Division 3 college: NESCAC vs UAA

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Both leagues have incredibly strong academic schools. Which league has stronger soccer? Tufts has been a top team,. Last year’s top 20 rankings had three from each league.

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Both leagues have incredibly strong academic schools. Which league has stronger soccer? Tufts has been a top team,. Last year’s top 20 rankings had three from each league.

Difference in quality of soccer overall between NESCAC and UAA year over year is negligible. Any student-athlete considering schools in both ought to be evaluating academic fit, geographical preference, financial aid package, etc. UAA schools are major research universities in more urban areas, so travel tends to be more national in UAA, e.g., Chicago/Atlanta.

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Difference in quality of soccer overall between NESCAC and UAA year over year is negligible. Any student-athlete considering schools in both ought to be evaluating academic fit, geographical preference, financial aid package, etc. UAA schools are major research universities in more urban areas, so travel tends to be more national in UAA, e.g., Chicago/Atlanta.

UAA schools have more of the D1 feel to them especially as they're bigger in size (but not huge). So from a personal preference standpoint students may feel differently about smaller vs bigger. Some differences in terms of breadth of majors offered as well. For STEM oriented students I'd lean UAA.

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Both leagues have incredibly strong academic schools. Which league has stronger soccer? Tufts has been a top team,. Last year’s top 20 rankings had three from each league.

Men or women's soccer?

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Men or women's soccer?

Mens.
Sorry...forgot to put that in the threat title.

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The soccer is a wash...top two conferences in country.

Academics is a wash depending on preferences as noted above.

Too much is made of travel in UAA... first, a smaller conference with only 8 schools, and at most two road trips usually knocking out two away games in same weekend.

Although schools just as good and in some instances "better" IMHO UAA has less of a snob, New Englandish factor.

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For STEM oriented students I'd lean UAA.

For engineering in particular, the UAA has it all over the NESCAC, in which only Tufts offers the major.

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The OP asked about soccer, and the answer depends on the time frame you're looking at. If you're considering the last five or ten years, clearly the NESCAC is #1. But if you're only considering the last couple of years--and since the question was asked in the present tense, I think that's what's relevant--then I think the UAA is a little stronger.

The NESCAC's best team, Tufts, has done better than the UAA's #1, Chicago, even though Chicago is quite good. But the UAA has had as many Final Four teams in the last two years--four--as the rest of D3 put together. (The NESCAC had one.) And at the other end of the standings, all of the UAA teams are pretty good. Seven out of the eight teams in the league have been to the NCAA tournament in the last two years. No one's dragging anchor. So, all in all, I'd put the UAA slightly ahead of the NESCAC, with both of them considerably ahead of the third strongest conference.

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The OP asked about soccer, and the answer depends on the time frame you're looking at. If you're considering the last five or ten years, clearly the NESCAC is #1. But if you're only considering the last couple of years--and since the question was asked in the present tense, I think that's what's relevant--then I think the UAA is a little stronger.

The NESCAC's best team, Tufts, has done better than the UAA's #1, Chicago, even though Chicago is quite good. But the UAA has had as many Final Four teams in the last two years--four--as the rest of D3 put together. (The NESCAC had one.) And at the other end of the standings, all of the UAA teams are pretty good. Seven out of the eight teams in the league have been to the NCAA tournament in the last two years. No one's dragging anchor. So, all in all, I'd put the UAA slightly ahead of the NESCAC, with both of them considerably ahead of the third strongest conference.

I agree with this assessment, although the two leagues are both strong. If your son gets into any of the schools in either league, they have done well. If you have to choose then location is important. There are some significant differences between the schools in the two leagues. First, all the UAA schools are universities and offered a wider array of majors, engineering (as mentioned above) being one. The UAA schools tend to be larger with NYU being the largest. Starting salaries of graduates are not too different (50-60sK).

The UAA schools are more spread out and, aside from Brandeis, no others are in New England.

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The NESCAC's best team, Tufts, has done better than the UAA's #1, Chicago, even though Chicago is quite good. But the UAA has had as many Final Four teams in the last two years--four--as the rest of D3 put together. (The NESCAC had one.) And at the other end of the standings, all of the UAA teams are pretty good. Seven out of the eight teams in the league have been to the NCAA tournament in the last two years. No one's dragging anchor. So, all in all, I'd put the UAA slightly ahead of the NESCAC, with both of them considerably ahead of the third strongest conference.

