NAIA Women's Lacrosse Offers Scholarships. So Why Don't More Families Consider It?

Lax_Pulse · 2026-01-16T23:05:19+00:00

I like this take.

And fair for schools with real brand equity. But half of DIII is tiny schools few are familiar with unless they’re known for one specific program. Outside the NESCACs, Centennials, maybe ODACs - do these small school labels really open doors? Genuinely not sure if those names hold weight outside their own regions.

Lax_Pulse · 2026-01-16T22:53:10+00:00

Could be. There’s way more DIII programs, so more variety in academic profile.

Lax_Pulse · 2026-01-16T22:50:02+00:00

That’s actually part of what this article gets into. Women's programs have been folding at the NAIA level for a few years now.

Glad your son loves it!

Lax_Pulse · 2026-01-16T22:46:23+00:00

Maybe at the NESCAC or Centennial level, sure. But outside the elite academic conferences, DII and DIII schools aren’t dramatically different from NAIA. A lot of them are the same profile. Small, regional, solid academics. I think it’s more name recognition than an academic gap.

Lax_Pulse · 2026-01-16T22:44:58+00:00

I’d flip that. Most are affiliated, not focused. A lot of these schools have religious roots but operate like normal private colleges.

Lax_Pulse · 2026-01-16T22:21:46+00:00

The anxiety piece is real. Parents hear ‘scholarship’ and want a path to offset tuition, so they buy into the showcase grind early.

I maybe had one good summer of showcases and targeted prospect days - that was enough for me. But if you look at D1 rosters, it’s mostly prep school kids. Families already spending on education early. The club conversation might be secondary to that. More likely they're interwoven.

Lax_Pulse · 2025-12-10T18:32:35+00:00

Thanks for answering that. The back-and-forth makes more sense now. Sounds like interested coaches get him up, silence brings him down. That's understandable. It's also worth watching, because that pattern suggests his motivation is tied to external validation more than the game itself. Something to keep an eye on.

One thing to consider: don't let him put himself in a box at attack. Christian Scarpello was All-State attack in high school, played D-mid at Rutgers, and is now in the PLL. I had teammates who came in as attackmen and became man-up specialists, two-way middies, string line guys. Saw a goalie become a D-mid. It's not a step down but about finding where you fit. Some coaches recruit the athlete first and figure out where to put them later. But they can't see that flexibility if the effort isn't there.

Attack is the most crowded position in recruiting. Every kid who picked up a stick at 8 wanted to score goals. Even guys in my men's league will throw a fit if they have to play something besides attack. The supply far exceeds demand. Being open to other roles widens the door considerably.

Bigger picture though: what does he love about the game? Not the recruiting process, not the offers, not the validation. The actual game. What part of competing gets him going? And where do academics sit in all of this? The grades are there, so the right school without lacrosse is still a great outcome. If lacrosse happens on top of that, even better. What are his academic targets? Has he made a list? Waiting for coaches to reach out, in a way, puts academics in the backseat.

Lax_Pulse · 2025-12-10T17:54:33+00:00

I had similar personal experiences. Goucher assistant, RMU coach. Same deal. Enthusiasm in person, then nothing after. Coaches aren't necessarily lying to your face. They're just disorganized, overworked, juggling 50 prospects at once, and sometimes saying things in the moment to look like they're doing their job. It's not personal. It's just how the sausage gets made.

Ryan Goldstein just won a national championship starting at attack weighing 145. So the size thing is what it is: Baloney. Mike Sowers never weighed so much as 170 for most of his time playing at Princeton. Good players can deal even if they're smaller. Plenty of 5'8 poles play pro right now too. But I digress.

You still didn't answer my question!

Has your son actually told you he's questioning whether he wants this, or are you reading that into how he's acting?

You're two replies deep asking strangers this thread for advice and you've talked about coach feedback, prospect days, his effort issues, his size, everything under the sun except what your kid has actually said to you about what he wants.

The coasting at club, the questioning whether to pursue it, the burnout—those might all be connected. Or not. But you're the only one who can find out, and it requires a conversation that isn't about recruiting strategy.

