The link below is for a spreadsheet showing statistics from this week’s 2020 NHL draft. The information includes a breakdown of high school, prep school and college players selected.
NHL 2020 Draft Statistics
Category Archives: Intermediate Blogs
Quote of the Day: Learning Leadership
It’s hard being a friend and a prefect. I can’t just make them do something and I can’t hit them if they don’t.
This from a senior at a top prep school who has obvious natural leadership skills and has just started his first year as a prefect. This is his second year at the school after transferring from one of the statistically worst urban areas in the country.
Prefects are the student leaders in the dorms. They are selected by the students and faculty after a competitive application and interview process. (At other prep schools they go by different names, such as proctors.)
Today’s Quiz: Ivy League Household Income
Question: What was the median family income of Yale College students in 2016? (This is presumably similar for most Ivy League schools.)
Answer: $193,000
Quote of the Day: Problem Parents and Financial Aid
I don’t know how much the financial aid form said we can pay. My son filled it out.
This from a dad who wants $50,000 of financial aid for schools that cost $55,000 per year, but who let his 17 year old son fill out the financial aid forms. They applied to five different prep schools. They can’t understand why the boy wasn’t accepted at any of the five, and they’re upset.
Stat of the Day: Women’s Basketball Transfers
The transfer rate for women’s D1 basketball is up 33% over a ten year period.
In 2003 the rate was 6.8%. In 2013 it was 9.2%. Those numbers are still about 1/4 of the men’s numbers. As with many other parts of the game, the women’s game seems to be following the men’s.
Perhaps most interesting is that 6 of the top 10 rated girls in the 2013 recruiting class have transferred. A number of those 6 committed to colleges as sophomores (also similar to the boys) and some say they now realize that what they considered a dream school as high school sophomores is much different than where they want to be playing as 20 year olds. This is a pretty strong case that kids (and parents) are picking a college at too young an age.
Today’s Quiz: Men’s D1 Basketball Transfer %
Question: What % of all men’s basketball players who enter Division I directly out of high school depart their initial school by the end of their sophomore year?
Answer: 40%
Here’s the link to the complete article on the NCAA website.
http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/tracking-transfer-division-i-men-s-basketball
Today’s Quiz: All-League Men’s D1 Basketball Players
There is a relatively small group of what many would consider top level prep school boys’ basketball programs, and a number of well known and successful coaches. Comparing programs and coaches is not easy, as each school has different academic and financial parameters. Athletic and academic success at the college level would seem to be one obvious measure. Still, the facts below are likely a surprise to most people, even many of those who are paying close attention.
Question: Which prep school in the last 15 years has had all-league men’s basketball players in the Ivy League (more than any other prep school?), Patriot League (including defensive player of the year), Colonial Athletic Association (two time all-league and academic all-league) and MEAC (including player of the year and HBCU player of the year), as well as a first team D2 all-American, Ivy League rookie of the year and NESCAC rookie of the year?
Answer: The Hun School of Princeton, under coach Jon Stone
PG Injury Concern
Many considering a PG year believe that the risk of significant injury is a major argument against a PG year. That’s understandable, especially for those who hold full scholarship offers. Injuries get everyone’s attention. They’re very visceral, and that makes them hard to ignore, but there are two reasons to do just that. Here’s why injury concern should not be a significant factor when deciding on a PG year.
1) Injuries are not the problem they used to be.
- Medical science has changed. It’s not like it was when today’s parents were kids. The days of career ending injuries are mostly over. Even a blown-out knee is no longer career ending. Athletes have surgery and are back on the field sooner and sooner. Consequently, college coaches are not scared off by that type of thing like they might have been in the past.
- Prep schools can overcome significant injuries. The right prep school has the clout and the right coach has the recruiting experience and connections to get scholarships for kids who miss all or most of an entire season.
Two years ago Andy had no offers out of high school. He went to a prep school with a very good program but missed the entire season due to injury. Nonetheless, he ended up receiving a full ride to a good D2 school that also offered a much better education than he would have otherwise received. While not his D1 dream, that’s still more than he had out of high school. Some years before Andy, Harry was in a similar situation. He, too, had no offers out of high school. He played the first two games of the year before stepping on someone’s foot and spending the next two months in a cast. He still had his choice of three mid-level D1 offers.
