Also from ESPN Rise, BOTN Industries can supply the following girls soccer information for our College Board readers.

Class of 2010, Division I College Commitments (By College)

Class of 2011, Division I College Commitments (By College)

Newsday ran an interesting article on Sunday, August 22nd, 2010 discussing how to keep an open mind during recruitment periods rather than having one single university as a target early during your High School career.

BOTN Industries has often discussed maintaining two lists of ten schools, one based on academics and one based on athletics, to enable the player and family to develop their core list of five to eight target schools in the early phases.

College Recruitment Can Be Overwhelming

Notice that fees in the $1000.00 range are being charged for placement services in a variety of sports. Please be sure to read through the tips at the end of the article.

Your comments on this material are welcomed.

Planning for October tournaments and November/December showcases should now be in full swing for premier and top level club teams. Questions covering how to get the most from your upcoming showcases, planning activities, or college related contacts are most welcomed. Please feel free to ask your questions in this year's recruitment thread.

I know this has been discussed, but I can not find the page. Can someone go over how Div 1 and Div111 differ with repect to committment ie practice hours length of season etc??
thanks

Broadly speaking the level of commitment is much higher in Division 1 in comparison to Division 3 schools, with the Ivy D1 schools in the middle. This is, however, a school specific item as there are variotions in both D1 and D3.

Almost all D1 schools play a fall and spring season. There is travel involved and classes missed is something that happens on a recurring basis. For a D1 athlete, there college experiance is fairly stuctured and revolves around the sport they play. Some D3 schools also play 2 seasons but its more of a mixed bag. The travel is also less and there is usually more of a commitment on the part of the program to enable kids to get to most classes, etc.

The commitment in D3 Nescac schools is the lowest that I am aware of. Preseasons are limited to 3 to 4 days, there is very little travel, you play only one season, you are not allowed to practice as a team out of season (with some minor exceptions). You must schedule your classes such that you do not miss any due to practices and most games. Nescac rules are such that they view that you are there to get an education in comparison to D1 where the general thinking is tht you are there to play a sport.

As mentioned earlier, this is a topic that must be discussed between the coach and the player during the recruiting practice to ensure the player is aware of the commitments and the life style of the college experiance they will have as an athelete at the college.

Thank you Westone!! What does Nescac stand for?

New England Small College Athletic Conference

Some truly outstanding academic schools participate in NESCAC and in alphabetical order, you have :

Amherst (#2 Liberal Arts College according to USN&WR)
Bates
Bowdoin
Colby
Connecticut College
Hamilton
Middlebury
Trinity
Tufts (Outstanding Academics, World Reknowned)
Wesleyan
Williams (#1 LAC according to USN&WR)

thank you both Westone and Boardlord. Would either of you have the NCAA link that goes into more detail with general guidlines for this.
Thanks

There are no official 'links' that discuss commitment levels across Divisions that I am aware of. My earlier outline provides some guidence, but you are going to get your best information by asking some basic questions of coaches that are on your radar screen. By asking the same questions to 5 or 6 coaches you will be able to get a grasp on how much time your kid will be playing sports and how much time they will have available for academics.

It also helpful to ask yourself why exactly your son or daughter is going to college and have them outline what they want from their college experiance. These sort of 'answers' are useful to have when thinking about what the coaches are telling you in terms of commitment levels. For example if you kid wants to spend a year abroad - (typically in their junior year), how does this fit in with the program/ commitment.

thanks.