I agree that the UAA is more homogeneously strong than the NESCAC, but the Final Four stats are somewhat misleading. Because of its geographic diversity (with schools in MA, NY, GA, MO, OH, PA, and IL), the UAA often ends up having participants in 3 (and sometimes all 4) quadrants of the NCAA tournament bracket. In contrast, the NESCAC teams usually end up cannibalizing each other within a single quadrant of the bracket, ensuring that only one NESCAC team gets to the Final Four.

It's also worth mentioning that the NESCAC has 4 out of the 5 NCAA champions (Amherst once and Tufts thrice), and that none of those 4 champions won (or even advanced to the final of) the conference tournament in the year they won the title.

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I agree that you can't go wrong with any of the schools in either league. They all have solid academic reputations and some great soccer options.

After having several children play soccer, I will offer some unsolicited advice. Enjoy the moment and don't get caught up in the pressure of club and college choices. It can all be a lot of fun and a culmination of years of training and studying both. Make the choice that makes sense for your family and sit back and watch your child blossom into a young adult. It has been a wonderful experience.

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Thank you, I appreciate this advice! You can lose the forest for the trees as you deal with ID camps, emails, which coach said what, and what does it mean etc etc.

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I agree that the UAA is more homogeneously strong than the NESCAC, but the Final Four stats are somewhat misleading. Because of its geographic diversity (with schools in MA, NY, GA, MO, OH, PA, and IL), the UAA often ends up having participants in 3 (and sometimes all 4) quadrants of the NCAA tournament bracket. In contrast, the NESCAC teams usually end up cannibalizing each other within a single quadrant of the bracket, ensuring that only one NESCAC team gets to the Final Four.

It's also worth mentioning that the NESCAC has 4 out of the 5 NCAA champions (Amherst once and Tufts thrice), and that none of those 4 champions won (or even advanced to the final of) the conference tournament in the year they won the title.

Your point is still valid, but usually the NESCAC has teams spread among TWO of the four quadrants for the tournament, some staying in New England and a couple pared against teams from the NJ and PA areas.

In terms of soccer, the big differences are the size of the conferences (11 in NESCAC versus 8 in UAA) and the UAA schools having room for (on balance) better and/or more interesting out of conference schedules.

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I agree that you can't go wrong with any of the schools in either league. They all have solid academic reputations and some great soccer options.

After having several children play soccer, I will offer some unsolicited advice. Enjoy the moment and don't get caught up in the pressure of club and college choices. It can all be a lot of fun and a culmination of years of training and studying both. Make the choice that makes sense for your family and sit back and watch your child blossom into a young adult. It has been a wonderful experience.

I would add that playing time is important for a good to great experience. Better to actually play at Colby or Bates than to mostly sit the bench at Tufts or Amherst.

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I agree that the UAA is more homogeneously strong than the NESCAC, but the Final Four stats are somewhat misleading. Because of its geographic diversity (with schools in MA, NY, GA, MO, OH, PA, and IL), the UAA often ends up having participants in 3 (and sometimes all 4) quadrants of the NCAA tournament bracket. In contrast, the NESCAC teams usually end up cannibalizing each other within a single quadrant of the bracket, ensuring that only one NESCAC team gets to the Final Four.

You're right that if all the NESCAC schools were are all assigned to the same regional, that would limit the number of teams that could advance, but it works the other way too. When teams from the same conference play each other, one will certainly advance, so having lots of teams from the same conference clustered together reduces the chances of being shut out. In 2018, for example, Tufts, Amherst and Midd were all assigned to the same half of the same regional, so while only one of those teams could make the Elite Eight, there was an excellent chance that one of those teams would in fact make the Elite Eight.

In any event, the NESCAC schools haven't been knocking each other out of the tournament recently. Over the last two years, there was only one intra-NESCAC matchup in the NCAA tournament (Amherst was eliminated by Tufts in a regional semifinal last year), which matches the number of intra-UAA matchups over the last two years (Chicago eliminated Emory in a regional final in 2017).