Part of the reason these players were able to overcome their injuries is that a PG year offers more than just another school season. It also offers another summer recruiting period. Like it or not, these days that’s just as important. By playing well in the summer before they ever got to school they helped insure they would get the offers they so badly wanted.
2) There are other risks, with a much greater chance of happening, that need to be managed, but are being ignored. These are what should influence the thinking of families.
- Transfers are a virtual epidemic these days. A shocking percentage of kids are not finishing at the school they started at. Despite the spin you hear on it, that’s not good. Nobody commits to a school with the expectation of transferring (except those hoping to transfer up. That’s a whole different mistake for another blog.). The right PG decision reduces this possibility.
- Not getting playing time. This has always been part of the equation, and it always will be. A certain percentage of kids will always sit. It’s the nature of a competitive team. Some will never play. Some will play after a year or two. A PG year reduces the chance of both options significantly.
- Some athletes will fail or struggle academically in school. People think this applies only to students who were weak students when they entered college, but it also happens to good students, especially those attending the elite educational universities. People don’t understand the time and commitment demands of scholarship level sports. Consequently they fail to anticipate the strain that puts on classwork. There is no such thing as too much preparation, even for the very best students. A PG year provides that preparation.
The concern of injury is a little like those who are afraid of flying. While the statistics say flying is much safer than other methods of travel, some people simply can’t get the fear of flying out of their minds. Fight the urge to let to let fear of injury make your decision about a PG year. It’s a bad thought process.
There are no guarantees in this world, although it’s human nature to want them. If you’re starting with the thought that any scenario, such as having an offer in hand, means you’ve got a guarantee, you’re starting from the wrong perspective. Families need to understand this and act accordingly.
It would be unfair to say there’s no injury risk in a PG year. There is, but it’s not the risk most think it is, the chances are too small to pay attention to, and there are other risks that you’re not addressing that should be of greater concern. These are what should dictate your decision.
The Two Biggest Overlooked Benefits of Prep School
The education and the athletic program are the two things virtually every family focuses on when considering prep school for their student-athlete. Most families can’t even process all the information in those two categories, so it’s no surprise that they overlook two other really big benefits when considering the value of prep school.
1) Connections
Why do you think some families are readily willing to pay $55,000 for one year of prep school? It isn’t just the great education, or the great athletics. It’s the contacts, the connections. The kids your child is going to meet, the ones who will become lifetime friends, are the ones who are going to be running this country 20 years from now. If you believe it’s as much who you know as what you know, it’s hard to overvalue this benefit.
2) College is taking more than four years
Many families aren’t sure they want to invest money in prep school, especially since they know they are likely to be spending money on college, money they may not have. Here’s what they fail to account for: college students aren’t finishing college in four years like their parents’ generation did. A remarkably high percentage (approximately 44% overall, and a startling 64% at public institutions) of students are not finishing college in what used to be considered the “normal” time frame.
Closely tied to those statistics is another, even bigger, one: college debt has become arguably the most important financial problem in the US today. A good chunk of that is a result of students taking more than four years to finish, or worse, not finishing at all.
For many students the issue is going to college before they’re ready. Many students, even some with very good transcripts, are now taking a gap year before college for that reason.
Finding yourself in college is tricky. Once you get off track, it’s hard to get back on. Colleges aren’t set up for you to find yourself. They’re set up to weed you out and take your money. Switching majors gets expensive in a hurry.
A post-graduate year is just the opposite. It’s designed to help the student discover more of him or herself. Consequently, it is much more effective and efficient at doing so, leading to a much lower risk.
Once families come to grips with these facts, especially the realization that there’s a good chance they’re likely to spend the additional money anyway, it is much easier to see that money is often much better spent on a PG year than on additional years in college.
Today’s Quiz: New NCAA Eligibility Rules
The NCAA uses a sliding scale to determine D1 eligibility and will be using one in the future to determine D2 eligibility. Today’s quiz regarding these eligibility requirements has two parts.
Part 1
Question: What year do the new eligibility rules go into effect for D1 basketball?
Answer: For students entering college beginning in August of 2016
Part 2
Question: What year do the new eligibility rules go into effect for D2 basketball?
Answer: For students entering college beginning in August of 2018