no lack of financial resources. Similar to Ivy League baseball compared to other Division 1 programs, coupled with poor baseball weather and a limited schedule, the amount of time a player will actually spend on the field at a NESCAC is remarkably low. The absence of official fall practice and late start of spring practice means that the opportunities to develop are much more limited than any other Division III program. Unfortunately, the level of baseball in the conference combined with playing experience (bad weather, limited fans, below average facilities) is not high enough to overcome to limitations on playing baseball.
The academics speak for themselves for all 8 schools, period. As said above though, you do not go to NESCACs solely for the baseball as there are peer institutions across D3 that offer a much higher overall baseball experience.
High Heat -- interesting opinion, and I do not disagree with what you are saying. Just a few points:
There are 11 actually NESCAC schools, only 1 does not have baseball. And I was unaware (as I am in most things in life, often blissfully unaware) that there were no official fall practices. I guess when we visited 3 of the schools last fall I should have realized that...
One advantage of the weather and fields and such though is that they all seem to travel for spring break and that in of itself is kind of a nice bonding thing as well as a chance to play out of league competition easily...
I get that clearly the lure of NESCAC are the academics, with Baseball being a means to getting into one of the schools. The sense I had was that a lot of the teams were made up of players who fell short of the Ivies (from a Baseball perspective), but still wanted the high academic school experience. If these kids were near-miss Ivy kids, and if they were eschewing D1 opportunities (because those schools were not academic enough), the thinking was that the Baseball would be pretty good. But, it appears in reality, that due to weather, facilities, low support, NESCAC ball is just an average D3 Baseball experience.
Great discussion about some wonderful schools!
There are so many things to consider in the college and baseball search. AD2018's questions are part of the overall assessment.
Sadly, my 18 year olds were not as mature in their college analyses as Fenway's son. There's clearly a lot more than coeds, baseball facilities, and dining halls, but my guys didn't look too deeply beyond their Neanderthal needs.
So to help them, we tried to steer them towards fishing in what we saw as the high academic pond. Growing up in the Northeast, my belief was the high academic "pond" was pretty much just the Ivy and NESCAC schools. And I believed that to be true when my first son began his college baseball search, adding in my beloved Notre Dame and Northwestern, Duke, and very few others.
After two sons going through the process from high school and one transferring last year, I still believe the Ivys and NESCAC schools to be incredible. And I also found quite a few other, high academic schools that may have lesser endowments and higher acceptance rates, but that also offer wonderful educations and have great career services and alumni networks. And freshman retention rates and four year graduation rates that are "in the right pond" with the Ivys and NESCACs.
Is Trinity CT "better" than Dickinson or "better" than Sewanee? Is Bowdoin "better" than Pomona or "better" than Grinnell?? I like all those schools. The academics, alumni networks, career counseling, etc., aren't too dissimilar IMO. Some have better weather. Better facilities. Roughly similar baseball quality, again, just my opinion.
My 2016 hated Lewiston, Maine but loved St. Paul, MN. And he really loved Memphis. I liked Bates and Macalester both better than Rhodes, but these schools are pretty comparable in my assessment.
And while most of the Northern schools will travel to get games out of necessity, many of the warmer weather schools will travel for breaks and play out of conference opponents for variety. My guys are at college now in the South. 2016's school will play Spring Break in Florida this March. My older guy's school will play a tourney in Texas in February.
And further deviating from AD2018's questions...sorry about that...I like the price tag net of aid and merit money at the schools my boys are attending. My 2016 was getting $0 from the NESCAC schools but he's cut our cost in half with a large merit award at the college he attends. Just one more, of many, many things to consider.
i would also add that one should check out the number of players that stay or leave from year to year. how many stay with the program vs leaving baseball ball or the school. it may tell you how well the players like one or both.
This thread has given me a chance to reflect in a different way on my son's recruiting path. As a NESCAC newbie, maybe I'm just looking at this through rose-colored glasses, but, somehow, I don't think his baseball experience will be reduced to simply how beautiful the field is, or how spectacular the indoor facilities are, or how many legions of fans show up to the games.
What I do think he'll remember are the friendships he's already begun, the rivalries that date back over 100 years, the parity of play in the conference, and the ineffable blend of athletics and academics and community that I hope will develop for him.
