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Another comparison site (not only for D3 - use the pulldown menu to change comparison)

 

http://www.masseyratings.com/r...mp;sub=11620&c=1

 

In my now 3 years of watching my son play - Swathmore has always been competitive and as my son says very good academic school.

 

Schools are relatively close to each other. Conference schedule is typically Tue/Fri or Mon/Thu (home and home) with longer weekend trips for doubleheaders.  Teams play 35-40 games overall.  Lots of schools in the area for non league games.

 

Conference baseball website is:

 

http://www.centennial.org/sports/bsb/index

My son just graduated from Swarthmore where he was an all conference pitcher and named to the D3 national team of the week.  He had a great experience there and loves coach Midkiff.  He played collegiatte summer ball in Washington DC where he interned for one summer in The House of Representatives and the next on the floor of the Senate.  All the seniors in his class had excellent jobs waiting for them at graduation and he tells me that the current senior class have all recieved their job offers already.  

 

This is a very intense academic environment where both the baseball coach and the professors will expect top performance every day.  You never get a day off.  The succesful candidate will be rewarded with an elite academic experience that sticks in the outside world.  The conference is a dogfight every year and you will notice that conference teams do very well against thier non-conference opponents but do a lot of splitting in conference.  JHU has the advantage of 5,000 undergrads so Coach Babb can overrecruit to his hearts content.  Swat and Haverford have to make do with about 6 slots per year but the baseball is quite good.  PM me if you want more specifics on Swarthmore or the conference.

Thanks all, I have been on D3baseball.com, and yes, all information about different conferences and schools. We are visiting Trinity and Swarthmore next week. Two very different schools, son has to get better feeling for both.Other than comparing their past record, coaches Bio, roster openings,  I am not sure if there is a better way to compare the baseball aspect of the schools he is interested in. I was trying to compare conferences, I see that Trinity plays in a much smaller conference(five schools)

just realized that today . CC is 10 schools.  Is this relevant?

 

Leftyshortstop,

Thanks for your reply. Congrats on your son graduating from Swarthmore AND having such a successful baseball experience there. I have read many reviews on the school not being a good fit for everybody and that is what concerns me as a parent. Sort of like biting off more than you can chew is the expression that comes to mind. Was the workload overwhelming at any time for him along with playing baseball? Thanks for sharing!

Batsmith - Its really about Math.  Swat has a $1.8 billion endowment that is used ONLY for undergraduate grants and teachers salary's.  Just over half of the student body is paying nothing or close to nothing.  1/3 of the student body were valedictorians of their HS. They are brilliant but a number of those kids are wierd.  Remember the valedictorian at your HS?

 

BUT, you should also remember that 40% of the student body was captain of at least one of their HS athletic teams.  Many were captain of more than one.  Your son will be exposed to all kinds of kids with all different types of values.  Since there are plenty of 4.0 HS GPA's to go around, admissions points to the unique charecteristics of the applicant - Violin, Language, Dance,Writing, Astronomy, Baseball, First in Family to go to college, etc.  The kids are type A & the water is deep.  

 

After first semester of freshman year, son came home and said "I thought I was a special little snowflake, but now I'm just in a pile of snow". However, the place may be the most supportive place in the country.  Graduation rates are like 98%. They will go to incredible lengths to see that each kid succeeds. For example, one of son's professors called a US Senator directly to ask him to interview son.  Pretty cool, but they scheduled the interview during a home game.  During the game, Son left the dugout and did the phone interview in the AD's office and then returnded in time to appear in the game as the closer.  He got the job, the team won, but he doesn't remember how he performed in the outing.  Thats what SWAT is.

 

Its a rigourous place.  Not for everyone for sure - some kids don't want to work that hard.   However, a baseball player has to work hard at every school. 

I assume you mean Trinity in Hartford, CT not the one in San Antonio, TX...

 

Trinity in NESCAC which is split East / West... Academically competitive conference with all schools relatively close distance wise; although they are with Tufts and the 3 Maine schools (Colby, Bates, Bowdoin) which from Hartford is some long drives.  Tufts is the current "power", but Trinity has won it all before.. Trinity campus is in an "interesting" area of Hartford - one side, very nice houses, neighborhoods, etc.  The other side, well lock your doors is the normal refrain. My oldest son went on a football recruiting visit - we came in one way and went out the other. When he was being recruited, Trinity was referred to as one of the easier NESCAC's to get into.  OTOH, Swathmore, I know from other son is one of the harder CC schools to get into.

 

Perhaps a relevant thing about smaller conferences is the ability to play more out of conference games in order to evaluate newer talent.  With a 10 team CC that's 18 conference games.  With a 5 team NESCAC-East/West that's 12 conference games with the traditional 3 game sets at one school per weeknd. How NESCAC schools are allowed to use their non conference schedule is unknown to me - although starting March 15 last year in FL seems to lose 2-3 weeks of game possibilities...  Depends on what you're expecting I guess.

 

One other note - you didn't mention where you're from, but baseball in New England in March is always an "adventure". Playing in the snow is a rite of passage!

Swarthmore is a great academic school and the coaches seemed like they would be good to play for. However, Swarthmore's baseball facilities are really unimpressive. The dugout seating is just a long slab of wood in ancient-looking huts. I don't recall there being even a shelf for helmets. The diamond looks like a city recreational field, not a college facility. They are in the process of building a new weight room; the one they have now is shared with community members (I think the community members pay a fee to use it). The field house for indoor practices is ancient. By comparison, Johns Hopkins has just completed a beautiful brand new baseball diamond. Haverford has a nice baseball setting.

Thats funny.  .  Dugouts were done about 5 years ago as the first step in a $200,000 modernization.  New bullpens with brick walled sides went in last year. New wrap around stadium seating going in this year.   Great new scoreboard two years ago and new pressbox opening this season.  Sweet outfield that they manually cut.  Field house is ancient but the baseball team has its own little maintanence building next to the field.  Baseball/softball fields are in the middle of campus with dorms surrounding.  Kids have to pass the park on the way to class. Will post more pictures when I'm back at my desk next week.  Note the score.  Conference plays 9 inning double headers as opposed to 7 and 9 as in Ivy and NESCAC

 

When I was at Swarthmore's diamond this summer, it looked pretty much like these photos: http://www.clearsoundinc.com/s...llege-baseball-field and https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BqlTZOOIUAAiFDk.jpg:large. Here is a map of the Swarthmore campus to give you an idea of where the diamond is located: http://www.swarthmore.edu/campusmap/index.php. Again, I liked the coaches and the school offers an outstanding education.

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