Lacrosse Recruiting at Cornell

[Swampy]

[quote Robb][quote Weder]How many lacrosse players actually get full scholarships? The NCAA limit is relatively low -- lower than it is for hockey, I'm pretty sure.[/quote]I think you're allowed the equivalent of 12.5 (or so - I know it's not a whole number) full scholarships, and most D-1 rosters are 40+ players, so almost nobody gets a full ride.  If the best player on the team qualifies for need-based aid, you can be sure the coach isn't going to "waste" any athletic scholarship money on him, so it's impossible to really know who gets what.[/quote]

Additionally, at "factory" schools a coach may have more influence with the Admissions Office and Financial Aid (e.g., meeting need with grants rather than loans). Admittedly, the lacrosse powers right now are heavily weighted with quality schools, so this may be less likely at a school like Hopkins than one in, say, the ACC or Big East. Hockey, on the other hand, has power schools with much lower academics, and I'd be surprised if this didn't happen all the time at places like Minnesota.

I know a kid who had Cornell as his first choice and was recruited for soccer but didn't get in. He was wait-listed at BC and UVA but was not recruited at either. He decided to play DIII for now.

[Al DeFlorio]

[quote Swampy]Hockey, on the other hand, has power schools with much lower academics, and I'd be surprised if this didn't happen all the time at places like Minnesota.
[/quote]
I think we should be careful to distinguish between what we surmise are a school's admissions standards for athletes and its "academics."  By almost any academic measure the University of Minnesota is a top 25 university in this country.  For example, US News (not my favorite ranking formula, by the way) has it tied with Columbia and RPI, among others, for #20 in undergraduate engineering.  Shanghai Jiao Tong University's ranking of all world universities (an interesting methodology) puts Minnesota #28 overall in the world.  Cornell is #12 worldwide, one slot behind Yale and three ahead of Penn.

[TimV]

[quote Al DeFlorio] ... US News ...Shanghai Jiao Tong University's ranking ...[/quote]


Jeez, Al...You are really well read...;-)

[billhoward]

The majority of kids at the top programs don't get scholarships or only get partials. Meanwhile the Ivies can give need based money to athletes since they're students. I recall a presentation at our HS last year on financial aid that showed for a middle income family (eg $75K-$100K, which isn't really middle income), Cornell was about $5K cheaper to attend than Virginia for an out of state student. A NYTimes story a year ago went into depth about how little scholarship money there is for the sports such as lax, soccer, hockey at athletic scholarship-granting schools. What this means is it's hard to recruit the very best HS seniors but working below that we can do okay, since they'd be good little or no athletic scholarship money.

All the more reason why it's important to have the right coach. Love him or hate him, I think Andy Noel has a very high priority of increasing the size of the coaching endowments eg such as lax. Tambroni's position as I understand it is partially endowed.

[big29red]

I still don't understand the lack of blue chippers coming to Cornell. I would love to know from someone on the "inside" if Tambro even recruits these kids. Most of them mention Cornell as a consideration of theirs, but does'nt even seem to be in the top 3 or 4 schools when it comes down to their final decisions.I know playing time and money are considerations, but every top ten school has those hurdles to overcome; athletic scholarship school or not (IVY)!

[Swampy]

[quote Al DeFlorio][quote Swampy]Hockey, on the other hand, has power schools with much lower academics, and I'd be surprised if this didn't happen all the time at places like Minnesota.
[/quote]
I think we should be careful to distinguish between what we surmise are a school's admissions standards for athletes and its "academics."  By almost any academic measure the University of Minnesota is a top 25 university in this country.  For example, US News (not my favorite ranking formula, by the way) has it tied with Columbia and RPI, among others, for #20 in undergraduate engineering.  Shanghai Jiao Tong University's ranking of all world universities (an interesting methodology) puts Minnesota #28 overall in the world.  Cornell is #12 worldwide, one slot behind Yale and three ahead of Penn.[/quote]

I was going strictly by undergraduate admission standards, but I could be wrong about these at Minnesota. Minnesota has great graduate programs and faculty, and for all I know the undergrad education could be outstanding.

[bernie]

i've worked with a lot of minnesota grads (including one who played for herb brooks on the 76 championship team, fwiw) and they are generally very solid

[Al DeFlorio]

[quote Swampy]
I was going strictly by undergraduate admission standards, but I could be wrong about these at Minnesota. Minnesota has great graduate programs and faculty, and for all I know the undergrad education could be outstanding.[/quote]
State schools, by the nature of their mission, will have lower admissions standards than Ivies, Stanford, MIT, etc.  But the quality of faculty at the top ones is superb.  Berkeley is in anybody's top three.  UCLA, Urbana-Champaign, Michigan, Wisconsin are easily top 20.  That doesn't mean some won't admit a dud who can throw a football 60 yards and win a BCS slot.

[TimV]

Is Shanghai Jiao Tong University a State School???

[Al DeFlorio]

[quote TimV]Is Shanghai Jiao Tong University a State School???[/quote]
Yes, but their football programm is weak even by Ivy standards.

[Rita]

[quote Al DeFlorio][quote Swampy]
I was going strictly by undergraduate admission standards, but I could be wrong about these at Minnesota. Minnesota has great graduate programs and faculty, and for all I know the undergrad education could be outstanding.[/quote]
State schools, by the nature of their mission, will have lower admissions standards than Ivies, Stanford, MIT, etc.  But the quality of faculty at the top ones is superb.  Berkeley is in anybody's top three.  UCLA, Urbana-Champaign, Michigan, Wisconsin are easily top 20.  That doesn't mean some won't admit a dud who can throw a football 60 yards and win a BCS slot.[/quote]

Well Al, since you mentioned Urbana-Champaign, you don't necessarily have to be a stud football player with questionable grades to be admitted to UI-UC. Apparently being a relative of Tony Rezko and knowing a few trustees is enough to get the admission standards bent in your favor. Be sure to read the trail of emails.

[French Rage]

[quote Al DeFlorio][quote Swampy]
I was going strictly by undergraduate admission standards, but I could be wrong about these at Minnesota. Minnesota has great graduate programs and faculty, and for all I know the undergrad education could be outstanding.[/quote]
State schools, by the nature of their mission, will have lower admissions standards than Ivies, Stanford, MIT, etc.  But the quality of faculty at the top ones is superb.  Berkeley is in anybody's top three.  UCLA, Urbana-Champaign, Michigan, Wisconsin are easily top 20.  That doesn't mean some won't admit a dud who can throw a football 60 yards and win a BCS slot.[/quote]

Don't forget UVA!

[peterg]

A note on one of CU's recruits, this evening Ithaca High School, with future Cornellian AJ Fiore in goal, defeated West Genesee HS 6-2 in a NYS Tournament Quarter-final game.  Great win for IHS after years of frustration in the state tournament having to face WG.

[Al DeFlorio]

[quote peterg]A note on one of CU's recruits, this evening Ithaca High School, with future Cornellian AJ Fiore in goal, defeated West Genesee HS 6-2 in a NYS Tournament Quarter-final game.  Great win for IHS after years of frustration in the state tournament having to face WG.[/quote]
What a great win!  Be interesting to see how many saves AJ made.

[Edit:  Ithaca Journal reports 2-2 at the half, so a second half shut-out.  No info on saves.]

[peterg]

I was told (double hearsay) AJ had 5 saves in each half.  Gabe Mendola, a junior and future Harvard enrollee, apparently won every face-off against a very good WG face-off man.