All these things exist at lots of D3s with better facilities, better weather, more enthusiastic fans. The fact is those things also exist at D3s where the field may look like a cow pasture, and the outfield fence is a blend of balsa wood and chicken wire, and the dugout is a portable bench in the open air, and the fans watch lazily from a hillside above the field, paying attention only when the pop of the catcher's mitt or the ping of a base hit distracts them from their homework on Nietzsche.
That's a baseball miracle.
2018 is a NESCAC commit. He was runner up for a few Ivy spots. He had zero interest in Patriot League. He had half a dozen offers from Midwest D1's. He was determined to leverage his baseball ability to get into a top academic, but he really wanted to play ball, so the facilities mattered. He knew he was not talking D1 level facilities, but due to the NESCAC cold weather the indoor facilities would be really important for off season training. Son found out there were plans for a turf field within two years so that was big.
The school will do two away trips this upcoming season. The baseball program has it's own endowment where the coaches are able to raise funds to offset travel costs, buy a Hittrax (sp), solicit alumn and dedicate funds toward the new facility. HC was a "state" player of the year, played for a high level D1, was drafted and played the minor leagues for a few years. The guy is on a mission, and that's a mission my son agreed to sign up for.... For a kid that was so all in on D1's it's amazing how he's accepting the fit and running with it. Now time to finish that damn essay for ED.
(The fact that my kid spent a lot of winters and summers in Colorado made it easy for him to like, was a blessing...)
(edit; few typos)
My 2019 met several NESCAC at HF and other camps and seems to get personal emails from some of them. We are impressed by the academics and the reputations of these schools, but not sure our SoCal boy can handle the weather. Would you say NESCAC is the coldest D3 League in the country? We have never been north of NY City and don't go skiing, either. If they don't have Fall Ball, can they still do strength and conditioning, long toss during the off seasons? What do they do during the Fall?
At my boy's school, they're in the midst of conditioning/lifting and then the next two weeks are called Captains' practices. Unclear what happens after that for the team but do know that my son will have a personalized weight lifting/conditioning program the rest of the fall/winter. Others may have more to say. I think spring tryouts start mid February, indoors more than likely.
nonomimi5 posted:My 2019 met several NESCAC at HF and other camps and seems to get personal emails from some of them. We are impressed by the academics and the reputations of these schools, but not sure our SoCal boy can handle the weather. Would you say NESCAC is the coldest D3 League in the country? We have never been north of NY City and don't go skiing, either. If they don't have Fall Ball, can they still do strength and conditioning, long toss during the off seasons? What do they do during the Fall?
You underestimate your son. There are many warm weather rostered players on NESCAC as well as Ivy schools. Depending on the year, 50% to 66% of the players on my son's Ivy team (Ivy is equal to NESCAC in terms of weather conditions) were from warm weather states mostly west coast and southwest. My son's roommate and teammate was from SoCal. They're not china dolls. They will adjust as most are fairly smart young men.
Great thread.
Branson, TWOBOYS, MAM and some others (whatever happened to Soylent Green?) have a better handle on this, but from what I've seen SCIAC and NWC fields are not going to wow families that have played in the best HS facilities in California and at some of the nicer JC fields. I bet Mam's kid's HS field, for example, would shame the average D3 baseball field on either coast and in any conference.
Add a picture of a NESCAC baseball field, as we happen to drive through in the summer. You can guess the college by the color. It's not the greatest, but definitely playable. Interesting thing is that the baseball field is located at the most remote corner of the sports complex and there's no lights and no bleachers.
The second picture is our HS baseball field, and it's actually one of the worse ones in the district. And not in California.
Of course, I agree with others that field condition is a small factor in selecting schools. Just to add some visuals to the facility discussion.
Wow...quite the HS field.
Re. the fields, it's a curious thing given the endowments these exclusive private schools have. Fortunately, with the new fields at Hamilton and Colby, I expect the rest of the NESCAC schools will step up.
Bogey, we had an almost as nice HS field too...while no one should go (or not go) to a school for a field or a building, if you are on the team you will of course spend a LOT of time there...
The NESCAC field you showed in the pic has portable stands they move over from soccer when they have games. Of course as you mentioned, it is the last field on a long row of the athletic playing fields so unlike other high academic campuses, students do not happen by...
