Next Level opportunities - small D2 or D3

Bludevil_bk,

I always look at these kinds of questions from two perspectives. One perspective is for academics and the other perspective is baseball. I find it interesting that yout threw out baseball stats, but no academic stats. Academic stats will be absolutely key in determing possible fits for D3 schools. Keep in mind, it is difficult to recommend or discuss a D3 school without knowing academic performance, and interests.

Also, I'm curious why you are considering only D2/D3 schools since your son is a rising junior. Junior year is a big one, and a lot of things can change quickly if he has the right opportunities (ie travel team, showcase events, etc...) and coaching.

To answer part of your question directly, there are many, many D3 schools in VA, NC, MD, DE, PA, NJ. I suggest you look through this list by region and playoff history (URL below) to get a feel for some of the more successful programs by location. You can then cross-reference these schools by looking at their admissions & tuition info at College Board. This will give you a starting point for D3.

For D2 teams and rankings, I would look through Boyds' World (URL below) and cross reference with College Board.


http://www.d3baseball.com/
http://www.collegeboard.com/
http://www.boydsworld.com/


Feel free to drop me a PM if you want to discuss specifics.

Bludevil_bk - your approach is similar to my own. Basically, running the search from the ground up as opposed to top down. Find one D3 program the loves him and there is a likely a D2 program out there who would also love him. Find a D2 who loves him and there may be a D1 out there who loves him and so forth. The key is finding the best fit and I think you are going about it in a logical manner.

I am no expert on southern D2 and D3's but I have been a member here long enough to form some opinions. I believe North Carolina Wesleyan is a program that deserves serious consideration as they have a competitive baseball product and I have heard they have fine academics. For D2's, I would look up the Peach Belt conference and see if any of those schools are a fit academically/baseball/ location. That is one of the best baseball conferences in America. Piedmont College is another one I would look into as that coach recruited my son and I believe he is a fine coach.

I know you are not looking in the north, but three programs to consider here in Ohio are Marietta, Wooster, and Heidelberg. All three are top 20 programs with legitimate national title hopes. They are in small, quaint Ohio towns with fine academic qualifications.

Bluedevil_bk, fenwaysouth's post is a very fair one in my opinion. I am a coach at a DII program and from a size stand point, your son sounds as if he could have a great deal of "upside" left before you should set your sights on schools.

Grades/test scores are HUGE in DIII. As a player I could have picked my DIII school because I had a good GPA and good SAT, mixed with enough baseball talent. DIII schools (in my opinion) do it the right way and only allow student-athletes not athletes masquerading as "students." They generally cannot "come off" their admissions standards to help an athlete out.

DII has a wide range of talent, so while it is likely your son could play at the school I coach at, the top programs (like where I attended) have many athletes who could have played DI ball. There is a huge difference between the Tampa/GCSUs of DII and say the Lane college style schools. That is not a dig on Lane college by any means as they would be much more competitive in a sport like basketball/football (where there focus lies, not to mention GCSU/Tampa don't field football programs).

Bludevil, your son sounds like a clone of mine, only yours weighs more! He chose York College (southern PA) because they have beautiful facilities, a very successful team, good academics, low tuition for a private college, a good opportunity to play at the next level (they have placed players in the Coastal Plains League), and a coach who really saw my son's future potential.

We found the best way to judge the "next level opportunity" factor was to visit the school and talk to the coach about it. All of the coaches were up-front about their ability to place kids in the summer leagues.

My son made his decision over the winter, and then had a "dream season" (team and individually) that would have definitely opened more recruiting doors for him, but he chose not to pursue any of those opportunities since he was happy with his choice. I just mention this because it is a pretty common occurance for those "late bloomers" like ours...

You'll have better insight when he gets some of his SAt or ACT scores later on.

If you go to

http://collegesearch.collegebo...igateTo=9&viewpage=1

and use the college search/college matchmaker search function, you can search/screen for schools with baseball programs, and the advanced function allows you to specifiy D1 or D3 or all. Then you can also specify specific majors you are interested in, or geographic areas of the country. When the list comes up, you can sort it by several different measures, such as SAT scores, or tuition levels, size, % applicants admitted, etc. This will give you a lot of insight if you spend some time playing around. You can also specify private or public. I found it to be a very valuable tool, and very quick too.

He attends a very competitive highschool. He has taken a mix of honors. regular classes. His GPA is 3.5, no SAT scores yet. Junior year grades (4 honors, 1 AP course) will tell a lot. The reason I am looking at small D2 and D3 schools is that I am looking for a a place he can play a lot, have a life and get a solid education.

Bludevil_bk,

I hear you loud and clear. I'm glad to see he is doing well in the classroom. I must confess that when my son was a rising junior, I had a similiar perspective on his academic/baseball possible future. I really wanted him to enjoy his college baseball experience, and get a quality education as you stated. My thought at the time was that I didn't want him to be "burdened" and "over-committed" with D1 athletics. I played D2 tennis 25 years ago and it was very manageable, so I had some idea of what it takes to balance college and college sports. My perspective was that D1 athletics would be too much for his intended engineering major, and that D3 would better suit him. My son had other ideas, and he wanted to go in a different direction with the same academic and athletic goals in mind. That is the direction we went, and he starts college/college baseball in less three weeks. I'm glad we looked at many options.