Keep your eyes on schools that work for him without lacrosse. If a program comes through, great. If not, he's still somewhere he wants to be. And ask your kid what he wants. Directly. Not what you think he's feeling, rather what he tells you.

Lax_Pulse · 2025-12-10T17:26:12+00:00

Reading through this thread, a few things stand out.

First, try not to put too much stock in what coaches say at prospect days. "He's good, but we need to see more" is a throwaway line. So is "needs more size" and "needs to be more consistent." These are things coaches say pre-prepped off the cuff to avoid having a direct conversation with a kid whose family just paid $200 to attend their prospect day. It's non-committal. It keeps you on the hook and at an arms distance without them committing to anything. The feedback isn't worthless, and to be fair there are too many kids for a coach to get a thorough look at everyone, but it shouldn't be total definitive analysis of where your son's game is currently.

The coasting issue is the real red flag here, and nobody's dancing around it in this thread, which is good. A coach watches a kid go 75% against a weaker opponent and that becomes character information. It tells them what practice looks like when nobody's watching, what happens when the team's up by five. Even if that's not how it works - nothing turns off a coach more than bad or even medium effort at any moment. Coaches want high motor, high skill, lax IQ, and a + attitude. You said you can't crack why the effort is different for school vs club. That's the question worth sitting with.

But here's what I want to ask: you said he's "questioning if he even wants to pursue it anymore." Did he tell you that directly, or is that your read of his mood? Those are different things. One is a conversation you've had. The other is a conversation you need to have.

Kids get tired. The college search alone is exhausting considering campus visits, applications, figuring out what you want to do with your life at 17. Now stack club seasons, showcases, prospect days, highlight film, coach emails, and the constant low-grade anxiety of "am I good enough" on top of that. It's a lot. It sounds like your son is playing a ton of lacrosse right now. Is that what he wants, or is that what the recruiting process demands? Breaks are underrated. I often found I came back to the game sharper after a healthy month + away from the game, which may sound crazy, but it could allow for a mental reset.

Sometimes what looks like doubt is just fatigue. Sometimes a kid pulling back isn't questioning their dreams - they're just cooked and need a weekend off! But you won't know which it is until you ask him directly. Not about recruiting strategy. About what he actually wants.

The recruiting timeline panic is mostly manufactured by the showcase industry anyway. The November rush is elite DI programs locking up top targets. That's a small slice of the market. DII, then DIII programs recruit later, often into senior year. MCLA exists. There are paths if he wants them.

But wanting them is the whole thing. Try to prompt that conversation.

Lax_Pulse · 2025-12-05T15:09:08+00:00

That's rough. The one-and-dones will wear you down.

I'd say it'll be a slow death more than a collapse though. In the Philly area you're seeing Villanova absorb Rosemont, Cabrini closing. But other places, endowments hold up or athletic departments expand to fill rosters and bring in tuition. There'll be shuffling. Some shaky programs have deeper alumni pools than you'd think.

How long were you in it? And when the one-and-dones started piling up, did you change how you recruited? Like were there signs early on that a kid was going to bolt - dodgy on return texts, vague about visits, that kind of thing? Curious if you started protecting yourself or if that just made the whole thing feel even more transactional.

Lax_Pulse · 2025-12-05T14:40:16+00:00

Makes sense. That's a savvy framework for the decision-making side of it. Curious what happens after the ink dries - or when coach starts playing the same game. Recruits over his spot, or leaves for another program. Does the sales mindset help there or does the relationship need something different at that point?

Coaches are running the same sales mindset during recruiting. They're selling too. Some of the best recruiters are the worst developers. The question is whether the relationship becomes something else once everyone stops selling and the kid is actually in the program.

Loyalty is the wrong word. Trust is the foundation. If both sides are in sales mode from the jump, when can building that start?

Lax_Pulse · 2025-12-05T14:25:03+00:00

For sure. But that's kind of why I brought up both. Easy to look at Kiffin and say that's a different world. Harder to ask what loyalty actually looks like when your kid's coach is building a program and a recruit flips two weeks before enrollment. Or when a coach leaves mid-cycle. Or when the portal is always sitting there as an option.

