Occidental College

as you probably know, oxy is a first rate school. the academics are superior. the facilities are solid. the baseball field itself is very nice, located right on campus. they have a small workout area in the outfield--cages and an indoor weight area w/ locker room. it's by no means overwhelming but in line w/ DIII facilities. don't know much about the current coach but the conference is pretty good w/ redlands and cal lutheran.

kjam32- I have no knowledge of Occidental pertaining to athletic specifics. I do know that it is a top level institution and very well respected nationally, so commendment is in store for your hard work in the classroom.

When a coach says that they have a certain amount of players contending for a starting spot, they are very rarely telling a lie. However, if you think about it, doesn't every coach have a recruiting class full of players contending for a starting spot? At my school, every single recruit that comes in has the opportunity to take the position of any returning player. A coach will put his best nine players on the field to win, no matter how old they might be.

I'm not sure what you mean by the coach saying he will write you a letter of rec. If you could elaborate on that a bit more I'd be glad to help if I could.

The coach telling you he wants you to come watch a game in the spring tells you that the coach would like you to experience how the team interacts and to see the level of play/competitiveness they have to offer. When I was recruited to play at my school I took an official visit to the school but didn't catch a game (the visit was in the fall). It probably would have been cool to be able to catch a game in the spring of my senior year to see what the team was like and how the competition factors into what I have already experienced/legitimately could see myself playing against and with.

Occidental is a great school academically. The location isn't much to write home about but you are very close to Pasedena and "old town" pasedena is a great place frequented by Oxy and USC students.

The campus is beautiful, originally designed by the same architect who did the original designs of Stanford and Pomona College.

Oxy has traditionally been a D-3 football "power".

As for baseball, back in around 2002 or so there was essentially a complete mutiny of the team, the coach was let go or resigned and it through the program into a tail spin. Through 2005 i believe they had a bit of a coaching revolving door and were a bit of a conference doormat but, with the new coach they seem to have had stability and the program improving each year.

The facilities are ok, nothing spectacular but ok, especially for a very small school and D-3 program.

My son played at Pomona. the conference is VERY competitive. Many of the teams could hold their own with a D-1 team for a game here and there and many often schedule a D-1 now and then. Always saw scouts at games and players are always drafted out of this conference.

For the whole package it is tough to beat. My son perferred Pomona primarily because you have the 5 Claremeont schools all together and so while each of the 5 is small (about Oxy size or smaller) you put the 5 together you have an undergrad population not quite the size of say Stanford. Oxy is a smallish school that stands alone.

It's a first rate school and a decent baseball program. Don't think you can go wrong with a choice like Oxy.

Oh and if the coach is willing to write you a letter of rec, that is huge at the D-3 level. Means he wants you on the team. There's no money etc. to offer at D-3 so the most a coach can really offer is to support your application to the school. AGain, that means he wants you on the team as he can only make so many recommendations to the admissions dept.

Best of luck with your decision.

Occidental is a great school for academics. Very expensive. The facilities are not to bad. Anderson Field is a very nice field, and the locker room area has recently been renovated. The Baseball program struggles in the SCIAC. There old coach was a great baseball guy. I do not know much about the new coach Hawkins. Eagle Rock is a fairly nice place but also very spendy. The campus is beautifull. Many movies have been filmed on the campus at Oxy.

President Obama attended Occidental.
He was known as Barry Obama at that time.

My son has nothing but great things to say about Coach Hawkins and the coaching staff at Oxy.Although he turned down attending/playing there,he felt the coaches were very serious about turning Oxy baseball into a top notch baseball program.I'm sure its difficult to recruit because of the GPA/SAT/price requirements for a place like Oxy.Hawkins was a prior coach at University of Redlands,which has a great program. If you notice Oxy coaching is everywhere lately, attending alot of showcases,prospect camps, Arizonia games,and high profile tourneys looking for top prospects.

@baseball fam.. I know the tuition is expensive but how did Oxy tried to lower the tuition in your son's case.
@Nic15, I can only imagine how much more expensive for an out of state player.

Oxy is a private, so there's no separation of in-state and out-state. Everyone pays the same (before merit and need-based $$ of course).

The price of Occidental for an athlete? Not sure
how $$$ work from year to year, for each player it is different. I'm sure it depends on need,but it's all about Academics and Financial Aid...academic scholarships, grants(which you don't have to pay back) and loans which will be paid by student or parent.

Since Oxy is pretty selective on academics, who gets aid based on merit? I mean, do they give it to the top students admitted only? I would think athletes would have a hard time getting merit aid if that is the case. For middle class families, how much Financial aid, if any, can be expected?

Sites like princetonreview.com (free registration) and I believe collegeboard.com have info on all of this stuff, which you can sort of use to gauge where you might fall in terms of FA (merit, need-based, etc).

Another site I like as far as actual student reviews of a school (though poorly designed!) is studentsreview.com You might be able to get some info there. collegeconfidential.com and collegeprowler.com are other good info sites (it's been awhile - not sure if you have to pay now or not.)

http://colleges.usnews.ranking...ws.com/best-colleges is also good, but you have to pay to get the real nitty gritty info.

quote:

Krakatoa

Thanks for the response. I have looked at student reviews quite often. Sometimes the negative reviews can be quite amusing (but brutal). Can be a real turn-off on the school. Menlo as an example has some pretty bad reviews posted that are probably not deserved. Will check out the other two you mentioned as I haven't yet researched FA. Not optimistic but will take a look.

Yeah, I know - Menlo has a few 'sound thrashing' posts which are in direct opposition to my son's experience and the reputation of the school in that area. Other schools I've looked at have similar things sometimes - most likely disgruntled students! I saw that Oxy had some thrashings, but it's clear that whoever wrote them had a literacy level that would never have gained them admission to that school - so who knows where this stuff comes from! You can pretty much tell which reviews (both pro and con) are based in reality rather than emotion (almost always the negative posts).