Your son's academic achievement will open some doors at the D3 level if he continues to develop there. I totally agree with distrktFIVE that D3 does it the right way. They can't come off of their admissions standards to help an athlete. IMO that is the way it should be. You will find the D3 coaches & recruiting process focusing almost exclusively on academics as they want to make sure he can get into the school first. We had a few D3 coaches talk very little about their team, but talked exclusively about the academic programs. The D3 timetable is very different fro D1/D2. You have a lot of time, but junior year should open some doors and contacts with these coaches.

Some of my favorite D3's for academics/baseball include Washington & Lee (VA), Hampden-Sydney (VA), Randolph-Macon (VA), Mary Washington (VA), Haverford (PA), Tufts (MA), Trinity (TX), and Rose-Hulman Institute (IN). Each has something unique to offer, and the coaches were straight shooters. Some of these schools are heavy into engineering and others are Liberal Arts Colleges.

If you have a specific major in mind, I would take Pedropere's advice and go to the College Board search engine. rocketmom suggested York College which have heard from others is also a very good school with great facilities. That is the great thing about D3, you have a lot of choices. Best of luck.

Your son sounds very similar to mine in size. Mine was offered by D2's and D3's of all levels. The main difficulty he found with D2's when we visited, was that there are a lot fewer of them that are solid academically. A bunch of them had fantastic baseball, but were listed on the low end academically and vice versa. It was the rare one that was solid academically and in baseball, and of course those schools pretty much had their pick of the litter, because everyone wants to get in.

Additionally, Most D2's are the B state schools, meaning that they are smaller and when many states are allocating money, the lion's share goes to the Virginia Tech's, or University of Alabama's and the rest gets divided between the remaining state schools. This means many have rougher facilities as well. Because they are small state schools, many d2's also have difficulty giving reasonable scholarships to out-of-state students. They carry pretty much the same practice schedule as D1's with fewer baseball scholarships to give out. And pretty much every coach we talked mentioned one or two players on the team who got out in 4 years during their time coaching, but all said realistically, expect to get out in 4 1/2 to 5. Also, in our experience a high percentage of D2's were commuter schools.

D3's come in all shapes and sizes academically. But on the whole, there is a much higher percentage of schools with the combination of good to great academics and good baseball. Most of the schools in the top 20 have very good reputations academically. Because they are mostly private (Mary Washington being an exception), they also often have larger scholarships that more than offset their higher tuition. No they don't give athletic scholarships, but many move athletes to the front of the line for acceptance and other scholarships.

In addition to the previous posts, I would recommend the SCAC schools. Birmingham-Southern went 35-5 last year and has a great reputation. Hendrix has a fantastic coach. Many of the other schools are solid in baseball and almost all are tops academically. And at the end of the day, they all carry reputations for getting their students solid careers and into outstanding grad schools. Most get their players out in 4 yrs. and academics always comes first.

At the end of the day, if career and education is your son's priority, D3 is hard to beat. If baseball is the priority, then go for the top 50 or so d2's. Baseball wise, from what the coaches told us, if you fall below the top 50 or so d2's, then top 20 D3's are the better choice.

^ this is a great great post that has many truths in it.

This thread is very pertinent as my son is also a very young rising junior (not yet 16), but not quite as strong on stats. GPA is 6.4 from a very competitive HS. I'm afraid his test scores won't be great -- mine weren't and he's very similar. I have two questions. First, what are considered good grades and scores for the schools being referenced? Second, does anyone have any experience having a young son repeat a year at this age? We're starting to consider having him repeat his junior year at a private school just to give him a bit more maturity before he heads off to college. It may give him more baseball opportunities also (which he really wants), but that's not our only driver here.

Any insights/experiences you all can share will be much appreciated.

Dear MHC, sound like you and your son have similar discussions. "Oh, if I could just be a rising sophomore right now" ....I hear it quite often.

We have thought more about the PG (post grad) route than holding him back. Pg is common in the Northeast, works like a fifth year of high school and most of these schools have strong academics too. Helps students mature physically and academically. Most kids I know that went that route for academic ended up in a much better place than they would have coming straight out of HS.

I made a post on the topic here sometime ago, asking about solid baseball programs at PG schools. The only one I heard about was IMG in Florida, more of an athletic training ground with less emphasis on academics than i'd like. In the South East I know a few PG Programs for football and basketball, but have not heard about any with strong baseball.

Still like to learn more about PG programs with solid Baseball and solid academics.

If he is interested in D2 baseball programs, you reside in a very good location. The Conference Carolinas with schools like Erskine, Mount Olive, Belmont Abbey, Limestone, Coker, Pfeiffer and Barton are possibilities. Be diligent in finding out exactly what kind of campus experience he wants. Some D2's can be really small and vacant on the weekends. They also have very large rosters but a plus is that they have JV games and a rigorous fall program. As mentioned a few times above, I think a major factor is academics. What does he want to study because a transfer is a one time only deal if he goes from a D2 to another D2. He'll sit out if he moves up to DI. He could start D2 and go to DIII without problems though. Nothing has been said about NAIA schools?