Tips to research schools & programs before registering for clinics

In the weeks leading up to registering for your college clinics, we strongly encourage you to do research and decide which clinics you want to participate in. Make sure you get the most out of your LineUP by selecting programs that are a good fit for you. If you select clinics that are all “reach” schools for you (hockey and/or academically), you may be limiting your options of getting responses back from coaches.

Here are some tips to research schools so that you can sign up for programs that are a good fit for you – hockey & academically!

Research school online:

• Know the school’s acceptance rate, average SAT/ACT & student profile
• Do a virtual campus tour
• Check out all the information the school has online for prospective students, get to know the school
• Talk to your school guidance counselor, have them pull a list of schools that could be a good fit for you (if they say you are too young let them know timeline for student athlete is much earlier)
• Know the school – ie, size / majors & minors / affordability & financial aid / city v country / arts & culture & Campus life.

In our personal opinion, choose the school first, then hockey program. We call it the ‘broken leg test’. If you got an injury and couldn’t play field hockey in college, would you still love the school?

While sometimes field hockey can “pull” you up into an academic school that maybe admissions wouldn’t have accepted you in without hockey – we do not suggest relying on this. For this reason, it is incredibly important the school is academically realistic with where you are currently at.

Research school & hockey program online:

• Show your club & high school coaches the list of programs attending LineUP & get their opinion of what programs on that list you’d be the best hockey fit at.
• Look at the team’s hockey webpage
• See where they stand on the NCAA rankings
  • DI: https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/fieldhockey/d1/ncaa-field-hockey-rpi
  • DIII: https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/fieldhockey/d3/regional-rankings
  • DII: https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/fieldhockey/d2/regional-rankings
• Check out their team’s roster and read bios of players
• Check out the team stats (how many players on their team, their stats, how many athletes don’t get playing time)
• Ask your club and high school coaches, and any other coach who knows your playing style – their suggestions on programs where you’d be a good fit. Show them your school list and ask their opinion of which ones they think you’d be the best hockey fit at, and if they have suggestions on other programs to add to your list.
• Talk to FH athletes you know who play in college or are committed
• Look at the team’s instagram page
• Know their conference/league, their schedule

Be realistic and cast a wide net:

• “Reach schools”: It’s great to shoot for the moon, but it’s also necessary to do your own research and do-diligence and cast a wide net.
• Some “reach schools” could be in just hockey, and academically you could get in without hockey. And then some “reach schools” could be academically, but hockey-wise you’d be a good fit/contributor.
• If, for example, you register for 4 clinics for LineUP, it might be a good tactic to register for 1 “reach school”, 2 that seem like a good fit hockey/academically and 1 “safety”.

PS we don’t love using the terms “reach” and “safety” – because it can create an unfair bias in your mind, plus there are so many factors in choosing a school/program that categorizing into two groups doesn’t make sense. But for this blog post – using these two terms made sense 🙂

PPS Check out our Blog on ‘How to Create your College list’ for more info like this: https://lineupfh.com/2022/09/21/how-to-create-your-college-list/

Share this blog post with a teammate if you found it helpful! Thanks!
-Tori Whitcher
LineUP Founder & Operator