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 College Athletic Recruiting for Williams

Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Willliamstown, Massachusetts. It’s small, with just over 2,000 undergrads, and it’s in the beautiful – but rural – Berkshires. While technically a college, Williams also has tiny little grad programs for development economics and art history. Williams is also a member of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), and competes in D3 sports with Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Connecticut College, Hamilton, Middlebury, Tufts, Trinity, and Wesleyan. Approximately 35% of the school competes on a varsity or club team and interestingly enough, they also compete D1 in skiing and squash!

College Athletic Recruiting for Amherst

Putting the small in small liberal arts school, Amherst College is located in, you guessed it, Amherst, Massachusetts. With an undergrad population of less than 2k and a totally open curriculum, Amherst attracts students who want to dive deep into their academic subject of choice. They’re also a very athletic school – and they claim to have the oldest athletics department in the country since they’ve been requiring physical education since 1860. They also played the first college baseball game ever against Williams. Currently, they are part of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), and compete in D3 sports with Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Connecticut College, Hamilton, Middlebury, Tufts, Trinity, Wesleyan, and Williams. About 35-40% of the student body competes in a varsity sport.

College Athletic Recruiting for Bates

Bates College is a small, private liberal arts college located in Lewiston, Maine. They’re known for killer academics and an incredibly beautiful campus, but they’re also known for their incredibly strong athletic teams. Bates is a member of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), and competes against Amherst, Bowdoin, Colby, Connecticut College, Hamilton, Middlebury, Tufts, Trinity, Wesleyan, and Williams in NCAA D3 sports. Their teams are some of the best in not only the NESCAC, but among all NCAA D3 teams. They’re producing olympians!!! So, if you’re looking for a liberal arts education and have athletic talent, you might think that your sport could help you get into Bates. Maybe! Keep reading.

College Athletic Recruiting at Colgate University

Considered both a Hidden and Little Ivy, Colgate University is a tiny (less than 3k!) little liberal arts school located in Hamilton, NY. Popular majors include poli sci and econ, which is just so surprising for a liberal arts school in the Northeast. They also happen to be a pretty sporty campus, with 25% of students competing in varsity sports and 80% of the student population competing in any kind of on-campus sport. Unlike many of Colgate’s academic counterparts who bum it in the NESCAC, they’re an NCAA D1 school and compete in the Patriot League (wow, patriotic!). If you’re a student-athlete, you’re probably reading this and wondering if your athletic prowess can help you get into Colgate. Probably not, but maybe! Keep reading, because we’ll unpack this.

College Athletic Recruiting at Vassar College

Vassar is a small (around 2,500 students) liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, NY, about a two-hour drive from New York City. Vassar was the second-ever all-women’s college, and the first all-women’s college to become co-ed. Vassar is known for being one of thee classic liberal arts schools, with a broad educational foundation and classes that encourage you to become a better thinker. Vassar is also part of the Liberty League, which is comprised of colleges in New York that compete at the NCAA D3 level. If you want to go to Vassar and are good at your sport, you might want to know if that sport can help you get in. Our answer? Maybe.

College Athletic Recruiting at Hamilton College

Hamilton is a top-tier liberal arts school located in Clinton, NY. With their suburban campus, small size (2,000 undergrads), and selective acceptance rate (11%), this school definitely has a classic liberal arts vibe. Some of their most popular majors include econ, bio, poli sci, and psych and they’re known for ditching the ever-popular core curriculum system and letting students choose almost their entire course selection. They’re also a NESCAC school and over 35% of students participate in sports. Because you are reading this, you probably want to know if getting recruited to Hamilton will help you get in. Maybe? Keep reading.

How to Write a College Essay about Sports

For much of America, sports rule people’s lives and pack their calendars. Whether it’s football, baseball, golf, horseback riding, freestyle skiing, or parkour, sports as an overarching category are this thing that fills a huge amount of our collective mental space. It makes sense, then, that you may be thinking about writing a college essay that intersects with the world of sports. And it’s not a bad impulse. Sports are a potent essay topic, and there’s so much you can draw on to lead to a stellar essay.

College Athletic Recruiting for Colby College

Colby College is a private liberal arts college located in Waterville, Maine with about 2,000 students total. Their most popular majors include economics, political science, and psychology, so it’s definitely a liberal arts school. They’re also a pretty athletic school, with 1/3rd of the campus competing in at least one (if not more!) varsity sport. Colby is part of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), and competes in D3 sports with Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Connecticut College, Hamilton, Middlebury, Tufts, Trinity, Wesleyan, and Williams. They’re also part of the Colby-Bates-Bowdoin Consortium, which is some weird micro-athletic conference made up of all the maine colleges in Maine. We are so good at puns. Moving on!

