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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Division 3 college: NESCAC vs UAA
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Originally posted by Unregistered View PostBoth 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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Originally posted by Unregistered View PostDifference 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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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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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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Originally posted by Unregistered View PostThe 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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Originally posted by Unregistered View PostThe 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.
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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Originally posted by Unregistered View PostI 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.
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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Originally posted by Unregistered View PostI 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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Originally posted by Unregistered View PostI 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.
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).
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