Special from
Division3Tennis.com
| Share: |  |
|  | |
|
|
At Tennis Recruiting, one of our early New Year's resolutions is to provide more and better coverage of Division III tennis. Toward that end, we sought out the best - and today is the first feature article from our friends at Division3Tennis.com. Check out this introductory article - which provides some advice on how to approach the recruiting process with a focus on D-III schools...
I feel like an introduction is in order. My "name" is D3AtlanticSouth, and I currently am the lead blogger at Division3Tennis.com, which is in its ninth year covering NCAA Division III Tennis. I'll be talking more about the site a little bit later, but basically, the writers at the site have teamed up with Tennis Recruiting with the hopes of achieving a higher exposure for D-III Tennis. In this article - and throughout the year - I want to give you a better idea of what D-III Tennis has to offer and how D-III colleges differ from other institutions. I also want to encourage you to continue to explore the incredible option that is Division III Tennis.
Throughout my junior and senior years in high school, a majority of my conversations with my parents, friends, and others were about college. Questions like "What colleges are you looking at?" and "Are you looking to play tennis there?" dominated the dialogue. Looking back on it all, it's mind-boggling how I made one of the most important decisions of my life when I was merely 17 years of age. I had help from a ton of different resources - my parents, friends, relatives, and of course... the internet. I looked to this very site [Tennis Recruiting] for context on exactly what I should be looking for in a school. Now that I've been there and done that, I realized that despite attending a D-III college, I didn't have too much information on everything that D-III tennis could offer. This revelation and my love for my college tennis experience has led me to writing for the site. Through a partnership with Tennis Recruiting, our team of writers hopes to provide a resource that will help junior tennis players pick the college experience that is right for them.
So, how would I approach looking at D-III colleges for myself or a budding junior tennis player? I think the easiest way to go about the process is to group different schools together into buckets, or groups if you may. In the spirit of education, the team at Division III Tennis site has decided to create a few groups to better help all of you with your decisions. Let's take a tour throughout D-III tennis...
First off, tennis prowess is obviously going to be a huge factor in your decision. Let's say you're a top player in the nation at the time of your graduation but you want to explore some top D-III schools in addition to the D-I circuit. Well, you'd be doing yourself an injustice if you didn't check out some of the D-III Tennis Perennial Powers, such as Amherst (#1), CMS (#2), Washington University in St. Louis (#5), and Emory (#6). These four teams own six of the NCAA titles in the past ten years, including countless Final Four appearances and conference titles. I'd also be ridiculed if I didn't mention some of the other top schools in D-III tennis, such as Middlebury (#4), coached by the legendary Bob Hansen, and Williams (#11), who are looking to get back in the national championship conversation after winning it in 2013. One of the best parts of D-III is that all of these schools have a great reputation academically and offer a great tennis experience along with a great educational experience.
