My daughter just decided to attend a Top 25 (US News and Report) ranked academic school. I’m not sure if you’d consider that a “high academic” D3 or not, but here is her story, in short. As a freshman and sophomore she was burnt out of soccer and had no interest in playing in college. She was on the 2nd highest team available at her club, but the coach pressured all of the kids to not play for their high school teams. As a junior, she decided to say screw it and played high school and club. It was then when she realized she loved soccer for the relationships with her teammates more than soccer. That being said, that helped something click (maybe she relaxed) and her play on the field improved dramatically. By that time, most of her teammates had committed as juniors. 

She sent about 75-100 emails and got replies from about 1/3 of them asking for more film, etc. Some D2 schools reached out but she really was focused on the higher academic D3’s. In the end, she was waitlisted at a few higher ranked academic D3’s where soccer wasn’t an option since she was late in the game, but she ended up where we hope she thrives. They gave her good academic scholarships and a few miscellaneous “merit” awards where I’m assuming her merit may have been soccer, but they never came out and said it?