It is often an arms race in the NESCAC, you build a science center, we build a science center...let's hope the infusion of better facilities at some schools helps the others improve their own. Time will tell.
Whenever I ask my son when his school will turf their field, he responds, "Mom, it's an academic institution."
Matty posted:Whenever I ask my son when his school will turf their field, he responds, "Mom, it's an academic institution."
Tell him that less time raking would mean more time to study.
Bogeyorpar posted:Add a picture of a NESCAC baseball field, as we happen to drive through in the summer. You can guess the college by the color. It's not the greatest, but definitely playable. Interesting thing is that the baseball field is located at the most remote corner of the sports complex and there's no lights and no bleachers.
The second picture is our HS baseball field, and it's actually one of the worse ones in the district. And not in California.
Of course, I agree with others that field condition is a small factor in selecting schools. Just to add some visuals to the facility discussion.
I see Bowdoin returfed their field. Every field out there (baseball, softball, men's soccer, women's soccer, etc.) goes by the same name. Some might call it a complex. It's an open field of athletic fields. But as they say, " You may be beating us now. You'll be working for us later." I would have been sixth generation had I played D3 ball. I verballed as soon as I could talk. I decommitted in high school.
Great conversation all the way around here. I think the toughest part of the recruiting process (especially at the Division III level) is that it's extremely rare to check every box when looking at colleges and that you (recruits) inherently have to prioritize what truly matters more in the long run. For some people (including myself), the opportunity to receive an elite education was worth the sacrifice of playing against better baseball competition in better weather. On top of this, it's human nature for us to oversell the positives and underrate the negatives to better justify our decisions. This is not a shot at anyone in this thread and Im saying this to myself as much as anyone, but it's imperative to remain as objective and unemotional as possible when evaluating & comparing colleges to make for much fairer assessments.
Agreed high heat, but for an 18 year old boy (or younger) it is not that easy to be objective and unemotional. This is where a parent can help with steering a conversation to help them frame the issues.
People say love the school that loves you, so mine initially loved the school where the HC loved him most. We had to talk about the fact that coaches move around, and that in of itself is not a reason to go there.
Son loves chocolate milk and grape gatorade. Easy to love the school that has both in the cafeteria. Little things you don't realize may create an impression, perhaps even subconsciously that you like A better than B.
For mine, he was forced to "unpack" his decision when a school he loved came back into the equation after he had "committed" elsewhere. This process forced the objectivity that frankly was not as much there previously. Issues like fields and weather entered the discussion, as well as level of baseball, rosters, competition in the league, spring trips -- none were deciding or even major factors, but he needed at that point to walk through his comprehensive list of what mattered to him, even if it only mattered a little. Part of his problem, admittedly a very good one to have, was that he was admitted to some very high academic schools and the education was hard to differentiate.
Its not just the Nescac that could use better field. Here is a discussion of the fields in the Sciac. This is in Southern California.
http://www.d3boards.com/index.php?topic=4276.3135
My son was more concerned with the weight room facilities. He took a well known local top 25 D3, because the weght room was so bad.
I saw Oxy's field this summer on casual drive through with my son and was initially convinced that it was a softball field. Led to an argument with son, who knew it was the baseball diamond. It is VERY small. Sorry, but I don't know the dimensions exactly but it would be a tough place to pitch.
A year or so before we got serious about colleges we were in the neighborhood and visited both Oxy and Chapman. Oddly enough I didn't notice that the field was THAT small. I liked the fact that the team had a nice enough year-round locker room. My kid liked it a lot better than Chapman, which has a great new athletic center, football field, and swimming center, but plays baseball in a city park a mile away.
My younger son went to a baseball camp at Occidental this past June. The field was plenty big. Then again, he was 10.
Seriously, it's like 270' down the right field line, 290' down the left, and about 340' to center.
The SCIAC as a whole has some very hitter friendly parks.
Pomona-Pitzer is roughly 370-390-360-340-290 and it absolutely carries there. Whittier and Oxy play laughably small across the yard. While Cal Lu, Redlands, and La Verne are more traditional dimensions, any day the wind is blowing out will lead to a slugfest.
I will say this about the SCIAC: while the weather and very high level of talent make it a great playing experience, some of the facilities (outside of field cosmetics) are stuck in the previous century.