College Athletic Recruiting for Tufts

Tufts Univeristy is a private research institution located a hop, skip, and a jump away from Boston. They used to be a small liberal arts school, but decided to start offering PhD’s in the 70s, and now have approximately 7k undergrads and 7k grad students. They’re huge into STEM, with top-notch undergrad and grad programs in chemistry, biology, and biomedical engineering. They also do a lot of crossover programs with the New England Conservatory of Music, MIT, and Harvard. Tufts is part of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), and competes in D3 sports with Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Connecticut College, Hamilton, Middlebury, Trinity, Wesleyan, and Williams. Unlike many of their NESCAC cohorts, Tufts isn’t an overwhelmingly athletic school, but it is one of the top athletic programs in D3 sports. Also, their mascot is an elephant named Jumbo. We found this disturbing information about Jumbo’s lore:

College Athletic Recruiting for Wesleyan

Wesleyan University, located in Middletown, Connecticut, is a private liberal arts university with a little bit of a STEM bent. It’s also an incredibly academic school–several studies from 2008 found that undergraduates from Wesleyan were 2nd in the country for pursuing PhDs among all liberal arts schools. It’s also a member of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) and competes in D3 sports with Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Connecticut College, Hamilton, Middlebury, Tufts, Trinity, and Williams. Approximately 25% of students at Wesleyan play a varsity sport, making it one of the less sporty schools in NESCAC, despite the fact they were an original member of the NCAA.

Sports Recruiting for NESCAC Schools

The New England Small College Athletic Conference is made up of eleven top-tier liberal arts colleges and universities in the US, including Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Connecticut College, Hamilton, Middlebury, Tufts, Trinity, Wesleyan, and Williams. Some of these schools are known as Hidden or Little Ivies, and some are more competitive than others to gain admission to. However, these schools also all have pretty robust athletics departments, even though they’re D3. If you’re interested in attending one of these small liberal arts schools and want to leverage your athletic ability to give your application that push: keep reading. 

The Ultimate Guide for Sports Recruiting for the Ivy League

The Ivy League! It’s made up of Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, UPenn, and Yale, but we think you probably already know that if you’re here. You might think it just is a collective term for those eight schools in the Northeast known for their academic rigor, selectivity, prestige, and exclusivity. And sure, that might be the present-day connotation, but it’s actually the name of their athletic conference.

College Athletic Recruiting at Bowdoin College

Bowdoin. It’s a top liberal arts school in Brunswick, Maine. Their crest is made up almost entirely of a creepy-looking sun. Their mascot is the polar bear. Last year, their acceptance rate went up .3%, from 8.8% to 9.1%. Basically a cakewalk now. They’re also known for having a pretty sporty campus, with 45% of the student body participating in varsity athletics. If you play a niche sport like women’s ice hockey or nordic skiing, you might want to take your skills to Bowdoin, and you might think your involvement in sport could give you a leg up in the admissions process. Not necessarily, but let’s talk about it.

College Athletic Recruiting at Middlebury College

You’ve spent the last four years toiling away, both on and off the court/field/mountain/course, and you’re looking for a college that will allow you to play your sport and get a good education. There’s a reason it’s student-athlete and not athlete-student, after all. You’ve settled on somewhere like Middlebury. You’ve been following their stats and know that their acceptance rate has been steadily dropping for years, settling at a competitive 15% for 2022. You may think to yourself, “hey I’m really good at soccer. Maybe that will push me over the edge.” It might, but keep reading.

Best Sport Culture Colleges in US

We have to start this post with a disclaimer: we do not recommend selecting a college based solely on how fun the football games are. That said, we do like a good game of sports ball. And when it comes to college, you should be able to have fun where you end up. For you, that may mean a few tailgates and choreographed fight songs. After all, college isn’t just about classes and grades. You should enjoy yourself inside and outside of the classroom. For many students, that means getting sports into the mix.  

Best Sports Management Colleges

If you love sports, you may be considering a degree in Sports Management. You may be surprised to learn, however, that not many four-year colleges and universities offer undergraduate degrees in Sports Management. If you’re looking to pursue a Bachelor of the Arts (BA) or Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Sports Management, you’ll have to be willing to choose from a shorter list of options than if, say, you wanted to major in English. That can be a frustrating place to start your collegiate admissions journey, but the good news is that if you do pursue a Sports Management degree, you’ll be set up for success for finding a job in the sports industry — or beyond.

What Sports Look Good on a College Application

Back in your grandparent's day, it was acceptable to play a sport for fun for four years, get solid grades, take the SAT without practicing much and expect to get into a great school. With Ivy League schools now boasting acceptance rate in the single digits, those days are long gone. But kids often ask us what resume items look good on college applications and particularly, which sports look best. In this post, we talk about how you should structure your extracurriculars.

Bad College Essay Examples

One of the best ways to figure out what you are going to write about is to cross things off of your list that simply won’t work. TKG clients often come to us with essays that they want to rework and refine, but when the topic itself is problematic, we have no choice but to start over. Let’s go over a few common topics that you should avoid.