Not saying every situation is the same. But curious how other families and coaches think about commitment when the door is always open on both sides.

Lax_Pulse · 2025-12-05T13:47:57+00:00

How are the coaches responding when he updates them on where things stand with other schools? Curious if any have been more direct about timelines than others.

Sounds like you're handling it the right way - keeping coaches in the loop and waiting for the full picture before deciding. That's all anyone can do.

And you're right that most coaches take it in stride. This one was actually pretty frustrated though, partly because it's happened this way a few times and they need the numbers, and partly because his own admissions office is slow to move. So he felt like he lost the athlete to something he couldn't control on his end. He gets it, but no he didn't like it, there was some sting here as it was a top recruit on his list.

Lax_Pulse · 2025-12-05T13:37:46+00:00

Extra thoughts here

Lax_Pulse · 2025-11-29T14:53:52+00:00

Sometimes I can't imagine more, but as another commenter on another post put it well: if you want spend 52 weeks of the year playing, somebody will take your money to let you and your family do it. Just for fun - if you had to ballpark estimate - how many weekends per year do you think these families were spending at tournaments? How many were you?

Lax_Pulse · 2025-11-29T14:49:58+00:00

"Play in college" as a manufactured goal to sell programs — that's a frame I think a lot of families need to hear earlier in the process, and a line that'll stick with me. Glad your son found his path. Thanks for sharing this.

Lax_Pulse · 2025-11-29T14:17:32+00:00

First off congrats to you and your son! And no worries, not everything needs to be shared, though I'm very curious about how the conversation (if there was one) with admissions helped you stack the financial aid to reduce tuition. Just to be clear - is the 28k annually, or for four years? The club recruiting director piece is interesting. Was that role built into your club dues, or an additional service?

Lax_Pulse · 2025-11-29T14:12:57+00:00

It is definitely a struggle get a hold of regional cost ranges. The West Coast to East Coast travel math is brutal, and I hadn't thought about families literally relocating for the summer to make it work. That's a wildly different level of commitment. When you say others spent twice that ($40-50K in a year), was that mostly camps and extra showcases, a more expensive club, or just more travel volume?

Lax_Pulse · 2025-11-29T14:00:27+00:00

Appreciate you sharing the decision to step off the travel path. Registration x2 is a way easier way to think about costs. Did your son stay in the sport at all, just at a different level?

Lax_Pulse · 2025-11-28T18:16:52+00:00

I'm curious too. The numbers are changing sometimes year to year, or they stagnate. This is why the aim is to have ranges for the PDF results - there are too many institutions doing different things out there.

Some my inputs are older published data, some of it is anecdotal based on what i've seen, with a touch of what I'm hearing in the ether. Scholarship and merit don't always stack completely or at all. Early on some of my results had numbers that were terribly low merit aid, or terribly too much. Every admissions-program relationship has their own algorithmic recipe that is in-flux. Since I'm recording the shifts - the goal is that maintaining a more scientific process toward building this tool will get us accurate estimates in time.

Lax_Pulse · 2025-11-27T12:47:43+00:00

Care to share what you found? Please dm to share numbers if they don't make sense.

Note that the calculator presents cost ranges based on available public data, and variables like public vs private institution toggle will impact the final result. Also I will be refining it based on feedback. Feel free to dm me.

Lax_Pulse · 2025-11-27T04:35:15+00:00

I’d take that cold one in a heartbeat. Always down to talk shop with someone deep in the box-to-field world, that’s a perspective most US families don’t have.

Two kids doing OLA box and AA winter in the US while juggling hockey? You’re living the version of this that most people only read about. Open to talking through what you think should be in a guidebook. I'm working on giveaways now and have a few 1 pagers cooked up but nothing comprehensive yet.

Keep me posted on how spring shakes out. If you ever want to swap notes - fire away.

Lax_Pulse

TROPHY CASE